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His vibrant personality had kept her from the edge of despair for months—and she felt more cut off from him now that he was finallyonher ship.
Their friendship was ruined.
She limited her activities to the bare minimum to avoid unwanted encounters.
There was one kitchen.
One bathroom.
At first, she tried to memorize his routines, hoping to prevent any unwanted encounters. It was futile. Caligher was erratic. He ate, bathed, and moved around on totally random whims. He slept once every other day and had yet to settle on one room he wanted for his own.
He tried outeverycabin except for hers. He’d lose himself in the engine room or take up the cockpit for hours.
So she hid in her cabin. She snuck into the kitchen hoping to ferret away an armful of snacks—only to find him sitting high on the counter stuffing his mouth with muffins. He looked her straight in the eye for a dreadful minute in which her heart faltered and burned out.Abort,her mind panicked. She stood there mutely gaping at him—then snapped out of it and backed into the hallway.
She only used the bathroom when it was strictly necessary. If she’d had her way, he wouldn’t have even known there was another person on board.
It was no way to live, but what other choice did she have? Every time her eyes collided with his, her heart stopped dead in her ribcage and it was minutes before her body rebooted. He hadn’t breathed a word to her since he’d overtaken her ship.
God, it was horrible.
She paced in her room angrily for hours, crafting every elaborate apology she could think of and throwing them out like garbage. Nothing she could ever say would fix things. Lucca had royally fucked it up.
* * *
Lucca was in the middle of a shower when the floor began falling.
Her back jolted against the ceiling and droplets of water glittered around her among the angry puffs of steam. With an unhappy yelp, she reached for the shower-head as it continued spitting hot mist.
She crashed painfully into the wall. “Fuck!” Another lurch nearly sent her to the floor with what would have been a bone-breaking force. “God!Dammit!”
Everything went motionless, leaving her weightless, beat up, and irrational.
“Cal!” she snapped sharply.
Her jumpsuit had floated up lazily, getting caught in the air vent. She couldn’t pry it back out. “UGH!!!”
The walls lurched as she fished for her towel and scrambled out of the bathroom on a warpath. Globs of water floated in her wake, mocking her relentlessly.
Her face was red-hot, her blood molten, and her emotions brimming on the edge of destruction. She was about to explode.
Thiswas a bad day.
Lucca had them on occasion—brought on by a perfect storm of misery and chaos—but it had been a long time since she’d had someone to commiserate with. Caligher was about to see her on a bad day whether he liked it or not. He might not enjoy this side of her, but it was too fucking bad.
She found the alien in her engine room. As she entered, she nearly screamed at the sight. Heaps of unterminated cable cascaded from the walls and ceiling. Dozens were now frayed and spitting out sparks, and the culprit was at the center of his wanton pandemonium, terminating wires at random.
This didn’t scare her, she realized, eyeballing the scene and feeling her adrenaline rise.
Itpissed her off.
“Caligher what the fuck.”
Her voice suddenly gained the volume it had been missing for days, booming through the room.
Rousing from his chaotic reverie, he turned and blinked. His eyes snapped to the towel on her body. The fins on his body flared and flashed at random, causing the wires dangling nearby to… float toward him, trying to connect.
“What is this?” she demanded, waving an arm at the whole disaster.
