“I’m not practicing on you.” Slipping the cutters into her pocket, she finished splicing the rest of the wires and relieved Kai of his duty. “There, we’ll see how that goes.”
“Cinder, I have nothing better to do. Literally, nothing better to do. My time on this ship has taught me that I have zero practical skills. I can’t cook. I can’t fix anything. I can’t help Cress with surveillance. I know nothing about guns or fighting, or … Mostly, I’m just a really good talker, and it turns out that’s only useful in politics.”
“Let’s not overlook your ability to make every girl swoon with just a smile.”
It seemed to take Kai a moment to hear her over his own frustration, but then his expression cleared and he grinned.
“Yep,” she said, shutting the panel. “That’s the one.”
“I mean it, Cinder. I want to be useful. I want to help.”
Sighing, she turned back to face him. Frowned. Considered.
“Wire cutters,” she said.
He tensed, a quick trace of doubt clouding his gaze. But then he lifted his chin. Trusting.
With the slightest nudge at Kai’s will, she urged his arm to reach around her and pull the wrench from her back pocket. It was no more difficult than controlling her own cyborg limbs. A mere thought, and she could have him do anything.
Kai blinked at the tool. “That’s wasn’t so bad.”
“Oh, Kai.”
He glanced at her, then back to the wrench as his hand lifted the tool up to eye level, and his fingers, no longer under his control, began to twirl the wrench—over one finger, under the other. Slow at first, then faster, until the gleaming of the metal looked like a magic trick.
Kai gaped, awestruck, but there was an edge of discomfort to it. “I always wondered how you did that.”
“Kai.”
He looked back at her, the wrench still dancing over his knuckles.
She shrugged. “It’s too easy. I could do this while scaling a mountain, or … solving really complex mathematical problems.”
He narrowed his gaze, scrutinizing her, and she felt guilty for saying it. She was about to apologize when he said, “You have a calculator in your head.”
Laughing, she released her hold on Kai’s hand. The wrench clattered to the ground. Kai jumped back then, realizing he had control of his own limb again, stooped to pick it up.
“That’s beside the point,” said Cinder. “With Wolf, there’s some challenge, some focus required, but with Earthens…”
Kai shook his head. “All right, I get it. But what can I do? I feel so useless, milling around this ship while the war is going on, and you’re all making plans, and I’m just waiting.”
She grimaced at the frustration in his tone. Kai was responsible for so many people, and she knew that he felt like he’d abandoned them, even if he hadn’t been given a choice. Even if she hadn’t given him a choice.
He’d been kind to her. Since that first argument after he’d woken up aboard the Rampion, he’d been careful not to blame her for his frustrations. It was her fault, though. He knew it and she knew it and sometimes it felt like they were caught in a dance Cinder didn’t know the steps to. Each of them avoiding this very obvious truth so that they didn’t disrupt the mutual ground they’d discovered. The all-too-uncertain happiness they’d discovered.
“The only chance we have of succeeding,” she said, “is if you can persuade Levana to host the wedding on Luna. So right now, you can be thinking about how you’re going to accomplish that.” Leaning forward, she pressed a soft kiss against his mouth. (Eighteen.) “Good thing you’re such a great talker.”