Page 40 of Crave

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She shrugged. “They haven’t shot us yet, have they?”

He inclined his head. “You are right.”

“And don’t you forget it.” Despite the arch tone, she slanted a cautious glance his way. “You don’t… You know I wasn’t really Dorn’s accomplice, right? I would never give Roxy to the pirates.”

“I believe you.” He peered at the scanners. “The real concern is whether thePratorimbelieved you. We’re small enough to evade their scanners while we’re powered down, but if we try to run, our energy signature will become immediately apparent. Whether they shoot or only run us down, either way they’d have no trouble overpowering the shuttle and seizing Roxy.”

She growled under her breath, channeling her inner orc. “So we can’t run, can’t call for help, can’tdoanything.”

“Sacrifice.”

The word drifted through the shuttle like cosmic dust, dry and dead. They both twisted in their seats to stare down back through the little ship.

“Give me,” Roxy said through the datpad. “For you.”

“Oh hell no,” Kinsley repeated. “Absolutely not. No one is getting sacrificed. Weren’t you the one who told us about together?”

“It’s never referred to itself in the first person before,” Sil murmured. “Is it discovering self-hood? Only to offer itself for us?”

“You, you, me,” Roxy said. “Together.”

“Together or not at all,” Kinsley said firmly. Under her breath, she added, “Can’t believe I picked a nerd and a pet rock for my accomplices.”

Sil gazed at her. “I believe it. Remember, you came all this way for something new.”

And she’d found it. Except she was going to lose it all. It just wasn’t fair. Right when she was finally ready to turn over a new rock…

But maybe her bad old ways had one last purpose.

“Sil.” She held out her hand, the ring winking on her thumb, and he reached back without hesitation. “What you sang to the dust, to give shape to hope, is so beautiful, truly a gift to the universe. But…could you sing a lie?”

His fingers tightened on hers. “A lie?”

“We have to give them something—”

“Kinsley, no.”

“But it doesn’t have to be something real.” She let out a hard breath. “That was my life, before. Fakery and fleeing. This time it’s going to save us.” She rose to her feet, staring down at him, defiance and uncertainty tangling in her guts. “Trust me?”

“I do.”

He did. Why? Did she deserve it? Swallowing hard, she pulled him upright, tugging him back to the cargo bay.

Roxy—well, the rock didn’t do anything in particular, but she swore it glowed brighter when they approached.

“Trickery!” It pulsed a few times.

Kinsley laughed. “We’ve created a monster. Okay, so here’s the scam…”

***

They had to work fast, too fast.

Launching without a ready plan was always a mistake, but… Her mistakes had brought her this far, hadn’t they? Maybe there was a place for mistakes after all.

Unless this particular mistake killed them all, in which case the feel-good philosophy was just another scam.

“Pratorim,” Kinsley said into the comm. “Are you receiving this?” She toggled the comm a few times for theatrical squelch, to add some realism to their not-long enough silence. “Hey,Pratorim, are you there still?”