down her clumsy attempt at hinting that she was interested in more from and with him.
Groaning with embarrassment, she pushed off the door and started tidying up the cabin. What did she expect? That a man who could have any woman he wanted would take her? All the painful memories of teasing and bullying from her childhood reared their ugly heads. She had always been too skinny, too short, too dirty and too poor. Her hand-me-down men’s clothing never fit correctly. Unlike the other girls she knew from the mining camps, she had never blossomed with curves.
Standing by the table, she let her hand drift down the front of her body, gliding over her small breasts and flat belly. Her hips weren’t any better, and her bottom wasn’t the sort that turned heads. Plain. Boring. Simple.
Maybe he was right. Maybe her future was in the colonies. Yet, the idea of going so far away where she knew no one terrified her. She had been alone in her cabin for seventeen months. She was used to the silence and emptiness that surrounded her. She never felt lonely here.
But the colonies? She would be utterly alone. She wasn’t sure she was brave enough for a new start like that. Where would she live? Where would she work? Would she make friends? Find someone to love her? Would she ever have the family she yearned for so deeply that it made her stomach ache and her chest constrict?
Feeling dejected and overwhelmed, she finished tidying up and locked away the rations and equipment he had left her in a secret cabinet. She couldn’t risk someone breaking into the cabin and finding any evidence that a sky warrior had been here. Even though the drink was terrible, she made herself finish it rather than toss it out and waste it. She gagged at the end of it and wondered if all of their food tasted like this.
As big as Cipher was, she didn’t think that was likely. He didn’t look like he had ever missed a meal. She couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like under his uniform. She had seen naked men before, but she doubted she had ever seen one that compared to him. The men who stripped out of their soiled mining clothes and jumped into the river near the outlet of the pit to rinse off the grime and sweat of a hot day were wiry and lean. She suspected Cipher had muscles in places she had never even imagined.
Feeling ridiculously hot but foolish for her infatuation with a man who would never want her, she doused the lamps and moved through the pitch black of the cabin to the bedroom. She peeled out of her pants and socks but kept her shirt before sliding under the frayed and faded quilt her mother had made so many years ago. She curled onto her side and closed her eyes, listening to the soothing sounds of the forest until she finally fell asleep.
In the morning, she woke early, before sunrise, and immediately started hacking. The dry cough that plagued all miners had started to wake her more mornings than she cared to count. Like everyone who worked in the dust and damp, she expected to die young of Purple Lung. There was no use worrying about it. It was something to accept as inevitable.
She had another one of Cipher’s rations after she changed into clean clothing for the day. Not wanting to lose her nerve, she contacted the spaceship as instructed, grabbed her small pack of climbing gear, her mining helmet and the camera Cipher had given her. She locked up the cabin and trudged off into the cool darkness, working her way down the trails until she reached the ridge just above the Drowning Door.
Low on her belly, hidden under brush, she surveyed the area. From her position, she had a clear view of the ventilation shaft she had chosen as her entryway into the mine. This one had been all but forgotten. Brush had grown overtop and dirt was mounded against the sides. There were other shafts, easier to access and wider, but they were too close to the front of the mine’s opening. She would rather deal with the tight squeeze of the smaller shaft than risk running into the men patrolling the front of the mine.
There had been rumors up and down the mountain that the Splinters had taken it over and were using it as a base.