Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(49)

“But—how?”

I didn’t know. The red aura of the impact stayed with me, and it woke instincts that I thought I’d left behind on Earth. Instincts to hit back.

“We’re here,” I told Nadim. “Please. Come to us.”

Beatriz sucked in a sudden breath, and I knew she felt him, just as I did: a sudden, echoing stab of shame and pain, darkly mixed with anger. I knew that feeling so well.

Abused kids were all the same, deep down. We blamed ourselves. We hurt. We swore it wouldn’t happen again. We swore we wouldn’t deserve it again because that was how screwed up we felt. How screwed up our abusers made us.

“It’s not your fault,” I said to Nadim. He didn’t believe me. I knew because I could never believe it myself.

It still helped saying it, and hearing it: some of the edge bled away from him, like Nadim might return to us. Tentative and wounded, but him.

“Honors,” said Chao-Xing from behind us. Startled, Bea and I both turned and found her and Marko standing there in their dried-blood uniforms and their blackened eyes, watching us. “Step back. It is not wise to attempt to bond with your host at this time.”

“Because your Elder slapped the shit out of him?” I asked. I was ready to try it with Chao-Xing, for sure. “What the hell?”

“Don’t,” Marko warned. I didn’t know if he was talking about my attitude or my intentions, but I could hear some hint of humanity in him. “Honor Teixeira, the Elder has approved your work. You may remain for the Tour.”

“How gracious,” Beatriz snapped, which from her was like shouting in his face. Sarcasm. I liked it on her. “Thank him for me.”

They let that pass without comment, and Chao-Xing suddenly broke from her spot beside Marko and walked directly up to me. In my face. Up close, her eyes were inhumanly different, unreadable. “You are here to learn about the galaxy in partnership with Nadim,” she told me. “Not to question. Be careful not to dig so deep that you dig your own grave.”

She left, and in the chilly silence, I said to Marko, “She’s a charmer.”

“She always has been,” he said. He seemed more himself. Maybe Typhon had cut the connection with them. As I watched, Marko’s pupils slowly shrank down to normal size, and he blinked hard, trying to adjust his vision.

“Hello, Marko,” Nadim said. His voice sounded bland. “I’m sorry I didn’t greet you earlier, but you were not free. You’ll begin your Journey soon.”

“Tomorrow,” Marko agreed. “We came back to say our good-byes to our family. And to sign off on your new Honors, of course.”

“Of course. I wish you well, Marko. You were a pleasant companion.”

“And you—” For a moment, Marko’s calm broke. He looked down. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this right now.”

“I understand,” Nadim said as if he really did. “I will think of you with fondness.”

Marko didn’t say good-bye. He just . . . left. Walked away, and in a moment, I felt the whisper as the shuttle departed Nadim and made its way back to Typhon.

I also felt the continued, muted burn of pain from our ship. Whatever Typhon had done to him had hurt enough to leave marks.

“Nadim? Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” he said. Liar, I thought. “I didn’t want Marko and Chao-Xing to go, but I didn’t have a choice.”

“You mean you didn’t want them to go to him,” I said. “Right?”

He didn’t answer, but I was on target. He disliked Typhon. He feared him. He also longed for the Elder’s approval. It was a sad, familiar story, and I hated that we had that in common, even if it explained why I understood him so well when I hadn’t been with him long.

The quiet startled me when I realized I was completely alone with Nadim. Bea had gone for her shower and probably to drop exhausted into her bed. Even Typhon had withdrawn, presumably pleased with the discipline he’d delivered. It bothered me that the Leviathan didn’t seem to know better than humans in this regard. Some might crack under sufficient pressure and pretend to comply, but others, like me—and maybe Nadim—would fight until we broke our backs. On a deep breath, an old memory washed over me.

I was six years old, maybe, and my teachers found me hard to handle. Intractable. Incorrigible. They were already saying that about me, and my odd medical problems didn’t make me easier to deal with. My father accused me of faking the headaches like I was some kind of a criminal mastermind in elementary school.

The first time my father hit me, he kept saying, “If you cry, I’ll stop. If you cry, then I’ll know you’re sorry.”

For what? Being born? Having pain that the doctors couldn’t diagnose fast enough? I remembered clenching every muscle in my body, especially my jaw, until my teeth ached, echoing into a feedback loop with the awful throbbing in my skull. But I never cried. I never fucking cried.

I refused to give him that victory or let him imagine even for a second that I was sorry.

It had been a long-ass time since anything could compel my tears; I considered them trophies, and I didn’t yield them often. But I could almost weep for Nadim, for the way Typhon had brutalized him. I wasn’t exactly sure why it had happened, but part of me wondered if it was because I’d demanded answers he wasn’t supposed to offer.