“Then you’re naïve,” she said as she finished clasping up her clothes.
He shook his head and brushed his dark hair out of his face. “Instead of removing the defects, you force the victims to protect themselves. That makes no sense.”
“Listen, our people are not perfect. Every race has their problems. Don’t get me started on some of those other humanoids out there beyond the Terran boarders. And we Terrans are emotional and irrational, and occasionally greedy. Some want riches. Others just want to control people.”
“What do you want?”
“To survive.” Because really, that’s all she ever wanted, when it was all said and done. If stealing secrets for the Emperor was how she would survive, that’s what she did. If right now, her survival depended on finding the Imperial Princesses, then that was what she did.
She paused in her march away. “Which way?”
“To what?” Wrathin asked. “Where are you going?”
“To find the princesses. Get off this rock.”
It was a dramatic exit.
Probably not the smartest thing to do on an alien world, in the dark, with no idea exactly which way she needed to go, but she wasn’t stupid.
They’d been heading in this direction for most of their hike.
Odds were, it was still the right direction to go.
She didn’t look back to see if Wrathin was still stammering over her words and the body armor—it would only take a few minutes before he’d reached her again, anyway.
She glanced at him as he met her pace. “Did you run? Or is your stride just that big.”
He didn’t look at her. “I might have hurried.”
He gestured to an area to the right a bit. There was a more carved path there, and a bit more had been cleared out, leaving room for them to walk side by side.
“Who hurt you?” Wrathin asked.
She blinked. “Pardon?”
“Were you harmed by the defects?” he asked, his voice quiet.
“What, no,” she lied.
Wrathin’s white eyes glared back at her. Like he knew she was lying.
She kept walking. She didn’t need to respond or even stare at him. She knew what he looked like. Instead, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a ration. Held the bar up to Wrathin, but he declined, so she opened it.
She wasn’t starving, but she had to do something for a moment to gather her thoughts.
She took a couple bites. Chewed slowly.
And decided what it was she wanted to tell him.
The automatic response was to immediately tell him one of her cover stories—the fabrications she’s created over the years to get a specific emotional response from her companions. She had plenty, depending on what she needed. All of them designed for particular outcomes. Based on real things that happened to her—because emotional vulnerability was not easy to fake—she elaborated on some particulars and other specific details to get the desired results.
Wrathin, while cyborg, was still a male. Males had certain triggers.
Vulnerability card was always a good play.
She glanced up at the trees. At the animals high in the branches that zoomed about in the darkness, making shadows dance in the sky.
While she had no doubt she could get Wrathin to do or say whatever she wanted, it still wouldn’t get her off this rock any faster. And getting off the rock was how she would find the princesses.
