Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(95)

My weighted boots hit the surface and I dropped into a grateful squat, wishing I had arms big enough to hug him. I settled for a quick pat and dropped the wall between us. Immediately Nadim’s presence spilled into me like a wave.

What happened, Zara?

Nothing serious. Minor hiccup. I’ll tell you later.

With trembling hands, I continued my work, counting down the last units. Three. Two. One. Moaning, I couldn’t even summon the energy for a victory shuffle, so I crept along the hull toward the hatch. It was quite a long walk and being out here no longer felt exciting, just precarious.

Bea wasn’t on standby; she must be working on repairs elsewhere, so I stripped down and went to find her. She glanced up with a smile, blissfully unaware of how close I’d come to messing everything up.

“Done,” I said. “Are we ready to fire up the shield?”

“Almost. I’m running diagnostics. I had to piggyback on some other conduits and jury-rig a few connections, but in thirty seconds, we’ll find out if this works.”

Her excitement made up for my numbness. I forced a smile. “I’m crossing fingers and toes.”

Zara, you’re not fine.

Not now, I told Nadim silently. After the test, okay?

Silence. Great, now Nadim was pissed at me. But I just didn’t see the point of making a big deal out of a mistake I’d corrected. For the first time ever, I momentarily wished that Nadim could just hug me.

“You want to do the honors?” Bea asked.

This time, my smile felt more real. “Pun intended?”

“Oh God. No.”

“Then go ahead.”

She hit the button, and the lights flickered from the additional power draw, but from the satisfaction that rippled through Nadim, I didn’t need Bea to interpret the readings. We had done it. Bea cheered wildly and I gave a weary thumbs-up. Hopefully they thought my weariness was from a week of nonstop hull crawling.

“We’re done,” I said.

“Not quite,” Nadim said. His tone sounded quiet and sober. And then I remembered what I’d been trying really hard to forget.

I still had to install the alarm.

Beatriz kept her head down as she worked the console, fingers flying. “Zara, EMITU wants you to check in. He was worried about the healing on your hands.”

“My hands are fine.”

“I’m just relaying the message. Five minutes, then you can relax.”

I did want to rest. Desperately. So I went down to the med bay, sat down on the treatment bed, and glared at EMITU as he powered up and wheeled over to me.

“Great,” I said, and held my hands out for inspection. “See? There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“No,” he agreed. “There is not. Which is why this will make you so angry. Please do not shoot the messenger.”

And before I could ask him what the hell he was going on about, one of his sneakier appendages jabbed me with a needle, and before I could yelp, I was falling backward onto the soft mattress. I felt him tut-tutting and dragging me into place and covering me up with a sheet and blanket. Fussing with my pillow. I wanted to ask why, but my lips were too heavy, the word was too heavy, and last thing I heard was Nadim saying, inside my head:

Forgive us, Zara.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


Breaking Open


I WOKE UP pissed, with a drug hangover, and EMITU trundled out of my way when I staggered out of bed. “Thanks for staying with us, Honor Cole!” it said cheerfully with a little wave of all its attachments. “I hope your enforced rest was pleasant!”

“Screw you,” I snarled, and lunged for the corridor. I didn’t bother with the comm units. I just yelled. “Bea! Beatriz!”

She met me in the hub. She looked tired, paler than usual, and she had her hands clasped together like some little schoolgirl, but her gaze was steady and calm. “You’re mad,” she said.

“Hell yes I’m mad, what the hell? You sandbagged me?”

“Technically, I didn’t. . . .”

“You ordered EMITU to drug me.”

“Yes.” She bit her lip. A little bit of a tell that she felt guilty and anxious about more than just this. “I had to. Otherwise, you would have . . . insisted on doing it yourself.”

“Doing what—”

But I stopped, because I suddenly realized who was missing from this conversation. Nadim was very quiet, and though I could sense him, he was distant.

Still, I could feel the ragged red pulses of pain coming from him.

I glared at Bea. “What did you do?”

Nadim was the one who answered. “It’s not her fault. I asked her to do it,” he said. “You were too close to me for this to work, Zara. I couldn’t give you such pain.”

“I don’t feel it as much as you do,” Bea said. “So we put you out and I did the install on the, uh, alarm clock.”

“What did you use, a chain saw? Do you know how much he’s hurting?”

“Stop, Zara!” Nadim’s sharp tone caught me off guard, and I took a step back. I’d been looming over Bea, I realized. “She followed instructions. I will heal. We agreed that you didn’t need to be involved.”

“You should have asked me!”