If he could stand to look at her?
Her shoulders rounded as she shrank into herself, stung more than she wanted to admit by the careless words. “It’s like English is your second language,” she said. “And your native tongue is Jackass.”
His head snapped up. “What?”
She fisted her gloved hands until the leather creaked, but it didn’t stop the ache growing inside her chest. She shouldn’t have shared her story with him. It hadn’t changed anything. All she’d done was give him the power to hurt her. “Should I be flattered that the Great Doran Spaulding can bring himself to look upon my tattoos?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Just get out,” she said, jabbing a finger at the door. “You’re not going to ruin my shower the way you ruin everything else.”
He shook his head in contempt and pushed to standing. As he passed by, he mumbled, “I don’t know why I bother trying.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” she said. “I’m downgrading you from cohort to accessory.”
“You can kiss my accessory.”
“In your dreams!”
The washroom door slammed shut, but the argument wasn’t over. At least not in Solara’s head. She cursed Doran while yanking off her shirt and throwing it against the wall. Then she did the same with her clothes and boots until she stood naked in nothing but her fingerless gloves. She studied the worn leather and chewed her bottom lip before tearing the casings off and tossing them onto the pile. As much as she wanted to banish his voice, she couldn’t help wondering if he was right.
Had she given the ink too much power?
Standing beneath a steaming spray of water, she used one hand to wet her hair while holding up the other for inspection. Soon the heat reddened her skin and reminded her of sentencing day, when the Enforcers had marked her. The law entitled her to topical painkiller, but that hadn’t stopped her knuckles from swelling too large to fit inside her gloves. She’d returned to the group home with no way to hide her shame. The other orphans had known better than to ask questions, but they’d whispered when her back was turned. Even worse was knowing how deeply she’d disappointed Sister Agnes, who’d blamed herself for teaching Solara mechanics in the first place. She would never forget the humiliation of wearing her mistakes on both hands like a flashing beacon for the whole world to see.
As punishments went, this one was effective—with plenty of power all its own.
“Screw you, Doran,” she muttered under her breath. As usual, he didn’t know his ass from his elbow.
She squeezed a dollop of shampoo into her palm, but before she had a chance to put it in her hair, her body lurched forward and she hit the stall face-first. A jolt of pain exploded behind her right cheekbone, replaced by the sharp ache of her backside suddenly meeting the floor. The violence was over as quickly as it had begun, and in the span of two heartbeats, she was sitting on the wet tile, panting in shock.
A metallic taste crossed her lips, and she dabbed her cheek to find it bleeding. She crawled back to the shower and turned off the water, then grabbed her towel. By the time she wrapped it snugly around her dripping body, her brain had recovered enough to process what’d happened. Because there was no noise of impact, the inertia that had catapulted her into the wall must’ve been caused by a figurative slamming of the brakes. Which could only mean one thing.
The accelerator had come loose again.
She tugged on her clothes while muttering every curse in her vocabulary. When she reached the engine room, her right eye was swollen shut. The good news was that it only took one eye to diagnose the problem. The bad news was she couldn’t do a thing to fix it.
“The accelerator’s fine,” she called toward the noise of approaching footsteps. “But your propellant cell sprang a leak. You need a new one.”
Renny appeared beside her, leaning in to look at the lime-green ooze fizzing and bubbling on the engine room floor. The substance’s bark was louder than its bite. Once exposed to oxygen, propellant lost its combustive properties—a safety feature to keep the ship from exploding. Each sizzling pop faded softer than the last, and within seconds, it was nothing more than a placid puddle of goo.
“Can we scoop it up and put it back inside?” Renny asked.
Solara shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Where are we going to get a new—” He cut off, eyes flying wide as he glimpsed her face, and shouted, “Oh my god!”
She gently probed her swollen cheek. “That bad, huh?”
Renny reached out to touch her but quickly drew back his hand. “You might need a stitch or two. I’ll get Cassia to bring the med bag.”