Page 27 of C is for Captive

“No.”

“And apparently Thressk has the coordinates, but he hasn’t been there.”

“Not yet.”

They looked at each other. Then he planted a big hand against the deck, and her eyes narrowed.

“No.” He paused, and she glared at him. “You were unconscious for six hours.”

“I need to see what Krebb kept in the ship’s records.”

“You need to stop bleeding.”

“Amy—”

“The settlement on Valkesh has been sitting abandoned for who knows how long. It can manage another few hours without you.”

He stared at her. She stared back.

He could simply stand up. It wasn’t as if she could physically stop him. He settled back against the bulkhead instead.

“Good.” Satisfaction flickered across her face. “You’re learning.”

A growl moved low in his chest, and she smiled. The sound changed into something uncomfortably like a purr before he could stop it, and her smile faltered. For one long moment neither of them said anything. Then she picked up the wet cloth again.

“So what happens when you’re well enough to start being unbearably stubborn again?”

“I find the coordinates, and I go there to see if Valkesh has something to do with my mother’s people.”

“Then we⁠—”

“No.” The refusal came out harder than he intended, and her hand stopped halfway to his temple. “First I take you somewhere safe. Somewhere the Grorn don’t reach and no one calls you a runaway slave. Then I go.”

She tilted her head. “Where are you going to take me?”

He opened his mouth, and found nothing there. He’d spent twenty years drifting between ports that would sell you to your own hunters for the right price. He had no world. No family he trusted to protect her and no debt he could call in and no quiet corner of the galaxy where he could set her down and trust it to keep her safe.

He’d said somewhere safe as though such a place were a thing he could reach out and pluck from a shelf, and it wasn’t. She saw the realization cross his face before he could hide it.

“You don’t have anywhere like that, do you?” she asked quietly.

“I’ll find⁠—”

“Where, Brannik? Name it. One place. One name.”

He had nothing. Her lips curved into a small smile, something both gentle and stubborn.

“You don’t have anywhere either. Neither of us does. That’s the truth of it.” She set the cloth down and straightened her shoulders. “So I’m coming with you.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Amy.” He leaned towards her. Pain lanced through his ribs, but he ignored it. “You don’t understand what the Grorn are like. If they take you⁠—”

“Then they’ll take me from a ship instead of a kitchen. I’ve been taken before.”

She said it flatly, and it stopped him dead.