Page 53 of Sloane

My eyebrows shoot up high on my head to hear her talk to Phial like she isn't scared at all. Yeah, she's still in the nest. But her voice is louder than it was when she talked with me, and she isn't trying to hide the tears that are falling. Phial tapson the glass once, and I watch as the glass of the dome goes transparent.

I have all of half a second to see the inside of the dome, filled to the brim with blankets, pillows, and dark feathers that look to be the same color as the ones on Phial's head. Sitting in the middle, staring up at Phial with red-rimmed eyes and a flushed face, is Avery.

I stare at the closed bedroom door for a while, trying to decide what to do with this new information. In the end, I walk to the kitchen. I told Essa earlier that I'd meet her when I finished talking with Avery.

I can't help but smile as I watch Essa lean over the food synthesizer and choose something else to make. Her tail lashes back and forth as she works. The counters are filled with ingredients that I won't even pretend to know the name of. Some of them kind of look like flour, others are various liquids, and I'm pretty sure one of them is wiggling about in the bowl like it's synthetically alive.

"Oh, good, you're here," Essa says as she looks over her shoulder. "I've decided you're going to make the new human some cookies. It will make her feel better, I'm sure."

"Essa," I say gently with my hands on my hips as I look at everything she has laid out already.

She turns to face me, her hands wiping against her cargo pants. Her tail moves quicker down by her calves, the tip twitching in agitation. This is the only thing she can think of to help right now, and it's making me realize how helpless she feels in this situation. She treats caring for the females on this ship the same as her actual job as the ship's medic. It makes sense she'd want to do anything she can to help Avery.

I swallow down the emotion that's begging to spill from me and decide we're going to make something inedible, but it'll helpmy friend feel better. Maybe we'll get lucky, and something will taste somewhat decent.

"You have to try every batch we make." I shoot her a wicked grin, and she lets out a small sigh of relief. Her shoulders slump, but then she's back, flicking through the food synthesizer for more stuff.

"I think I have made all the ingredients you could need," Essa says, looking over at the counter overflowing with different foods. "None of it is what you normally use, but we can figure it out, yes?"

"Yeah." I nod and try to take stock of our options. "We can make something out of this. Worst case scenario, we tell Phial the mother wants him to try them all."

Essa throws her head back and laughs. I smile back at her and start working on what will surely be a massacre of perfectly good ingredients.

twenty-two

Sloane

"I've finally heard back from the Intergalactic Alliance," Alik says as he enters the kitchen.

Jovi has me perched in his lap, and Essa is busy fiddling with the food synthesizer to get me to try yet another delicacy from her planet. I'm starting to wonder if she doesn't miss her home more than she lets on, considering she wants me to know everything about it and talks about visiting it constantly. If I didn't know what waited for her, if she did return, I'd be pushing us to visit instead of camping out in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the Intergalactic Alliance to tell us what to do next.

"It's about time," Essa spins around. Her ponytail flies around when she turns too quickly. She smooths the hair back down and then turns a discerning gaze on Alik. "What did they say? I enjoy having more females on the crew, but Avery needs medical help I can't provide on this ship."

For the last week, we've been suspended in a sea of darkness while we waited for Alik's contact at the Intergalactic Alliance Sentient Smuggling Department to reach back out to us. This entire mission was to recapture Avery and steal the data from the smuggler's ship when we did. After we finished that part we were supposed to head back to Earth, but we were told to wait.

As much as I would love to be one of the ones to take down a whole huge smuggling operation, we're just one piece of a bigger effort. So, we did our job, got the data to the Intergalactic Alliance, and now need to know where to take Avery.

They accepted the data the same day Alik sent it over to them via a comm link. After they received their data, they told us to hang tight because there were some interoffice issues about what to do with Avery. She's not the first human to be smuggled off Earth, and there's a whole department looking into the disappearances.

The two departments are struggling to decide who's taking point on Avery's case and whether Avery is safer on Earth or on another planet. If it's another planet, they need to secure her identification papers, which is hard to do since she's only offered her first name.

Right now, our crew has been hired to keep her safe and hidden. They've told me it's not the first time they've been told to take an asset out into the middle of space and wait for the Intergalactic Alliance to call them back. It's the first time they've been told they can go wherever they want with her so long as she remains safe, though. We're hoping that the Intergalactic Alliance will allow us back on Earth at some point so she can get the help she needs.

Alik comes to stand next to Jovi and, without even asking or saying anything, grabs me around my waist, pulls me into his arms, and settles in a different seat with me on his lap. I let out a long giggle. I'm not surprised at all that he wants my attentionas soon as he's near me. I'm even less surprised that Jovi just lets me go. He shakes his head with a smile on his lips but then leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest.

Alik doesn't react like he's done anything at all. Just gets himself comfortable underneath me before telling us what the next part of our mission is.

"Good news and bad news," Alik says, his hands tensing on my hips as he says it. "What do you want first?"

"Bad news first," Essa grumbles. "Best to get it over with. Should Holoth and Phial be here for it?"

"I told them before I came in here. We'll need Sloane to tell Avery as soon as Phial tells us whether or not she's willing to have visitors."

I chew on my lips, remembering how I barely said anything to Avery the one time she allowed me in Phial's room. Phial told me I shouldn't take it personally since Avery's still getting used to feeling safe on the ship, and it's hard for her when she's still wearing the torture implements that the other aliens put on her. Not to mention the fact that her entire biological DNA was altered, and she's still getting used to that.

Holoth's been on edge constantly since Avery joined the crew, and he tells us it's because her hormones are interacting with his. If the Intergalactic Alliance doesn't get back to us soon, he's going to have to be dropped off on another planet to be put into a coma since he's pretty sure he has a rut coming on. As far as we can all tell, Avery isn't affected by him. Which is good because we aren't sure what to do with her if she goes into heat.

"Okay, bad news then," I say, running my fingers over Alik's arms, which are still wrapped around my waist. He's holding me close to him like he never wants to let me go. If he had his way, he'd always be touching me.

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