Eos flopped back in her seat. She felt like she’d run a marathon.
“Slavers have slowed.” Zayn’s chair turned and he grinned. “They’re turning.”
“You’re sure they won’t follow?” She forced her hands to relax.
“Zayn?” Dathan stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles. “Cloak on.”
“Roger that.” Zayn swiveled back to the controls. “Next stop, Beta7.”
She looked at them. Niklas was studying his communicator, Dathan had closed his eyes, and Zayn was humming under his breath. They’d gone from being threatened with destruction or slavery to relaxation in a blink. Her pulse was still racing.
“How can you be so…calm?”
Dathan opened one eye. “Practice?”
“You drive me crazy!”
He closed his eye again. “Likewise, Doc.”
Ahh. She wanted to scream. Then a reluctant smile tugged at her lips. At least she wasn’t scared anymore. She studied Dathan’s relaxed, handsome face. She suspected it was exactly what he was hoping for.
But she still felt the filth of Lucifa on her skin. “I’m going to shower and change.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’d sell my soul for a shower with water.” She knew starships didn’t carry water for bathing. “Or better yet, a bath.”
“Sorry, Eos,” Zayn said. “You’ll have to make do with the UV light.”
She turned.
“Doc?”
She glanced back at Dathan.
“You’re safe now.”
Her throat tightened. “I know.”
In the tiny bathroom off her cabin, Eos stood under the warm light of the UV shower. She scrubbed and scrubbed her skin with a dry sponge, but she still didn’t feel clean. Leaning her head against the wall, she dragged air into her lungs.
You’re fine. Get a grip. She went back to scrubbing but all that ran through her head were memories of hands tearing her clothes away, fingers touching her mehndi, of standing completely exposed in a room full of people. Sobs caught in her chest, but she refused to let them out.
“Eos?”
Dathan’s quiet murmur made her jump. His big frame was a dark shadow through the clouded plastic stall.
“I can’t—” she slammed her palms against the stall “—I can’t get clean, dammit.”
He pushed open the shower door, his big body crowding in behind her. He wrapped his arms around her, his hands closing over hers, stilling them.
He smoothed a hand down her arm. “Your skin looks smooth and clean to me.”
“I keep remembering…”
He hugged her tighter, his strength so solid she couldn’t stop herself leaning into him.
“You’re safe now.”
She sucked in a ragged breath and nodded.
“It’ll stay with you for a while. You aren’t alone.”
