Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(38)

“Okay, fine, you grew a room—” Weird as that was. “But you didn’t grow the chairs!”

“No,” he agreed. “Those I requested from Earth. An accommodation for you.”

Beatriz laughed. “I don’t even care how you did it! I didn’t have my own stage at home. I worked on music in my room and sang in the shower.”

“Then I hope this is better?”

“This is magnificent. It’s a little . . . overwhelming.” From her tone, I didn’t think she meant it in a bad way.

“What was that, the first thing you sang?” I asked her. Because I’d never heard anything like it.

That turned out to be the magic question. Beatriz was into opera, and she elaborated for a while about composers and history, more of a musical education than I’d gotten in school. Then she bit her lip, seeming as if she was about to confess to some shocking secret. “Sometimes I dabble with my own arrangements. I did a jazz adaptation of La Bohème for fun last month.”

That sounded impressive as hell. And it sparked my curiosity, because I’d noticed a few different qualifications that stood out among the Honors over the past few years. More recruits had a musical background. Marko did. Now here was Beatriz, who sang so brilliantly.

There has to be a reason they picked her. And me. Since we were bonding over music, I kept the questions coming. “Do you have a favorite opera?”

“Norma. You ever heard of it?” she asked me, and when I shook my head, she said, “Nadim, do we have a music library on board?”

“Of course. Each Honor has added to it. What would you like to hear?”

She enjoyed Caribbean fusion, insanely dramatic opera, reggaetón, Afro-Cuban jazz. While I didn’t love everything she called out, I could feel Nadim soaking up the input, registered the moments when a particular cluster of notes gave him pleasure. Nadim especially liked the merry blare of horns, and I knew that because it washed in an irresistible flush of pleasure that cascaded over to me. Like emotional overflow. I wondered if I could control that. If I should. Sure, this feels good. But what happens when it goes bad?

Beatriz distracted me. Her expression animated, she asked, “What do you like, Zara?”

“Well, I don’t know much, but . . . there was this old-time singer, Billie Holiday? I relate to her music, I guess. And her story. You heard of her?”

“Claro.” She grabbed my hands in her excitement. “She was a legend. What’s your favorite song of hers?”

“That’s a tough call. But I guess . . . ‘Summertime.’”

“I have it,” Nadim said. “Shall I play that one?”

“Please.” Normally, the word didn’t come easy, but I’d revealed an important part of myself; my mother and Kiz and I had all listened to Billie Holiday together. This time, I didn’t feel scraped raw over it, because I wasn’t listening alone.

What started out as Music Appreciation 101 evolved into a proper party. Beatriz taught me dance moves to the beat of some of Nadim’s favorite jams. The girl definitely had rhythm, and soon I was executing complicated steps that could’ve been on a stage backing up some auto-tune diva. The sheer joy of it took me over—and not just me, I noticed. Nadim too was soaking up our enthusiasm, our happiness, our energy. It seemed like a good thing.

If we could join together this way, I felt solid about our chances at making this partnership work.

Beatriz finally wandered off to bed, and even though I was tired, I lingered behind.

“That was fun,” I said, more to myself than Nadim. It had been. Better than anything except a few times back in the Zone, and that made it impossible not to think of Derry. I had some shit times with him, some outstanding moments too. Now I also had the bitter memory of the way he’d burned me.

It cooled me down, got me steady. My natural defenses came back up again. I had to be practical, even if I didn’t need to be ruthless. That meant I had to wonder if Nadim and Beatriz would do me the same way Derry had, eventually. I’d liked Clarice for a hot second back in rehab, and look where that had got me.

The memory of rehab, and of the dirty purity of the Zone, crept back in. That Zara wouldn’t have held a dance party. That Zara would have grinned and slipped away to rip off the marks while their defenses were down.

I wasn’t one of them, I had to remember that. Beatriz had trained to be an Honor. Nadim . . . I could feel a lot of what went on with him, but how could I really know what he thought or felt? He was an alien. It might feel like I knew him, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

It surprised me when the alien suddenly spoke up and said, “You and Beatriz are . . . brighter than Marko and Chao-Xing.”

“Brighter?” That was weird. “You mean smarter?”

“No. I mean—you have more light inside. Both of you.”

It was the opposite of how I’d been trying to feel. Darkness was cover. Darkness was safety. “Yeah, probably just adrenaline or something.”

A pause, as he was probably thinking about how to respond. Or if he even should. “No. It’s dimmed a little now in you, but you are still bright. Marko was the closest, kind but somber. He was always a little muted. You and Beatriz are different.”

“So no dance party with Marko and Chao-Xing?”

“Definitely not.”