“You and what?”
Jana grabbed one of the metal tools that was propped up next to the toolbox. “Me!” she said, brandishing the heavy thing like a baseball bat, ready to swing.
The male turned to her. “You and, whoa. Put that down.”
She held it aloft and was ready to swing. “And what are you going to do?”
“Jana, wait.” Phares stepped between them. “Just go. I’ll deal with you later.”
“You don’t get to deal with me. I deal with you,” he snarled.
Jana blinked and took another step forward, brandishing the tool again. “Go on, get out of here.” She swung the device around.
The new male stepped back. “Control that thing,” he said, gesturing to Jana, before he turned and walked out.
Phares groaned and hit a panel next to the door.
Locking it, Jana guessed.
He turned back to her. “Please, can you hand me that?”
“Sure,” she said, swinging the bat-tool thing around.
It grazed the edge of the couch as she did.
And it sliced the couch arm clean off.
Jana froze. “Um…” She thought the thing was like a big tire iron or something. She stared, unable to fathom what she had just done. “Uh, is that supposed to do that?”
“Cut furniture into pieces? No. No, it is not.”
He took it from her. “This is a falta slicer. It’s designed to slice off chunks of rock and minerals to break apart clogs or dangers.”
“If I had swung that on him, I would have…” her gaze darted to the couch arm that was lying on the floor.
“My parental would have been in pieces on the floor.”
She gasped. “I’m sorry. I just—I didn’t like how he was talking to you.”
Phares shook his head. “That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
Jana raised her eyebrow.
Well, there was so much to unpack in that, wasn’t there?
* * *
After that male,his parental, left, Jana unpacked her new clothes and toiletries and put them in drawers in the apartment. She’d been surprised to see that storage drawers were everywhere, but she just hadn’t seen them when she first entered.
The couch she’d destroyed had not been quite as bad as she first thought because Phares was able to put the arm back on easily with one of his other tools in his kit.
He did make a rule, though.
She couldn’t touch his tools without permission.
Considering she’d thought one was basically a tire iron, and it turned out to be a lethal cutting tool, she figured that was a fair rule.
After, they both settled on the couch, and he brought out some food for them.
