seemed palatial when they’d moved in, but now Lena couldn’t walk two feet without tripping over someone. At least they all had their own rooms. Though even sitting alone in hers reminded her of the debt they owed to Crowze, a Synnr aristocrat.
Just like Solan.
That made Lena’s scowl deepen. But neither Emily nor Luci asked about it. And once they were back to Human House she rushed to her room before she did something useless. Like scream.
Or cry.
No one was allowed to see her cry. Ever.
She felt like dirt. Less than dirt. Here she was again, forced to face the fact that she had nothing. No job. No family. No future. Friends, she supposed, she had, and she was lucky for it. But she didn’t want handouts or favors getting her out of trouble.
Why had Solan been there? Why had he helped?
The clerk who’d finally let her out after more than an hour of detainment seemed impressed. Apparently the son of Lureyne Zadra didn’t help just anybody. Not that Lena had any clue about who Lureyne Zadra was.
But it was one more thing to add to her mounting list of debts.
And she couldn’t put up with it for another day. She needed a job. Needed something. Crowze might not miss the money he was throwing at them, Solan might not care that he’d essentially bailed her out of jail, but she cared, and she wanted to pay them back. Maybe not dollar for dollar—or whatever the damn currency on this planet was called—but she needed to make the effort.
What could she do? She’d been a soldier back on Earth, then a cop, then a DEA agent. She knew discipline, struggle, protection. But spending time in that cell had given her a bad taste for what policework meant in Osais, and she put applying for a job with them at the bottom of her mental list.
She was good at protecting people, and at investigating things, building cases that wouldn’t crumble even under the best defense attorneys that money could buy. And even though she wasn’t on Earth anymore, it didn’t mean she couldn’t use the skills she already had. The Synnrs had a military. They had cops. They probably had private investigators. There had to be a space for her somewhere.
She’d never felt more connected to her grandparents, but at least they’d chosen to leave Lahore. And they’d been able to choose to move to the US from Pakistan. It wasn’t a different planet.
But it must have felt that way for two young adults still struggling to learn the language and carve out a life for themselves.
Lena rubbed her fingers over the bumps behind her ear. The subdermal translator she’d been fitted with was a miracle. It allowed her to understand just about everything the aliens said to her, though she was pretty sure there was a profanity filter, given that some words didn’t get translated. And she knew her grandparents would be yelling at her if they saw her wallowing like this. Neither of them had been handed a thing, but they’d managed.
And there was no telling what her mother would say if she saw Lena.
Not that she would ever see Lena again.
Despair threatened to overwhelm her, but Lena shoved it aside once more. She couldn’t sink into it. Nothing good would come of that, and she’d never find her path.
She could cry when night came.
Of course, the way days worked on this moon, night didn’t come during this season.
All the better.
She pushed off her bed and used the small attached bathroom to wipe off her face. Dust from the city had mixed with the tear tracks she was ignoring for the moment. Vigorous scrubbing brightened her up. It was as good as it was going to get. And it wasn’t like she was going on a date. No, she was asking for a job.
Did someone in the house have makeup?
No. No time to waste.
If asked, Lena wouldn’t say she snuck out of Human House, but she picked up her pace when she thought she heard someone coming down the hall. She was on a mission, and that mission didn’t involve small talk.
Human House was located in a picturesque corner of Crowze’s estate. Tall grass grew up all around it and the bright sky spread far overhead, fluffy clouds making it look like she’d stepped out of some pastoral painting. They were too far away from the city to see any buildings or hear any traffic. It was serene.
Lena was