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Bethiah jerks, shooting me a cold look, but I can see the concern in her eyes. “Watch it,” she snaps. “I’m paying you to guard me, not to get drunk on my time.”
“Sorry. Lost my footing.” I give her a quick nod of acquiescence and take a step back, curling my toes in the hopes of sending a surge through my malfunctioning leg. When we’re in private, I’ll casually mention going back to Three Nebulas. I know a guy there that works on bootleg prosthetics. He costs a small fortune, but he’s also honest. Maybe he can help me come up with a workaround that won’t eat up all of our credits. Even if I just have partial mobility in my leg, as long as it’s consistent, I’ll live with it.
“There’s the hotel,” Bethiah says under her breath, and takes a step off the walkway. “Follow me.”
I jerk after her, wobbling like a drunk, and again, I see the concern in her eyes. Her lips are pressed into a tight line, though, and she looks just like the disapproving noblewoman she’s supposed to be.
“Is there a problem?” she hisses at me as we walk toward the elegant hotel facade.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I tell her. “We’re almost done with this mission. Let’s just get our bounty and get this taken care of.”
She stares at me for a long, hard moment, and it’s clear she’s not entirely buying what I’m selling. But then she shakes her head, turns forward, and practically stomps towards the hotel. “Work with a partner, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. Keffing liars.”
I can’t help but smile a bit at that.
One Hundred Ten
BETHIAH
I’m so keffing mad at Jamef I can’t see straight.
Keeping my features masked in my best nobility sneer is easy compared to keeping my hands locked at my side, because right now I’m itching to slap him. Or choke him. Or just shake him really, really hard…and then hug him.
Because it’s clear that something’s wrong with Jamef. I’ve been playing off his distance, his distracted expressions, his quiet as worry over Dora. I’ve been telling myself that maybe this is just how he gets when he’s focused on a job and that I’m overreacting. I’ve been doubting myself and been distracted by Rhonda’s unpleasant presence that I haven’t seen what’s happening right under my nose.
But when surefooted, strong Jamef stumbles on a moving walkway while standing still? It all clicks together.
I cross my arms under my breasts, doing my best to look like an imperious sort of Homeworld lady who’s barely holding her shit together due to anger (a pretty easy task at the moment). I stop at a fountain in front of the hotel and pretend to stare at it. “How long has this been going on?” I hiss under my breath, turning my head just slightly so he knows that I’m addressing him. “And don’t you dare say it’s none of my business.”
“I’m handling it,” is all he says. Jamef sounds tired, too. Not like himself.
The thought makes my heart flutter in terror. He’s clearly not well and I don’t like it. He made me care for him and now I’m scared and I hate all of this. “You’re clearly not handling it if you almost fell down on a keffing moving walkway. Are you sick? Dying?”
Oh, kef me, is he dying? Is that why he’s finally agreed to let me catch him and be with him? The thought steals my breath with fear.
“It’s my keffing prosthetic leg,” he grumbles.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“A dead circuit, a feedback loop, I don’t know. It needs repairs.” Jamef glares at me as if I’m the problem here. “I’m not dying.”
“Good,” I snarl, so relieved I want to scream. “Because I’m going to kill you. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Jamef looks just as stiff and angry as I feel. “Because it’s not important right now. What’s important is the mission. I’ll contact someone after we’ve offloaded our bounty and see if I can get some cheap repairs done.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Cheap repairs, my ass. He’s going to get the best keffing prosthetic repairs all my non-existent credits can buy. I’ll rob every ship coming in if I have to in order to get him back to working properly. I don’t like him being in pain. I don’t like him not being himself. I eye our surroundings with a new sense of dismay, trying to determine the easiest, safest way to handle things. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Find our guy fast. That’s all.”
Fine. Focus on the work and then we’ll have it out later. I scratch at the boobs of my annoying dress and glare at him. “You’d better be ready to have it out with me and Dora both when we get back to the ship, because she is gonna be pissed when she finds out that you’ve been malfunctioning and hiding it.”
