She picked up the slender needle-nosed wire adjuster and soldering tool, and he watched as she gripped two minute wires, set them in place and activated the tool to set the wires.
So much for Jonas and Navarro's opinion that she would betray them at first opportunity. She could have kept her mouth shut about the hardware problems, likely believing he was unaware of them, and tried to find a way to hurt Haven.
She hadn't. She had warned him of the problem instead. That knowledge sent a surge of pure emotion slamming through his gut, nearly causing him to lose his grip on the control board.
"Geez, Styx, don't get fumble fingers on me," she muttered as she pulled the pliers back and checked her work with a small electronic surge light.
Thumbing the switch to the light, she activated the testing system and began running the white light over each component and wire.
"Where did you learn how to work on these systems?" Styx asked as she frowned up at the internal system fiercely.
"Tinkering some," she answered absently. "I had some training at the Omega lab, with one of their computer experts, before the rescues."
"You have a knack for it," he stated.
"It's a talent." She reached for another slender tool and made an adjustment in the wireless modules that connected the system to the various electronics it controlled.
"I would have imagined you would lean toward medical or genetic engineering. I wouldn't have guessed a talent in computerized systems."
She paused, glared at the system then sighed heavily. "I thank God I didn't lean toward anything medical in any way. The thought of it sickens me."
"Because of the work your father and brother did?"
She pushed herself from beneath the table and glared up at him now. "Would you like to know, Styx, why I hate Breeds with a depth that frightens me at times?"
His teeth clenched. She was admitting it, and he hated that.
"Why, Storme?" he asked softly.
"Because they sent my father and my brother to hell before I was ready to let them go. My father and brother broke the laws of nature, and the laws of decency, in what they helped the Council to do. And then they broke my heart when they showed their loyalty to their work over their loyalty to me. I hated them for it, I hated the Breeds for it, and I hate that f**king Council so bad I'd kill every one of those bastards if I could.
So the Breeds can count themselves lucky. At least I don't wish I could murder them to their faces. Now, excuse me, but I don't need your help any longer. You can leave now."
She pushed her back beneath the table and ignored him as though he wasn't there, while she went back to work on reassembling the electronics she had taken apart.
At least, she appeared to ignore him; what he sensed was far different. He could feel her pain, tears unshed and a sudden desperation that tore at his chest.
Storme was fighting more than the past or her emotions. She was fighting the desertion of her father and brother, and the suspicion that they had loved the Breeds far more than they had loved her.
Unfortunately, Styx agreed with her.
CHAPTER 13
Styx retreated, hoping that the very fact of the battle waging inside her now boded well for her realization that the Breeds weren't at fault for what she'd lost, but rather her father and brother were.
Moving to the kitchen, he pulled coffee beans from the cabinet along with an old-fashioned hand grinder and dark chocolate. He had a system he liked for coffee. The fresh beans hand ground with the dark chocolate.
He was a chocolate fanatic, he admitted to that. The first time he had tasted chocolate was after the Breed rescues. Despite the fact that his training had been easier than most Breeds', still, chocolate had been something denied him until he had the choice to indulge in it after the rescue.
Storme reminded him of his favorite chocolate, he thought with a brief grin. A little sharp, with all the sweetness hid beneath that first sharp bite.
"Now I can watch television." Satisfaction filled her tone as she entered the kitchen. "And that's a hell of an audio system."
Her voice was deliberately light; he could feel it, sense it. She was trying to ignore the fact that she had admitted to hating the Breeds, that she had admitted, in effect, to hating him.
The softened amusement of moments before had dissipated.
Turning back to the coffeemaker, he poured the coffee into cups. As she sat down at the old-fashioned country kitchen table, he set the cup in front of her then retreated back to the cabinets to sip his own.