“I thought it was the right thing to do,” he said. “To wait until you stepped down.”
“And what if I’d started seeing someone else before that happened?” she asked.
“I would have had to move up my schedule,” he admitted. “And hope it wasn’t too late.”
“I can’t say I blame you. I kept my distance because it would have been awkward if I’d let you know I was interested in you and you didn’t feel the same. Given you report to me.” She sent him a quick grin.
“We were both being cautious,” he said. “But in the last few days I’ve been almost constantly in your company and I slipped up.”
“You were so busy trying not to look at me, you missed me slipping up, too,” she told him. “It was pretty cute.”
“Cute?” he asked, politely, and she laughed, a warm, generous sound that wrapped around him.
Above them, a golden flare streaked across the sky, and both of them went quiet.
“Ithasto be the obs station,” Ethan said. “Too much debris is falling for anything else, unless it’s a battleship, and I really don’t think it is.”
“Agreed. Let’s hope they all got out.” Velda’s face was tipped upward as she watched the flare wink out.
Bits and pieces were still making entry into the atmosphere, like a giant hand was throwing glitter above them.
“It shouldn’t look so beautiful,” Velda said.
The water began to boil and Ethan leaned forward to take it off the fire. As he set it down, a twig snapped to their left.
He went absolutely still, listening. He turned to Velda, lifted a finger to his lips, and made a gesture for her to stay put.
Then he rose to his feet, checked he had his laz, and moved off into the darkness.
Velda watchedthe back of Ethan as he was swallowed up by the night.
She had heard the twig snap, too, but she’d assumed it was an animal.
Never assume, the military training instructor had drilled into the recruits—and her—last time she had participated. She should have remembered.
She turned back to the fire, and froze.
A man stood on the other side of it.
He was dressed in black, and he was pointing a laz at her.
Without saying a word, he jerked the laz up, indicating that she stand.
She glanced left in the direction Ethan had gone, but either this man had done something to him or there was more than one of them.
She guessed the latter.
She got slowly to her feet. “Who are you?”
He frowned and flicked his gaze quickly to the side.
If he was here to kill her, which she guessed he was, he would have no reason not to use his laz right now, before she could make some noise and alert Ethan.
So she bent forward, picked up the pot of just-boiled water, and threw it at him across the small fire pit in one smooth move.
She took him by surprise.
He screamed as the hot water hit him in the face, and she ran right, into the night.
