Now, I really do need to get some sleep. I’ve been up for over twenty-seven hours, but I couldn’t rest until I had a plan of action.”
“Those pirates are hunting you, not me.”
He arched his eyebrows. “And you’re with me. Trust me, you’d better hope those pirates don’t find us. I won’t be able to protect you if I’m dead.”
He turned his back, which meant she had the opportunity to attack. He retook his seat and adjusted the course of the autopilot, scanning long-range sensors again. The computer would tell him if anyone got close, but he just liked to be certain. Finally, he got up and turned again.
Hailey was no longer in the cockpit.
He paused by the knife she’d put back down.
Did that mean she trusted him? Or was she playing a game? He sighed. His life had become a lot more complicated since meeting Hailey.
At least I’m no longer bored or enslaved. He smirked.
Chapter Three
Hailey cleaned when she felt nervous or angry. She suffered both of those emotions at that moment. There were missing sections of carpet in the main living cabin. Faint, gross-smelling stains were on the metal in those bare spots, but they were now gone after she’d scrubbed them with a mop.
No one needed to tell her where the original crew had died.
The injector she’d found behind the bar had been tempting to hold on to, if her kidnappers had died from bad drugs. Hype, a well-known illegal drug, was a green substance, and she suspected that’s what was inside the injector tube.
It could be used as a weapon against Blade if she dosed him. She disposed of it, though. He hadn’t hurt her so far, and the thought of being left alone on the big shuttle was terrifying.
A ship-wide search had proven they were the only two persons onboard. The cargo area was stacked high with crates. Access to the cockpit and the engines were locked. Blade hadn’t lied about that. She wiped down the tables and sighed.
She didn’t know what to think of Blade. It may have been a mistake to abandon his knife. Hailey always tried to be a reasonable person. The huge guy would have no problem attacking her if he had a mind to. He was strong enough to do a lot of damage. But he’d helped her instead. Her hand felt a hundred times better after he’d treated it.
She missed her parents badly. They had to be worried. Prospect was a small planet with a few groups of small mining settlements in close enough proximity to be considered one colony. She’d never lived alone, since it wasn’t safe. Some visitors or short-term workers might mistake her for one of the few women who sold their bodies, using their homes as a place to conduct business.
Jacob crossed her mind, and she felt a bit of guilt. He’d be worried about her, too, but that didn’t upset her as much as it should have.
He’d started courting her months before. They were both teachers, and he’d had the most in common with her of all the other men who’d asked her out since she’d turned eighteen.
The problem was, she didn’t love him. She’d mostly agreed to date him to get her parents off her back. They expected marriage and grandkids from her eventually. Her mother especially had begun to hassle her to find a husband. Most women on her planet got married by twenty-two. She was four years past that already.
She took a seat on one of the chairs. Jacob was a nice-looking man, a few inches taller than her and soft spoken. He also bored her when they engaged in conversation. His entire world seemed to revolve around his job teaching science. That’s why she’d dragged her feet when he wanted their relationship to progress.
She’d previously dated at least a dozen men at the urging of her parents, but rarely had gone out with any twice. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t wanted to find a husband. She just knew she’d be miserable if she locked herself to someone she had no feelings for.
Ninety percent of the men who lived year-round on Prospect were miners. They weren’t that dedicated to bathing and their hands were disgusting. The minerals they mined stained their fingers yellow. They also smelled. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, most miners felt that dust coating their skin was considered good luck. Like, if the planet considered them a part of it, fewer accidents would happen on