Then back at her. “Not at any cost.”
9
Phares and Jana finished their meal in relative peace, speaking about comparisons between Jana’s world and the ship. Mostly she asked questions about how life in the Guild worked.
They were simple questions. Easy ones.
Yet it felt like as she asked, she snuck deeper into his subconscious.
He was still awestruck that she had come at his parental with a falta slicer. Not that she realized what it would do. She had claimed she thought it was just a wrench of some sort.
She didn’t realize as soon as she picked it up, the slicer activated, ready to strip away anything it touched.
Including Shoval if she would have hit him with it.
Conflict hit him hard over the whole incident.
What if she would have hurt his parental? Or worse? He kept glancing at her while they sat there eating. Would she have killed Shoval? Intentionally?
For him? He doubted it.
Hit him? Swung on him, she was certainly ready to do that, but outright kill? He didn't think so. She didn’t seem to have that part of her.
But her immediate defense of him had touched his soul in a way not many other things had in a long while.
She leaned back into the couch and yawned. The way she ran her hands through her hair and stretched as well, it illustrated her exhaustion.
Unfortunately, it also seemed to ignite his already simmering Fever. The Fever's intensity had ebbed and flowed upon meeting her. At some moments, it was powerful and intense, and at others, it was merely calm and just a soft craving in the back of his mind.
Right now, though, watching her shift and stretch, he felt it roar under his skin.
"I--You need some rest," Phares said, his voice raspy.
She nodded. "I was just thinking about that. I pretty much got here just a few hours ago. It has been a rather crazy day.”
“I bet it has been.”
“This morning, I was waiting for my boyfriend to get home from his work trip, and now I’m here.”
“Who is this boyfriend of yours? Is that the ex you spoke of?”
She nodded. “We were together for two years. I thought we were exclusive together. He had a job that took him away a lot. I would, well, do my thing, and when he came back, we would be together. Then I found out that I’m the biggest idiot in the world.”
“I would not say that,” he said.
She raised her eyebrow. “I thought we had a special relationship, and he’d given me a ring, which was like a promise to wed, and I assumed that he was as devoted to me as I was to him. I was wrong. Very wrong.”
“What was his purpose to dishonor you like that?”
“That’s the question. I don’t know. I’ll probably never know unless I wake up from this coma. And even then, he probably would never tell me.”
Phares sighed. She still thought she was in a dream state.
“What would you do if you were not?”
“Not to find out?” She shrugged. “Move on, I guess.”
“No. What if you are not in a coma, and this is all real?”
