11.1
Anya balls up her tiny fist and eyes the punching bag, squinting as if it personally offended her, and lands a rather off-balance punch. I bite the inside of my cheek.
“Lock your thumb over the outside of your knuckles.”
She looks at her fist and stares at me as if I’ve spoken another language. From the little hanging cot over the console, Bat snickers.
“Shush,” she tells him, unbothered.
Taking her hand, I adjust her fist and tap her knuckle, “Aim to hit with this part of your hand, straighten your wrist.”
“What in the world are you doing?”
I glance over my shoulder and my face burns. Yvonne is standing in the doorway of my bunk room, fresh out of the shower, curly hair casting water to the floor, wearing nothing more than a towel. This is the second time she’s done this to me and I’m no less embarrassed. Maybe her kissing me should’ve fixed that, but somehow it’s worse now. I’m not just an inhuman cyborg to her anymore—perhaps I never was, but I didn’t know that—and she’s still here flashing her thighs at me. Zane and Lalia better not be giggling about it in the other room.
“She uh…wanted to know how to punch,” I say. “It’s good physical therapy.”
Anya punches the bag with slightly more success and grins. I have it set on the floor, against the wall, but it’s a hard bag—maybe I should hang it up so it has some give.
Yvonne raises an eyebrow. She doesn’t look annoyed. Instead, there’s that irritating oh you’re so cute when you bond with my sister expression. It’s hard to be self-conscious when she does that, and being self-conscious is my specialty. I don’t appreciate her messing with it. She grins and chews on her lip.
Heavens help me. “Hey, she found the punching bag under my bed and irritated me within an inch of my life about it. Take it up with her.”
“I’m ten, I’m not responsible for my actions,” Anya says primly.
I level a glare at her she doesn’t appear to notice. Zane’s laugh echoes from my bunk room. Against his weak arguments, I insisted he still takes the most proper bed in the tiny ship. He’s healing quite nicely if I do say so myself, and the pretty nasty burns are fading into barely-noticeable scars. They’re still there, but I consider it a small win he’s no less of a flirt.
Lalia is giving herself a haircut in the bathroom. We’re perhaps a day out from Zar, and I’m trying my very best not to panic about it. If I consider anything else, I can keep myself distracted. I’ve been very confident up to this point, there’s no reason to crawl into a fetal position about it now.
“Don’t damage those new hands,” Yvonne says, and disappears back into the bathroom, taking her bare legs with her.
“Please, I have a better chance of breaking my hands than she does,” I say, then frown at Anya’s form. “But still, stand better. You’re killing me.”
I nudge her bare feet into a better stance and her elbows up until her fists are blocking her face.
“How long until we get there?” she asks. “I wanna see Zar, I’ve read about it.”
“Tomorrow, probably. And you better stay with us and not talk to anyone.”
She puffs out her bottom lip.
“It’s a dangerous place. The only reason I’m taking you out with me is because I feel better having you along than leaving you in the ship. Because I know your sister and leaving her unsupervised scares me—”
“Hah!” comes Yvonne’s scoff from the other room.
“—And I’m not even sure taking you along is a great idea.”
“Are we gonna stand out?”
“I will, you shouldn’t. As long as you keep those glasses on you bought on Hytha.”
“Are you gonna get in a fight again?”
I glance at her. I’ve been to Zar before. It wasn’t a terrible experience…most of the time. “I can almost guarantee it.”
Anya grins.
“But there usually aren’t many cyborgs there and basically no authorities—punching humans isn’t hard.”
She giggles.
“You know, you’re human, you shouldn’t laugh,” I say, and poke her in the nose.
“Yeah, but I’m wonderful.”
Yvonne appears with actual clothes on this time. Her hair is wild, sticking every direction. I pretend not to stare at her too much as she wanders to the kitchen and goes through my cabinets. If I don’t think too hard about how after Zar, we’ll be trying to find a way to get them home, it doesn’t bother me so much. Still, I’m catching myself staring at her as much as I find her staring at me. I don’t know if she notices, but I’m embarrassing myself anyway.
“So,” Yvonne says, turning on her heel and smirking. “Teaching my baby sister to shoot guns and punch properly. Picking locks next?”
“Nah, I figured you’re solid on teaching her the criminal activity.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“No? So when we get to Neyla Ve I’m fine telling your parents everything you’ve been up to in the past few months?”
Her eyebrow quirks, but she’s doing a good enough job of keeping a straight face. “If, and that’s a major if, you have the balls to start telling my parents things about me, have at it. I’m gonna start repeating things about you.”
Anya giggles.
I snort. “That doesn’t matter much. They’re going to hate my guts the moment they meet me, you’re hardly gonna make it worse based on anything you’ve seen me do.”
“They will not hate your guts.” She settles on a bag of cookies we picked up when last we stopped for fuel.
I give her a look, but she seems to know better than to push it.
Anya, however, does not. “Mom and Dad like cyborgs.”
Cute kid. So innocent. “Do I look like other cyborgs you know, little princess?”
She side-eyes me, so at least the snarky tone stuck. She mutters, “They better like you.”
Yvonne and I exchange glances. It isn’t much use arguing. We both know I won’t be sticking around for long once we get the two royals back home. As long as Captain lives and breathes, I’ll be treating Neyla Ve like I treat Amerov.
In and out. We’ll drop them off and leave. Head for uncharted space at top speed.
I try not to think about how that makes my chest hurt.
* * *
Zar is one hell of a city. Floating free of any star and made of no organic planet, the drifting amalgamation of buildings, scaffoldings, and ship ports is large enough to be its own little moon. It’s a massive endeavor—and I still don’t quite understand how it exists—and right now is caught in the gravitational pull of another blue star small and collapsing in on itself, still plenty safe in any of our lifetimes.
If the company that runs the port ever decides to leave, there are apparently thrusters built into the core strong enough to get it out of this star’s pull. I don’t know if it’s true, it seems ridiculous, and it’s never happened in my lifetime or in any of the texts I’ve read about it. But it’s a cool thing to think about.
“We should buy a new pod here,” Bat says, bouncing on the console, then moving to the port window along the side as we descend toward the cracked shape of the floating city.
Zar is a great place to buy stuff. Just as it’s good for finding someone to test my DNA who won’t care what I’m up to and won’t be reporting any of us to Amerov, this place is good for getting ships that won’t be tracked. Technically, no shipyard is supposed to put tracking on their vessels, but plenty of places do.
It’s the reason Yvonne decided to leave Amethyst with us instead of buying a ship there. Captain would’ve known in an instant. She could buy one here, no problem.
So could we.
“Let’s see how this goes first. If there’s no drama, it won’t hurt to check it out.”
“There are shipyards here?” Zane asks, wandering out from the bunk room, yawning and rubbing his middle.
I squint at him. He’s healed enough to be wandering around with us. Probably. Even if he isn’t, I don’t think I’d win that fight. He’d just follow us.
“Plenty. Maybe you can get Miss Moneybags back there to buy you one.”
Zane snorts but glances back at the princess. She doesn’t appear to be listening. One way or another, we’re going to have to find the siblings a new craft. Even if they end up being related to me and I’m stuck with them, I don’t want them constantly in my little ship. This thing is meant for two people at the most. We still haven’t even solved the bed problem.
Even if I admit to myself I enjoy their company—which I don’t have to, at least not out loud—they really need their own space.
After we get the bounty on Yvonne, I won’t have a problem getting them a new ship. A few months ago, the idea of sharing my hard-earned bounty with any human would’ve made me queasy. Now, it’s barely a passing thought and doesn’t bother me. In fact, the idea makes me want to grin. It would surprise the hell out of both of them.
Zane is bouncing his leg, eyes on the approaching shimmer of lights and metal. They’ve been extra quiet since we left Hytha. Extra nervous. For the first time, we’re heading right in the direction of concrete proof. Maybe my cynical attitude and snippy remarks have finally gotten to them and they’re considering what we’re going to do if there’s nothing tying us together. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m certain they have, despite all their cheerful proclamations otherwise, but I haven’t decided what will happen after this. It’s a strange blocking point, and I can’t see past it and don’t know what will happen after it.
Weirdly enough, I’m not as nervous as I expected to be. It’s been a few months, and I can’t imagine myself as anyone but their brother, even if they dragged me into it kicking and screaming.
Still not going to admit anything of the sort to any of them.