know what you’re saying. Nearly all of the time, I’m sure I don’t want to.”
“You should really think about apologizing to Jonoh. Or at least try harder not to actively roast him.”
Bash gives me nothing. He doesn’t even spare the direction Jonoh left in a glance. He only grunts, “Good. Now that you’re repaired—”
Like I was a busted television or something.
“—perhaps we should test out your ability to walk, as the hob suggested.” His gaze moves over me assessingly, and actually not-so-flatteringly, like I’m a crumbling old nag going hooves-up before his very eyes.
“His name is Jonohkada.”
Bash’s arrogant stare is on me but far-off at the same time, clearly not giving the point about Jonoh’s name any consideration. “Let’s have you help me clean up the tool table. Nice light work.”
We leave the scattered rocks in favor of hitting the shade at the blacksmith shanty, and Bash and I begin organizing and putting away his various craft gear.
Referring to anything Bash owns as craft gear in my head has me grinning right up until Bash raises a hammer and uses his informative voice to tell me, “This tool is called a hammer—”
My grin dies as I groan. “Thaaanks, but I know what a hammer is. I’ve even used one before. Believe it or not,” I tell him very, very dryly, “humans have managed to be that advanced.”
He picks up on my sarcasm just fine. He fits the hammer in a toolbox and keeps giving me shit. “Ah, that’s good to hear,” he says, sounding so pleasant I’m immediately suspicious. I’m right to be. “It’s extra impressive when you consider that your people were dying from eating their foodstuffs raw.” He rolls his eyes, clearly remembering my story about the raw meat movement I saw in the news before I was abducted. I did tell him we weren’t all doing that. Some of us like our meats well done. I try to snap a tool drawer shut on his tail, but he twitches it out of the way in time and continues, “It’s reassuring to learn that your people managed to devise designs for basic tools even while they failed to grasp the basic rules for surviving life.”
“I said it’s a fad diet. The rest of us have known to cook our food for centuries, argh! You’re being a pain on purpose.”
To my delight, Bash flashes me his gleaming sharp teeth in a smile and chuckles.
He has a laugh that’d be a perfect fit for any supervillain, but it’s still nice to hear him being happy.
CHAPTER 16
ISLA
It’s the morning after my freak back injury, a day that was supposed to be a special day. Today would have marked fifteen whole days that Bash had managed to make it without making anybody cry, if he hadn’t ripped into Helen’s group. We’d wanted to do something special for him. To surprise Bash for managing his incredible, unprecedented stretch of two weeks without causing any tears, each and every human scheduled to work today at the quarry had planned to scurry their butts to get in early.
We still did that.
We decided last night that we’d keep to our plan no matter the counter’s number.
We beat all the aliens here. (All the aliens who aren’t mated to a human and coming with their woman, that is.)
When Bash appears, he gets an eyeful of us being dutiful employees, already caffeinated and already at work without being yelled at to do it… and he’s clearly stunned. His quills are up; his spines even look shocked. His tail trails out behind him, lying on the ground like it’s fainted.
“HI!” I call brightly. “You’re looking surly today!”
Bash’s face snaps into a scowl, which he aims right at me (affectionately, if you know how to spot these things), and he loudly asks the hobs and Rakhii walking in with him, “Where is that human lip adhesive?”
But then to the rest of the humans, he calls over the sound of us working, “You have all done very well. I appreciate your ethic and initiative,” he tells us—and he sounds like he means it. “What has incited this incredible phenomenon?”
Gracie shoves a bucket of popcorn at him. “Check out your crying counter.”
Bash twists, shooting a look to his throne, and to the counter behind it that reads fifteen. He doesn’t take the popcorn. “Look there,” he says, sounding awed. “It’s a miracle.”
The smile Gracie gives him is understanding, but there’s also a warning in her eyes. “Helen said they were late and