“Did he include a note?”
“Yes!”
“Does it involve the words ‘curling iron’?”
I growl.
“That’s a yes,” he says. “You’re bonding. Good.”
“Bonding?!This isn’t kindergarten!”
“Sable,” he says, suddenly serious, “you’re alive. You’re laughing. You’re talking to me at 4AM about hairbrushes. A week ago, you were silent and scared. So yeah. Bonding. Good.”
I hate when he makes sense.
I hang up.
I toss the phone on the couch, but it bounces off the armrest and lands facedown on the floor like it’s ashamed of me.
I stare at the brush.
My pulse flutters.
I whisper into the dark.
“Damn alien.”
I brush my fingers across the bristles. They glide like water.
“Damn thoughtful, lethal,hotalien…”
And the worst part?
I don’t even want to throw it away.
CHAPTER 8
VOLTAR
The comm buzzes low against my jaw.
Encrypted channel. Voice-only. But I know who it is before the waveform resolves.
Lazarus.
“Got a ping,” he says without greeting. “Tugun. Eyes confirmed. On-world. South sector.”
I don’t ask how he knows. Lazarus doesn’t deal in speculation.
“Timeframe?” I ask.
“Within the cycle. Maybe hours. He’s traveling light. Solo op. No chatter. It’s clean.”
“Too clean,” I mutter, crossing to the window.
The street below glitters with storefronts and hoverlamps. Sable’s apartment sits above a nail bar and a kombucha lounge that plays trance remixes of whale calls. All things considered, it’s not a bad vantage point.
But it’s too open.
