After all this introspection my real question is—why did he leave?
What did I do?
What part of our conversation sent him over the edge?
I replay it back in my head and decide it could be almost anything. I called him lots of names today. I complained, and lied, and didn’t even thank him for helping me with my little flux problem.
Maybe the better question is—how do I make him come back?
It’s very obvious he does not live on the station. He really could just take off and I’d never see him again. Never have the chance to tell him I’m sorry.
“Shit, Lyra,” I say, again to no one. “You really are defective.”
Because no healthy person would think they owe this man an apology after the day I’ve had.
But I do. I think I do owe him that.
I pull the silver covers back from the bed and climb in. And even with me in it, it’s the most empty bed in the universe.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – SERPINT
“What is the fucking hold-up?” I ask the engineer when he shuffles past me for like the billionth time. “I’ve been sitting out in this little waiting room for almost an hour.”
“Sorry, sir. I don’t actually have permission to let you talk to Booty Hunter—”
“She’s my fucking ship!” I say, about to blow my top. “My desire is all the permission you need!”
“Uh, well, actually…” He laughs uncomfortably. “No, that’s not quite true. ALCOR runs the ships while they’re on station. So yes. She is your ship. But also yes, she falls under his jurisdiction.”
“I own one seventh share of this station. ALCOR isn’t in charge of anything. We’re all equal partners.”
“Are you?” the engineer asks. “Are you really?”
But it comes off kinda sarcastic. Like he’s telling me to think more carefully about that statement. “Open. The fucking containment display. Or I will rip your little head off your shoulders and stuff it inside your ass.”
He does that little head thing that lets me know he’s taken aback at my outburst. But then he says, “Very well. But this is all going into my report.”
“Go for it.”
“Come with me.”
I follow him down several corridors and we finally end up in a small control room the size of a closet with one data station.
Before I can sit down he puts a hand up. “I just need to warn you. She’s… not the same.”
I push him aside, sit down, and tap the screen. “Booty?” I say.
Silence.
“Booty? Ya there?”
There’s a weird, almost eerie, crackling noise. Then a voice.
“Serpint…”
A voice I was not expecting.
A voice that I’m not ready to hear.
Not her voice.
Draden’s.
“I warned you,” the engineer says as I blow past a group of people in the hallway.
He warned me all right. He just didn’t say she’s taken on the persona of my dead brother.
“Leave me alone,” I growl, getting inside the elevator.
He doesn’t try to follow me in. But he does place a hand on the door, preventing it from sliding closed. “It’s not him.”
“No fucking shit,” I say.
“She’s been infected with some virus. She’s pulling things off her database, using it in weird ways to confuse us.”
But I’ve heard enough. I push him back and the door closes.
Back up in my quarters the lights have been dimmed to late-spin levels. Just low glows of yellow drifting up from the floorboards. The mess I made tearing the tablecloth off the table has been cleaned up, but there’s a lingering red tushberry stain on the wall that looks too much like blood spatter, so I walk down the hall to the bedroom, replaying the whole scene back in Cetus in my head.
Why did I steal that queen? If I had just left the way we were supposed to, everything would be fine right now. None of this would’ve happened. Draden would be alive, probably down in some lower-level hovel of a bar drinking and telling stories about his latest adventures. Ceres would be hovering like an annoying idiot, analyzing the last job and coming up with schemes for next time, and Booty would be playing virtual dice with the other docked ships, winning credits she didn’t need.
The low-level lights continue in the bedroom.
Lyra is on the far side of the bed, sprawled out face down, eyes closed, breathing lightly.
I stare at her for a few moments. Her hair is light now. Very light compared to when I first saw her this morning. Her body is under the covers but only haphazardly. One leg sticking out, bent at the knee, so I can see the smooth creamy skin of her thigh.
I take off my shirt, throw it on the floor, then sit down on the bed and start messing with the tabs on my boots. My leg aching again, reminding me that I still need to see a medical pod.
She doesn’t move or say anything, but I know she’s awake.