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“Stop,” Holden said. “I don’t care. I don’t want to hear any more of your stories about how being a cop makes you wiser and deeper and able to face the truth about humanity. As far as I can tell, all it did was break you. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Dresden and his Protogen buddies thought they could choose who lives and who dies. That sound familiar? And don’t tell me it’s different this time, because everyone says that, every time. And it’s not.”
“Wasn’t revenge,” Miller said, a little too hotly.
“Oh really? This wasn’t about the girl in the hotel? Julie Mao?”
“Catching him was. Killing him… ”
Miller sighed and nodded to himself, then got up and opened the door. He stopped in the doorway and turned around, real pain on his face.
“He was talking us into it,” Miller said. “All that about getting the stars and protecting ourselves from whatever shot that thing at Earth? I was starting to think maybe he should get away with it. Maybe things were just too big for right and wrong. I’m not saying he convinced me. But he made me think maybe, you know? Just maybe.”
“And for that, you shot him.”
“I did.”
Holden sighed, then leaned against the wall next to the open door, his arms crossed.
“Amos calls you righteous,” Miller said. “You know that?”
“Amos thinks he’s a bad guy because he’s done some things he’s ashamed of,” Holden said. “He doesn’t always trust himself, but the fact that he cares tells me he isn’t a bad guy.”
“Yeah—” Miller started, but Holden cut him off.
“He looks at his soul, sees the stains, and wants to be clean,” he said. “But you? You just shrug.”
“Dresden was—”
“This isn’t about Dresden. It’s about you,” Holden said. “I can’t trust you around the people I care about.”
Holden stared at Miller, waiting for him to reply, but the cop just nodded sadly, then put his hat on and walked away down the gently curving corridor. He didn’t turn around.
Holden went back inside and tried to relax, but he felt jumpy and nervous. He would never have gotten off Eros without Miller’s help. There was no question about it: Tossing him out on his ear felt wrong. Incomplete.
The truth was Miller made his scalp crawl every time they were in the same room. The cop was like an unpredictable dog that might lick your hand or take a bite out of your leg.
Holden thought about calling Fred and warning him. He called Naomi instead.
“Hey,” she answered on the second chime. Holden could hear a bar’s frantic, alcohol-fueled merriment in the background.
“Naomi,” he said, then paused, trying to think of some excuse to have called. When he couldn’t think of one, he said, “Miller was just here.”
“Yeah, he cornered Amos and me a while back. What did he want?”
“I don’t know,” Holden said with a sigh. “Say goodbye, maybe.”
“What are you doing?” Naomi asked. “Want to meet up?”
“Yes. Yes I do.”
Holden didn’t recognize the bar at first, but after ordering a scotch from a professionally friendly waiter, he realized it was the same place he’d watched Naomi sing karaoke to a Belter punk song what seemed like centuries before. She wandered in and plopped down across from him in the booth just as his drink showed up. The waiter gave her a questioning smile.
“Gah, no,” she said quickly, waving her hands at him. “I’ve had plenty tonight. Just some water, thanks.”
As the waiter bustled away, Holden said, “How did your, uh… What exactly is Golgo, anyway? And how did it go?”
“Game they play here,” Naomi said, then took a glass of water from their returning waiter and drank half of it in one gulp. “Like a cross between darts and soccer. Never seen it before, but I seem to be good at it. We won.”
“Great,” Holden said. “Thanks for coming. I know it’s late, but this Miller thing freaked me out a bit.”
“He wants you to absolve him, I think.”
“Because I’m ‘righteous,’ ” Holden said with a sarcastic laugh.
“You are,” Naomi said with no irony. “I mean, it’s a loaded term, but you’re as close to it as anyone I’ve ever known.”
“I’ve f**ked everything up,” Holden blurted out before he could stop himself. “Everyone who’s tried to help us, or that we’ve tried to help, has died spectacularly. This whole f**king war. And Captain McDowell and Becca and Ade. And Shed—” He had to stop and swallow a sudden lump in his throat.
Naomi just nodded, then reached across the table and took his hand in hers.
“I need a win, Naomi,” he continued. “I need to do something that makes a difference. Fate or Karma or God or whatever dropped me in the middle of this thing, and I need to know I’m making a difference.”
Naomi smiled at him and squeezed his hand.
“You’re cute when you’re being noble,” she said. “But you need to stare off into the distance more.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I am. Want to come home with me?”
“I—” Holden started, then stopped and stared at her, looking for the joke. Naomi was still smiling at him, nothing in her eyes but warmth and a touch of mischief. While he watched, one curly lock of hair fell over her eye, and she pushed it up without looking away from him. “Wait, what? I thought you’d—”
“I said don’t tell me you love me to get me into bed,” she said. “But I also said I’d have gone to your cabin anytime you asked over the last four years. I didn’t think I was being subtle, and I’m sort of tired of waiting.”
Holden leaned back in the booth and tried to remember to breathe. Naomi’s grin changed to pure mischief now, and one eyebrow went up.
“You okay, sailor?” she asked.
“I thought you were avoiding me,” he said once he was capable of speech. “Is this your way of giving me a win?”
“Don’t be insulting,” she said, though there was no hint of anger in her voice. “But I’ve waited weeks for you to get your nerve up, and the ship’s almost done. That means you’ll probably volunteer us for something really stupid and this time our luck will run out.”
