Starfall (Starflight #2)(36)
Solara shared a glance with Doran and Kane. “Both, I guess.”
“It happened so fast that it’s hard to tell,” Kane said. “Why?”
“Because at first I was afraid Arabelle might be a spy,” Cassia explained. “That’s why I wanted her scanned before you brought her on board. But if she was a plant, the mob would want you to have her. They would’ve made the deal easy.”
“Not necessarily,” Kane argued.
Doran nodded. “Yeah, it would’ve been suspicious if they’d let her go without a fight.”
“But the scan came up clean,” Cassia said.
“And she didn’t come with us willingly,” Solara pointed out. “Kane grabbed her and ran. It’s not like she had time to stuff a wire down her bra.”
Kane tipped his head in concession. “Still, something about this doesn’t feel right. What we need is a place to lie low while we figure out how it all fits together.”
“Very low,” Solara said. “Just because we’re out of sight doesn’t mean we’re hidden. The mafia ship can pick up our current if they have an electrical scanner. We should probably shut down all the systems and disconnect the batteries.”
“What about oxygen?” Kane asked.
“There’s an emergency hand crank in the engine room,” Doran said, earning him a proud smile from his mechanic girlfriend. “We can take shifts turning it.”
That was true, but manually cranking air through the ship would get old fast. And until Cassia could radio Eturia, she had no access to her team of technical wizards. “The sooner we leave, the better.”
“The obvious choice is Gage’s place,” Kane said. “Even if the Zhangs look for us there, they won’t be able to touch us. The whole planet’s shielded.”
Doran lifted his mug of seltzer. “Plus my brother can hook us up with a crate of Infinium. It comes in handy for trading.” He stood from the table and strode to the upper stairwell. “I’ll call him now.”
“And I’ll start shutting down the systems,” Solara said while heading for the lower stairs.
Once they’d left, Kane released a long breath. “We need currency, too. Credits and fuel chips to replace what we lost. I’ll ask Gage for the advance he promised me.”
The ship didn’t move, but Cassia felt a sudden dropping sensation, followed by the urge to grab on to something sturdy. She gripped the bench ledge near her thighs and stared into her lap. She didn’t mean to speak, but some unknown force hijacked her voice and said, “Don’t take the advance.”
For a long beat, there was only silence.
“Why not?” Kane asked.
She sensed him watching her, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. She knew the answer, and she suspected he knew it, too. Until he accepted payment, she could pretend his job offer was hypothetical, that he might change his mind. But a signing bonus would make it real, and she wasn’t ready for that. She wanted to tell him, to be transparent for once, but her throat tightened and she could barely get three words out. “Just don’t, okay?”
He pried one of her hands from the bench and laced their fingers together while wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She let him draw her in until her cheek rested against his chest. Usually, she discouraged cuddling because it led to more, but this time she couldn’t pull away. She nestled against him and closed her eyes, inhaling a blend of soap and sweat and warmth that reminded her of the best parts of her childhood. Holding on to Kane made her feel rooted to the ground, and she needed that today.
She needed her best friend.
He rested his chin on her head and told her, “Okay.”
Shield or no shield, Cassia couldn’t shake off the prickles of anxiety that skittered over her when the Banshee reached Planet X. She sat beside Renny in the pilothouse, peering out the windshield at a long, jagged tear in the frozen landscape where Kane had crash-landed the shuttle many months ago. This was the first time she’d revisited the crash site, and seeing it brought back the panic she’d felt when she found him unconscious in the cockpit. The moments before rousing him had been the longest of her life.
She didn’t like this place. Nothing good ever happened here.
She shifted her focus to Renny, who’d been unusually quiet in the two days since Arabelle had come on board. “Any progress?” she asked, figuring he would know what that meant.
He slouched in the pilot’s seat. “She won’t talk to me.”
“Try not to take it personally. She won’t talk to me, either, and I bunk with her.”
What Cassia didn’t mention was how uncomfortable she was sharing her quarters with Arabelle. The woman didn’t make a sound. And even though the entire crew had been on their best behavior, she rebuffed their every act of kindness. The toiletries and changes of clothes Cassia had left on the top bunk ended up in the hallway, neatly folded.
It was like rooming with a passive-aggressive ghost.
The only benefit of the arrangement was that Cassia found she slept better with someone occupying the top bunk. She didn’t know why her nightmares had suddenly quieted, but it reminded her that trauma did strange things to people.
People like her roommate.
In all fairness, she could only imagine how awful the last two years had been for Arabelle. After spending so much time enslaved by the mafia, freedom probably felt a little jarring. Almost as jarring as a ship full of strangers feeling sorry for her. Maybe Arabelle had mistaken their kindness for pity, and that was why she kept giving them the cold shoulder.