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“Oh? You don’t want anything standing between you and danger?” He laughs. “And yet I am the one who’s delusional?”
“I don’t need a man telling me what to do and staring at my ass all day.”
“That’s not the only thing I do. I’ll also find time to carry you away from brawls you can’t win and explain basic technology that your primitive planet hasn’t developed yet.” He grins with an egregious level of smugness. When I get the chance to wipe that self-satisfied look off his face . . . “What if you encounter a self-service fueling station and you don’t know what buttons to push?”
I let out a furious growl. My plans to break this off calmly and cleanly are dust in the wind now.
“This is why you can’t come. Because you make me so annoyed that I can’t think! And we’re not going to be mates, so it’s best if we end it here. We had our fun, but you’ve proven to me time and time again that you would rather impose your stupid manly ideas about how to protect me than have a clear conversation about what I actually want.”
“And you have proven to me that what you want is to die very young, either in a knife fight or some other entirely avoidable dangerous scenario.”
“You switched our masks. You locked me in a room—TWICE! — supposedly for my own protection. All this to honor a bond that I already told you I have no intention of going through with! It means I can’t trust you, not as a friend. If you can promise me that you’ll stop acting this way, then maybe I’ll consider a partnership.”
“You mean if I will promise to stop putting your safety above all else?” He barks out a laugh. “No.”
“Then you won’t be helping me,” I say through gritted teeth. “Fuck! Why are you like this?”
“I know you think this bond is—what did you call it? Hoke-ass poke-ass. I can surmise what that silly phrase means. But you will come to find it is very real for me. I can’t bring myself to walk away from you. Even if you did still hate me and want me dead, I would be here all the same. And here I am, offering my help for free. You have me at your service indefinitely. Take that for what it is, a resource worth using, even if you won’t takemeas your own.”
I sigh. It would be selfish of me not to take advantage of every opportunity that could help me on the road to saving Kaye and Frankie. Even if it comes in the shape of a very sexy man that thinks he owns me.
“Listen, Raina,” he murmurs, stepping closer when he realizes I’m actually considering his proposal. “What if I told you I know the exact person to help find your friends? Someone who has made it their life’s work to disrupt the Azza slave trade and find missing persons that were sold at auction.”
“I’d say that’s too good to be true,” I reply flatly.
“Then I’ll give her a call.”
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
RAINA
Walkingdown the streets of Lungfish Station in the bright lights of false daytime is much easier than it was last night. Firstly, my pussy’s no longer burning with desire and soaking through my underwear. Secondly, the stalking shadows like the one that tried to jump me are nowhere to be found. I look over my shoulder more than once expecting thieves to creep out from the corners.
“You don’t have to worry about them now.”
I shoot Niko a dark look for practically reading my mind. He smirks back.
“You really think I lock you in rooms for my own entertainment, don’t you?” He lets out a sigh and rubs the back of his neck. “There are little lawdrones buzzing around during the daytime intervals. If they snap a vid of you engaging in illegal activity in public spaces, then you’ll be fined. Next register you try to pay at will use facial recognition to match you to your record. Just like that—your account’s either cleared by the government or sent into debt.”
“That makes my skin crawl,” I mutter. “I think I’d rather be mugged than live my life under surveillance.”
“Is your skin crawling like goosebumps? If breaking laws in public makes you horny, I’m willing to be an accessory to your crime.”
“No!” I shove him playfully on the arm while he snickers away. “Skin crawling is bad. Doesn’t anyone have a problem with that?”
“I’m sure there are plenty of people that would, but hardly anyone lives here permanently. That’s why it’s so dismal. Everyone’s either actively trying to leave or trying to suck the credits out of anyone that ends up here.”
“Have you been here many times before?”
“Sure. This is one of the few places in the dead space between the Azza Empire border and the Alliance-ruled galaxies. It’s a stopping off point for plenty of pirates, because while it’s technically Alliance territory, it exists outside the border. No one will be checking your identification here unless you’re caught on camera by the drones. The Alliance doesn’t even bother trying to make it appealing to full-time inhabitants, partly because it’s in something of a warzone.”
We arrive at the comm booths. I’ll be placing a call to the sheriff of my colony to check in, and Niko will be making contact with the pirate who’s supposed to be the answer to all my problems. All the grime is easier to see in the daytime, and the scent of sex still lingers in the area even if the sex workers have disappeared. We both glance at the one in which we got hot and heavy last night, and there’s an unspoken mutual agreement tonotchoose that particular booth.
Opting for a cleaner-looking booth that sits farther from the public walkways, we pay our fee and head inside. Niko insists on using his comm device because it’s “more secure,” so he hooks it up to the system rather than using the public call option. He sits off to the side while I dial the EC-12 Police Department.
The sheriff appears on the screen.
“You’ve reached Earth Colony Twelve Law Enforcement. This is Sheriff DJ Newton speaking—” DJ finally lifts his eyes from the paperwork in front of him. “Raina?”
