Page 89 of Claiming Sarah

“I believe she wouldtry. I do not believe she would succeed. Not like I would.” Lanai Dea never had faith in anything but herself. Not that I blamed her.

“If you helped me down here, then this would go a lot faster,” I suggested.

“The wiring is torn, and you are as capable as I of the repairs,” she told me.

I wished I had her confidence. I knew how to do the work, but I had not done such things since the academy. “Fine. Guard the people.”

“Of course.” Her feet left the small space where I could see them.

I could have ordered her to help me, but there was no point to such a thing. Lanai was right—I could do the repairs. But something about doing the work myself felt wrong. I had people I paid to do such things. Just my luck, Treg was not on board.

No, not luck.

Someone must have known my engineer was not with us. As I worked on the repairs, I mulled over whether I thought it was conduits or one of Rex’s men who’d sabotaged the ship. I hadn’t noticed any absences among them, but I had been distracted by…well, a lot. It was not beyond the realm of possibilities that one of them was behind the vandalism.

Or Augur.

“Got it sorted out yet, my boy?” Rex asked.

At the sound of my nemesis’ voice, I dropped my wrench and it fell, hitting me in the forehead. I growled before I said, “Not yet and I’m not your boy.”

“Well, that makes sense, I suppose,” Rex mused. “I’m still not sure why you’re not letting one of my men do the work under there. They are as skilled with a bone knife as they are with a driver.”

I rolled out on the backskate and looked up at him. “I would sooner let the jem’hora work on my ship.” Then I immediately rolled back under.

“I told you before that my men had nothing to do with this,” Rex said.

“And I told you that I don’t care what you swear to me. I don’t even care if you believe what you’re saying. Your men are not touching my ship.”

“You’ve always had a difficult time with other men handling your things, Deacon,” he said, clearly a double entendre. “Seems to be a pattern with you.”

I prayed to the moons to make my wrench go from steel to bone, just so I had something in my hand to stab him with. But nothing happened. Not that I was surprised, but Iwasdisappointed.

Then, I went back to work. “You can leave now, Rex.”

“Capital idea,” he said too cheerfully. “I should walk back to Faithless, get one of my superior ships, and deliver a mechanic for you. Perhaps, while you yell at him about the wiring, I can take Sarah for a ride. I’m sure I could show her all kinds of things.On Halla, I mean.”

He did not meanon Halla. “Fuck off.”

“Am I distracting you?” he asked, deliberately irritating me. “Far be it for me to do such a thing, my boy. But no amountof concentration will aid you in the repairs. You’ve never been handy—that’s why you hire out. Do the reasonable thing and let someone help you, before your union dies of thirst.”

“We have been out here for less than half a day, and…” I rolled on the backskate once more, glaring up at him. “I do not need to explain myself to you, Rex. Leave me alone.” Back under the ship I went.

“While you may not need to explain yourself to me, you may want to consider explaining yourself to your union.” Amusement threaded his voice. “They are agitated.”

“Let me guess,” I muttered. “You’rethe agitator?”

“Not everything is my fault.”

“Justgo,” I said irritably. “Go flirt with Sarah, go find a dreck to hunt, I don’t care, just leave!”

Sarah’s little feet walked up and stood next to Rex. “Why should he? Are you going to kill himagain, if he doesn’t do what you want?”

The wrench fell out of my hand once again. My mouth went completely dry. I was no longer tethered to Halla by gravity, as the ground slipped out from beneath me. I rolled the backskate out from beneath the ship again, and looked up at her from where I was laying on the device.

“What did you say?” I asked cautiously, praying I’d misheard her.

Jac had become curious and joined Sarah by the ship, as she said, “You heard me, Deacon. I asked if you were going to kill Rexagain.”

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