Chapter Three
Allie touched her lip, feeling the salt sting as the cut opened up a little. “This is a stupid plan,” she complained.
“If it doesn’t work, it has the advantage of not getting us in any more trouble than we’d get in for an old-fashioned bar fight,” Shank said from the next cell over. He and Ben were in one cell; she was in the other with Copta and Becca.
Rough Shade Station didn’t have many jail cells. Still, it seemed unfair that the other half of their bar fight had gotten to walk out.
Somehow Allie suspected that a lack of cell space had less to do with that than the fact that the asshole who’d hit on her had been rich. Stupid rich.
“I have never been in a bar fight before,” Copta said regretfully. “I have never been in any fight.”
“You still haven’t,” Allie said.
Copta drew herself up. “I took a swing at the man.”
“At the policeman,” Allie said. “Not at the assholes trying to kill us.”
Ben put his feet up on the brick wall. His hands were already tucked under his head as he lay on the bunk, and he looked ready to go to sleep. “You didn’t have to be quite so good at pissing him off, Grah.”
“It worked,” Allie pointed out. Her job had been to get the biggest, most powerful dick on station interested right before turning him down in the most humiliating way possible. She’d actually enjoyed that part. The fight that followed when Shank and Ben had leaped to her defense had been less fun. She might know how to handle herself in a fight, but that didn’t mean she liked it. She touched her split lip again.
“You okay?” Shank moved to the bars and tilted his head to the side. He’d lost one of his hair ties, so his dark braid was starting to unravel from the bottom. She wanted to reach out and capture it, rebraid it, and feel his cool, silky hair slip between her fingers.
“Fine,” she said.
“If your people don’t come, Command is going to make us all go to psych evaluations,” Becca said to Shank.
“Yep,” Ben agreed amiably.
“Good thing my people will come,” Shank answered with that same cocky arrogance he always had.
God, but Allie wanted him.
Yet every time she tried to move closer, she could feel that dark cloud gathering around her. She’d never felt so helpless when it came to her own sexual choices. She hated it. Hell, maybe a few weeks on a psych rotation would improve her mental health. They could glue her back together long enough for her to get home, and then she could have a completely private breakdown. She could lie in the bed she’d slept in as a teenager and think of all the faces that would chase her through her nightmares.
“Shank,” she said. His hungry gaze made her feel even worse. She was hurting, but she was also wounding him deeply every time she turned away. She closed her eyes to avoid seeing the pain she was causing.
“Allie?”
Allie nodded.Right, back on track. “You called them families.”
“Yeah?”
“As in more than one family,” she pointed out. A sinking feeling gathered in the pit of her stomach. Why had her logic failed her up to now—when they were locked behind bars with no way to stop the plan?
“I know you’re not suggesting that my family is responsible for every pirate ship out there,” he said with some humor.
“Are they all family ships?” Ben asked before Allie could get to her real question.
“Mostly.” Shank glanced toward Ben before turning back to study Allie. “Ships that aren’t crewed up by family find it hard to split the takings. How much goes for ship upgrades? How much does each crew member get? How does the ship recruit? Families can deal with that sort of strain, but nonfamily crews usually end up shooting each other.”
“Lovely,” Becca said softly.
