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“Good. And while you’re doing that, think about what I said. Sloane won’t wait around forever. Do you really want to see her move on with a new partner?”

“I’ll be in touch.” Dallin ended the call and squeezed his eyes shut.

He had messed up with Sloane. She’d put up with all his shit for so long, but even she had her limits. But how could he make this right? Pushing Sloane away was his default position.

Dallin rolled his shoulders. He had to focus on finding the antidote.

He heard footsteps hurry up the docking ramp, and his pulse pounded as Sloane appeared.

She cocked one hip, her glare icy. “We need to talk.”

***

Sloane didn’t missthe shock in Dallin’s eyes before he turned away. “What do you want to talk about?” he said.

“As if you can’t guess.” She glared at Dallin’s back.

“I’m surprised to see you so soon.”

“Did you really think I’d spend my time enjoying the pleasure cruiser while you killed yourself trying to find an antidote?”

“I thought you’d appreciate the break.” He still wasn’t looking at her.

“Cut the bull crap, Dallin. You gave up on me. You cut me loose because you didn’t think I was good enough to work with.”

He turned back to face her. “No! That’s not it. How are you feeling?”

“Angry. At you.” Her gaze went to the analyzer. “What have you got in there?”

“Station security found some poison canisters. It’s the source of the Siblet attack.”

She couldn’t help but smile, despite how mad she was. “That’s amazing! Can you get an antidote from it?”

“That’s the plan. I’ve only just started the work. It’ll take two hours to get the results back.”

“What can I do to help speed things up?”

“Nothing, for now. We have to wait for the poison components to be pulled apart. Once that’s done, it’ll need spinning through the centrifuge. Then we can reverse engineer the antidote.”

Sloane reached for a canister, but Dallin grabbed it. “They could still be dangerous.”

She jabbed a finger at her chest. “I’m already poisoned.”

“You don’t want an extra dose. It could make you worse.”

Sloane glared at him, but stepped out of his way as he hurried around, storing away the canisters and checking the analyzer.

“The amounts I found in the canisters are tiny, but it should be enough.” Dallin was working hard at doing anything other than looking at her. She hoped he felt guilty about what he’d done to her.

“So there’s nothing to do until the analysis is done?” Sloane asked.

Dallin turned to her, his eyes narrowing as if he suspected she was up to something. “That’s right. We could patrol the waystation if you’re feeling up to it, to make sure there are no more mutant beasts lurking about.”

“I’m sure station security has that in hand.” Sloane held in a smile.

“They do. The guard who alerted me to the poison canisters seems competent. She has a team working for her.”

“So we’ve got time to kill?” She arched an eyebrow.