would eat this kind of story up.
So I incline my head instead, pushing the feelings I have toward her down into some deep part of me that will find its way to the top again later, when I’m alone, and tell her in a bored tone, “Sure.”
Lies, lies, lies.
Then I grab a can of LaCroix from the refrigerator, leaving her with her hand outstretched.
* * *
—
AFTER SHE LEAVES, Elias knocks on my door to check on me. I’m lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to one of those murder podcasts that seem to always be trending. This one is about a man who killed women and stored their bodies in a refrigerator.
“Well,” he begins, “you could have helped her a little today—”
“Fire her.”
He stares at me. “…What?”
“You heard me.”
“Vance, she just started—”
“I don’t care. I don’t like her.” My voice cracks at that.
He gives an exasperated sigh. “Why?”
Because I’m afraid. And I’m a coward. Because I hated how I liked how she smiled, and how she laughed, and because of that I let myself imagine her, thinking I would never find her again.
And now she’s here. And I’m not the prince she thinks I am.
“Because I don’t like her,” I reiterate. “Is that so hard to understand?”
“You don’t even know her.”
“I don’t care!” I bite back, knowing my words are too sharp.
After a moment, Elias sighs and says, “All right.” My tense shoulders begin to unwind. Good, now she’ll go and live her life and disappear again. But then he says, resoundingly, “No.”
I sit up. “Pardon?”
“No,” he repeats, as simple as telling a child. I am not a child. “No, you don’t get to decide this.”
“She’s a menace!” I snap, which is a lie. She’s not a menace. Not at all. But I’m not sure how else to get my point across. I am not used to being told no.
I don’t like it.
He raises a pointed eyebrow. “What are you so scared of, Vance?”
I scoff.
“She’s nice and she’s been doing all of the work that you both should be doing together, and she hasn’t once complained,” he goes on, and my scowl turns pale. “I’ve known you since you were a kid. I know you. What scares you about her?”
The fact that I opened up more to her than I ever had to anyone in my life. That when she realizes that those secrets belong to Vance Reigns, she’ll tell them to the world for enough money to buy that book she ruined a hundred times over.
But I don’t say anything.
“Well, whatever it is, get over it. You’re not getting out of this so easily—and tomorrow I expect you to help her in that library. That isn’t a request, it’s an order.” Then he grabs the doorknob and slams the door on his way out.
PART TWO
REBEL
The automatic doors slide open, and Amara hears his footsteps before she sees him. General Sond—again. She can sense the strange warped energies that spiral around him like volcanic ash. They’re wrong—he’s wrong. And yet…
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asks, resisting the urge to reach for her pistol.
He slowly makes his way around to her seating area. It’s a part of the space station that looks out onto her home planet of Plylantha, a beautiful pearl of a world, purple and blue and green. It looked different on the other side of the Black Nebula. No, that’s a lie. On the other side of the Nebula, all that remained of her home planet were floating rocks and debris, of a place that once was but was no longer.
“What do I do?” he asks, startling her as he sits down.
“In what capacity, General?”
He lets out a breath. “You think me wicked.”
“That’s suspect.”
“You do,” he says, and gently reaches a hand out and turns her head so she must look at him. She could fight against it, but she doesn’t. His touch sets her skin on edge, and her nails dig into her palms—but she doesn’t pull away. As if she’s daring herself to know how far she can go. “I know the look of someone questing for revenge.”
“It’s not a quest,” she replies, leaning closer, testing the inches between them. She doesn’t blink as she stares into his eyes, trying to find a soul there. “It’s a promise.”
I MANAGE TO FIND A PAIR of not-so-dirty jeans on my bedroom floor and shimmy into them as Dad’s alarm screeches across the apartment for the fourteenth time.
I poke my head out