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I nodded nervously. “That doesn’t make me less scared.”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t.” He thought for a second, then smiled. “Here, why don’t you do this? Whenever you get scared, pretend to yourself it’s all just a dare.”
“A dare?” I repeated.
“Yeah, a dare. Like when you were young, and you dared other kids to do stupid stuff. Just pretend it’s one of those. Then, you can feel afraid, and it’s okay, because you wouldn’t get dared to do it if it wasn’t scary. But you also remember that this is your chance to prove that you’re brave and that fear doesn’t stop you.” He shrugged. “Anyway, that’s what I do when I get scared. Maybe it’ll help you, too.”
“Okay,” I said. “Is that all you need? The computer?”
“For now,” he said.
This is a dare, I told myself, instinctively following his directions.I just have to get out of this alive and without losing the four bottles. That’s the dare, and I can do it.
I gathered the bottles back into my arms and held them as tight as I could.
“One other thing,” I said, turning back to him. “Once I have the computer stuff, where do I find you?”
“You don’t,” he answered. “I’ll find you.”
TAZHR
Emma.
An indentured human female.
And suddenly the most important being on the whole station.
The tension I experienced with her was enough to make my heart race faster than it ever did in a killing I had done before. I never felt anything like the strong, magnetic pull she had on me, although we were shrouded in darkness.
I had been called dramatic my whole life, along with other things. Extreme, psychotic, insane, and wild were all words that rolled off other beings’ tongues when they spoke of me. It was something I almost took pride in. They all knew I would go the extra mile to ensure any job was done well. Maybe not well, but done in general.
If the being in question was dead, that was all that mattered, right? At least, that’s how I thought of things. Nothing was gray; everything was black and white. Alive, dead, good, evil, happy, sad. Everything had an opposite, and anything that didn’t was much too complicated to keep my attention.
If I told anyone about the severe tension I felt with her in the darkness, they would say those same words. They would say I was insane, I was being dramatic; I was on another wild binge, a victim of a sudden, temporary passion.
I even fantasized about it briefly before she left the alley. She might not have known that I noticed her beautiful blonde hair and wide blue eyes in the dim light we had, but I did. They were all I could think about before my natural and eminent mistrust kicked in again.
I left the alley after taking a deep breath and trying to focus.
I usually had a general disdain for everything and everyone that wasn’t a Vinduthi and wasn’t part of my chosen family. The rest of the galaxy could fuck off and get out of my way as far as I was concerned. And if they didn’t… Well, there was an easy fix for that.
Would the knowledge of that part of me scare her?
I paused and shook my head. I didn’t understand why I would have cared if a human woman was afraid of me or not. There was no reason for me to be thinking such things when I had clear-cut directions.
We don’t have time for this, Tazhr. We have to follow her.
The logical side of me was correct, but I wanted to stay in fantasyland for a moment longer. Right as I thought that, voices from the promenade crowded into the darkness, shaking me from my reverie.
Time to get moving.
Once the voices disappeared, I left the small alley and walked around deeper into Conii’s territory. My head turned back and forth while I kept an eye out for any guards who might have seen my little chat with Emma.
If any of them did, there were plenty of alleyways to dispose of their bodies. They would rot within twenty-four hours, and the smell would definitely be obvious after forty-eight hours, but that was plenty of time for us to escape.
Us? There is no us.
I shook my head and kept walking. While I tried to go into my usual clear-headed state of mind, Emma’s face kept popping up. It was annoying more than anything.
