“No problem. You never did like to stay in one place.” He handed a flask to Rico. “For the journey home—your little captain looks like she needs a drink.”
Rico turned to her, his brows drawing together. “You okay?” His gaze ran down over her, snagging on her arm. “You’ve been hit?”
“It’s nothing. I’ll see to it on the ship.”
“Okay, let’s go then.”
Tannis could feel her anger rising as they sped through the darkness. Her arm hurt where she’d caught the laser blast, and her head throbbed.
No one put her crew at risk.
She was an idiot, and this whole thing had been a huge mistake. Just like everyone had told her. Why couldn’t she have listened to them and never picked the bastard up? He probably didn’t think it mattered if her crew were hurt. He probably thought of them as expendable. Hell, he probably thought of her as expendable.
Or why couldn’t she have listened to Rico and tossed him out the airlock?
“Stop grinding your teeth. There are people trying to sleep back here.” Rico was in the rear with Skylar, while Jon was beside Tannis, swigging from the flask. She occasionally felt his eyes on her.
“He wasn’t going for a blowjob.”
“What?”
“You know I said at the ship that Callum was going for sex. Well he wasn’t.”
Tannis glanced sideways at him. “Why would I care?”
“You do care, and I still think this whole job is a mistake, and I still hate his guts, and I still think he’s an arrogant asshole, but he wasn’t going for sex.”
“Christ, the last thing I need is relationship advice from Mr. I-Want-To-Be-Alone.”
“I’ve changed,” Jon said virtuously. “I’ve found the love of a good woman, and I am a changed man.”
“Jesus.” She cast him an incredulous glare. “What is that you’re drinking?”
“Excellent stuff,” Rico said. “Sardi might be a complete bastard, but he knows where to get good liquor.”
But Jon was right. He had changed. It was hard to believe this was the same person they’d broken out of the high-security prison on Trakis One only six weeks ago. He’d been a hard and embittered man who made his living killing people, until he’d been caught up in the machinations of the Collective. He’d been a loner, the last person she would ever have expected to fall in love, and especially not with someone like Alex. But if Jon could change, maybe she could as well. Wasn’t there hope for everyone?
But even if she were to overcome her fears, there could never be any future for her and Callum Meridian. One day, he would presumably return to his job as Leader of the Universe, at which point their worlds were unlikely to cross again, even if she succeeded in getting the Meridian treatment. The best she could hope for was maybe he’d send her one of those mind messages every once in a while, for old time’s sake.
He could have any woman he wanted. Why would he want her?
Shit. She couldn’t believe she was thinking like this. She must be imbibing fumes from that flask. Still, she couldn’t resist the question.
“What was he going for then?”
Jon shrugged. “Who knows?”
Did it really matter? He was a liability, a selfish bastard who thought of nothing but himself. He’d put Rico and Jon at risk and then the rest of the crew. No amount of money was worth risking the lives of her crew for an outsider.
“It doesn’t matter.” Suddenly, she felt tired. “It’s finished.”
She’d find another way to earn the money. Though once she’d pissed off Callum, as she fully intended to do as soon as they got back to El Cazador, she could probably kiss her chances of being accepted into the Collective good-bye. She sighed.
“Here.” Jon handed her the flask. “You sound like you need this.”
She unscrewed the top and took a sip of the smoky liquid. It burned her throat, settled in her belly like fire. She took another swallow.
As the alcohol went through her system, the anger started to rise again. She liked the anger much better than the self-pity. By the time the speeder came to a halt beside El Cazador, she’d emptied the flask and managed to build herself up into a fine rage.
She stalked up the ramp, through the docking bay, up the next ramp, and found them in the conference room. Their heads close together, Alex and Janey were talking, Alex with a blaster resting across her lap. Callum sat across the room. He looked relaxed, unworried, and her fury ratcheted a notch.
He rose slowly as Tannis strode into the room. Closing the distance between them, she eyed him and tried to tell herself she shouldn’t do this. And failed.
Coming to a halt in front of him, she drew back her fist and punched him on the nose. He collapsed into the chair behind him, more from shock probably than the strength of her blow.
She stared down at him. He returned her gaze with those glowing eyes, and she had to force herself not to be sucked into their depths.