Traitor

01Part One

By the time I reached the M42, I had somebody else’s blood dried on my boot.

Most of it wasn’t mine.

Good enough.

The cut over my ribs had stopped leaking somewhere around Mile Marker Forty-Two, and the split across my knuckles looked worse than it felt. I’d cleaned up at the ship, changed my shirt, and decided that qualified as civilized.

I was supposed to sing in an hour.

There were worse ways to spend a night.

The Last Star sat where the old highway gave up pretending it was going anywhere, a low slab of concrete and steel surrounded by dust, dead transmission towers, and enough parked contraband to finance a small war. Half the exterior lights hadn't worked in years. The ones that did threw faded red and blue across the lot.

Inside was warmer.

Music. Smoke. Generator hum. Somebody losing money at cards in the back corner. Somebody else already drunk enough to think that was funny.

Normal.

I took the stool at the end of the bar.

Wall behind me. Door in front.

Habit.

Marlow slid a whiskey across without asking.

“You look terrible.”

I picked up the glass.

“Good to see you too.”

“Thought you were dead.”

“Busy.”

“Those usually overlap with you.”

I drank.

The whiskey burned pleasantly all the way down. My shoulders were still too tight. Every time the front door opened, my attention moved there before I could stop it.

The men from earlier were dead.

I knew that.

My body apparently wanted a second opinion.

Marlow went back to wiping glasses.

“You're on at ten.”

“I know.”

“You’re sharing the bill.”

That got my attention.

“With who?”

He nodded toward the other side of the room.

I followed it.

And found trouble wearing diamonds.

She was leaning against the bar twenty feet away, talking to the other bartender like they’d grown up together.

Blonde.

That was the first thing anybody would notice.

Long pale hair catching blue stage light whenever she moved. Big eyes. Soft face. The kind of woman who could probably get half the room to volunteer for something inconvenient just by asking nicely.

The second thing I noticed was the dress.

Light blue. Almost sheer when the light was hitting it. Hard to tell. Long, fitted, slit high enough on one leg that nobody in the room was going to complain about the lighting.

Expensive.

Not frontier expensive.

Capital expensive.

Same with the little stones at her throat and the bracelet around one wrist. Nothing gaudy. That would have been easier.

Old money never needed to shout.

Her hands confirmed it.

No cracked skin. No burn marks. No ingrained grease around the nails. Not even the fine scars most people picked up from fixing things because nobody else was coming to fix them.

Those hands had never repaired a filtration pump in summer.

Probably never had to.

I took another drink.

“Who is she?”

Marlow looked at me.

Then at her.

Then back at me.

“Astra Vale.”

“That supposed to mean something?”

“No.”

“Good.”

He grinned.

I ignored him.

Astra laughed at something the bartender said and touched his arm.

Easy.

Natural.

He leaned toward her like sunflowers did toward light.

Within another minute she knew his sister lived in New Jericho, that he hated the new ration commissioner, and apparently that his left knee bothered him when the weather changed.

I couldn't hear half the conversation.

Didn't matter.

People liked her.

Fast.

That was a skill.

She turned her head.

Our eyes met.

Just for a second.

Then she went straight back to whatever story the bartender was telling.

I looked at Marlow.

“She know who I am?”

He shrugged.

“Most people do.”

Fair.

My face wasn't on every wall anymore.

Only the important ones.

I drank again.

A minute later, I caught her looking a second time.

Not at the hat.

Not at the gun.

At me.

This time she smiled.

Small.

Then turned away.

I stared into my whiskey.

I had been in a perfectly bad mood before she arrived.

Now I had questions.

That annoyed me.

A man bumped into the bar behind her.

Big bastard. Drunk. A pistol riding loose beneath his coat.

The bartender stiffened.

Astra didn't.

Didn't flinch.

Didn't look.

But she shifted half a step.

Just enough that the drunk man's reach no longer put her inside it.

Then she kept talking.

Interesting.

I watched her a little longer.

Everything about her said sheltered.

Nothing about the way she moved did.

Either she didn't understand the room—

No.

She understood it.

Too well.

Marlow followed my gaze again.

“You planning to sing tonight or interrogate her from across the room?”

“I’m drinking.”

“You've been drinking the same whiskey for ten minutes.”

“It’s expensive.”

“It was free.”

“Then I'm savoring your generosity.”

He snorted and walked away.

I adjusted my grip on the glass.

The fight from earlier was still sitting behind my eyes.

Three men in an irrigation warehouse.

One had come at me with a shock blade.

One had made the mistake of reaching for a rifle after I'd already told him not to.

The third had been smarter.

Eventually.

I didn't regret any of it.

That wasn't the problem.

The problem was how quickly everything had happened.

How cleanly.

How easy it had felt.

Some nights violence left you shaking.

Other nights it left you hungry.

Those were worse.

A cheer rose near the stage.

I looked up.

Astra was walking toward it.

Of course.

Marlow came back past me carrying a crate of bottles.

“Your new friend.”

“Never met her.”

“She keeps looking at you.”

“Probably heard I'm charming.”

“Must've been from somebody who never met you.”

I lifted the glass toward him.

“See? Charming.”

The room dimmed.

The Last Star didn't have much of a stage.

Six meters wide. Raised barely enough to keep drunks from wandering onto it. Two old spotlights. A curtain that had probably been red once. Half the sound system held together with wire and optimism.

I'd played worse.

Astra stepped beneath the light.

And changed.

That was the first thing that bothered me.

The woman who had been laughing at the bar disappeared without actually going anywhere.

Her shoulders settled.

Her chin lifted slightly.

The smile softened into something slower.

The room changed with her.

She hadn't sung a note yet.

Didn't matter.

People turned.

Conversations lowered.

Even the card game in the corner lost volume.

Then she wrapped one hand around the microphone.

Soft hands.

Right.

The first note came low.

Lower than I expected.

Warm.

Not delicate.

The kind of voice that didn't need volume because it understood people would lean closer.

I stopped drinking.

Well.

That was inconvenient.

I had expected polished.

Maybe technically good.

Some Capital girl with expensive lessons and enough money to buy herself a frontier adventure.

She was better than that.

Much better.

Astra sang like she'd learned somewhere nobody could teach her.

Not perfect.

Interesting.

There was a little roughness when she pushed the low notes. A breath in the wrong place that somehow sounded right. She knew when not to sing too much.

More importantly, she knew what silence was for.

The sweet woman from the bar had vanished.

This version was darker.

Controlled.

Sensual without chasing it.

She didn't throw herself around the stage or beg the room to look at her.

She simply behaved as though she already knew we would.

Apparently she was right.

The song wasn't one I knew.

Something about leaving a city before dawn. About a man who'd promised he'd follow and didn't.

Nothing remarkable on paper.

She made it hurt anyway.

Halfway through the second verse, her eyes moved across the room.

Found mine.

She held them.

One beat.

Two.

Long enough.

Then she looked away.

I became very interested in my whiskey.

Professional curiosity.

That's what I decided.

We were sharing a stage.

I needed to know what kind of performer she was.

That explained why I noticed the way she leaned into certain words.

Why I noticed her fingers sliding down the microphone stand.

Why I noticed the slit of the dress when she stepped forward into the red light.

Professional.

Very thorough of me.

The song ended.

For half a second the M42 stayed quiet.

Then the room came apart.

Whistles. Boots against the floor. Somebody shouting her name.

Astra smiled.

And just like that, the sunlight came back.

She laughed, thanked the room, gave the band a little bow, and stepped off the stage like she hadn't just spent four minutes making every man in the building forget what he'd been talking about.

I hated talented people.

They were usually annoying.

Marlow set another whiskey beside my first.

“I didn't ask for that.”

“You're gonna.”

I looked at him.

He looked past me.

I didn't need to turn around.

I did anyway.

Astra was coming toward me.

Of course she was.

She stopped beside the empty stool.

Up close, the jewelry was even more expensive.

So were the eyes.

Blue.

Very blue.

That felt excessive.

She looked at my half-finished whiskey, then at me.

“Orion.”

Not a question.

I leaned one elbow against the bar.

“Astra.”

Her smile widened.

“So you do know who I am.”

“Marlow told me.”

“Oh.”

She glanced toward him.

Marlow immediately found something fascinating at the other end of the bar.

Coward.

Astra turned back.

“Apparently we're sharing a stage tonight.”

“So I heard.”

She waited.

I waited.

Her mouth twitched.

Then she leaned just slightly closer.

“Thought I should meet you before you start hating me.”

I looked at her.

There was that confidence again.

Warm.

Sweet.

Completely unearned.

I took another drink.

“Little late for that.”

Astra laughed.

And against my better judgment—

I almost did too.

02Part Two

She took the empty stool beside mine without asking.

Of course she did.

Marlow appeared long enough to set a fresh glass in front of her.

“What’ll it be?”

Astra glanced at my whiskey. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

I looked at her.

“That seems reckless.”

She smiled. “It’s whiskey.”

“You don’t know what kind.”

“I’m willing to live dangerously.”

Marlow poured.

I watched him do it.

Astra noticed.

Her eyes moved from the bottle to me. “Do you check everything before you drink it?”

“Only things handed to me.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“Still alive.”

She laughed softly and picked up the glass.

No hesitation.

No wince after the first sip, either.

Another thing I hadn’t expected.

I looked at the jewelry at her throat. Then the dress. Then the whiskey in her hand.

She caught me somewhere around the bracelet.

“Disappointed?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“About the whiskey?”

“You.”

That made her smile wider.

Up close, she somehow looked even less like she belonged there.

No dust settled permanently into the lines of her skin. No sun around her eyes. No little scars across her fingers from machinery that refused to cooperate.

And yet she sat half-turned toward a room full of armed strangers like she’d done it a thousand times.

Not careless.

I’d already ruled that out.

Comfortable.

There was a difference.

“Where’d you come in from?”

Astra glanced at me over the rim of her glass. “Tonight?”

“Originally.”

“Straight to the personal questions.”

“You can lie if you want.”

“Would that make me more interesting?”

“Depends how good you are at it.”

She considered me for a moment.

“The Capital.”

There it was.

No hesitation.

No attempt to soften it.

I looked at her.

Astra smiled. “Is it that obvious?”

“Painfully.”

“Good.”

That wasn’t the answer I expected.

“Good?”

“I spent enough years there. Pretending otherwise seems embarrassing.”

“Plenty of people manage.”

“Oh, I know.” She leaned one elbow on the bar. “Give them three days out here and suddenly they’ve always preferred dust.”

I almost smiled.

Almost.

“How long have you been out here?”

“On the frontier?”

I nodded.

Astra swirled the whiskey in her glass.

“Long enough to stop keeping track.”

“That isn’t a measurement.”

“No.” She looked pleased with herself. “It isn’t.”

I waited.

She drank.

She was comfortable with silence.

Interesting.

“How’d you get booked here?”

“Marlow.”

“Marlow doesn’t book anybody.”

“Well, apparently he made an exception.”

I looked down the bar.

Marlow had become extremely interested in stacking bottles.

I made a note to bother him later.

“Who introduced you?”

Astra turned toward me a little more.

“You know, most men wait until the second drink before they start conducting interviews.”

“I’m efficient.”

“So I’m learning.”

She took another sip, watching me now.

“Musician introduced us.”

“Name?”

Her eyebrows went up.

I said nothing.

Astra stared at me for half a second, then laughed.

“Should I get my papers?”

“I’m making conversation.”

“Of course you are.”

She knew.

Probably had for a while.

That should have bothered me.

It did.

“Where are you staying?”

“Nearby.”

“Travel alone?”

“Usually.”

She set her glass down.

Then she looked at me properly.

“You always ask women where they sleep this early in the evening?”

I held her gaze.

“Only the suspicious ones.”

That surprised a laugh out of her.

“Ah. So I am getting special treatment.”

“Don’t get excited.”

“Too late.”

Her eyes dropped to the revolver at my hip.

Not nervous.

Curious.

I noticed that too.

“Gun bother you?”

“If it did, this would be a terrible bar for me.”

Fair.

Astra shifted slightly on the stool.

The fabric of the dress moved across one thigh.

I noticed.

Briefly.

Professional curiosity was apparently expanding its responsibilities.

Her attention dropped to my hand.

“You should clean that.”

I followed her gaze to the split across my knuckles.

“I did.”

“You missed some.”

“There’s a lot of me.”

She laughed.

A real one this time.

Warm. Easy.

I liked the sound before I remembered I wasn’t supposed to.

“What happened?”

“Bad manners.”

“Yours?”

“Theirs.”

“And how are they now?”

I took a drink.

“More polite.”

Astra stared at me.

Then she broke into another laugh.

I looked away before I joined her.

That would have encouraged her.

“So,” she said after a moment, “do I get to ask anything about you?”

“No.”

“That seems unfair.”

“You’ll manage.”

“I’m resilient.”

“That remains to be seen.”

She smiled into her whiskey.

I was beginning to understand why the bartender had told her his life story in under five minutes.

People wanted to keep talking to her.

Apparently I wasn’t immune.

For a few minutes, we talked about music.

That was safer.

Mostly.

She knew old recordings. Real ones.

Pre-Collapse country. Desert blues. Old folk tracks that survived mostly through bad copies traded over pirate frequencies.

Not the sort of music I expected a woman from the Capital to know.

Again.

“You sing anything cheerful?” I asked.

Astra frowned thoughtfully. “I thought that one was cheerful.”

“You sang about abandonment.”

“It had a nice melody.”

“A woman leaves a city alone because the man she loves breaks his promise.”

She considered that.

“Medium cheerful.”

A smile got out before I could stop it.

Small.

But she saw it.

Of course she did.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you sing anything cheerful?”

“All the time.”

“I’ve heard some of your songs.”

That got my attention.

“Have you.”

“Mhm.”

“Which ones?”

She named two.

One had been carried on the Free Frequency.

The other hadn’t.

I turned toward her.

“Where’d you hear the second one?”

“In a bar.”

“What bar?”

“One with terrible lighting.”

“Helpful.”

“I try.”

“What town?”

Astra lifted her glass.

Drank.

Said nothing.

There it was again.

I leaned back slightly.

“You do that on purpose.”

“Do what?”

“Talk until people forget you didn’t answer.”

She smiled.

“I answered.”

“No. You decorated.”

That earned another laugh.

“I like that.”

“I’m thrilled.”

Her eyes lingered on me for a moment.

Then she glanced around the room.

“You don’t like people from the Capital.”

“Didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“I like some of them.”

“How generous.”

“They work hard for the privilege.”

She shook her head, still smiling.

“You think I’m playing frontier.”

I looked at her.

She said it without offense.

Just observation.

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Convincing.”

Astra rested her forearms lightly against the bar.

“What would convince you?”

“Don’t know.”

“That’s convenient.”

“World’s full of disappointments.”

She studied me.

“You really are in a bad mood.”

“I was doing fine before you came over.”

Her eyes brightened.

“That almost sounded like flirting.”

“Don’t get ambitious.”

She laughed under her breath.

Then she looked around the room.

“I like it out here.”

“That so.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“People, mostly.”

“That’s a bad start.”

She smiled. “The music.”

“Better.”

“The roads.”

“They’re terrible.”

“I know.”

“Water’s unreliable.”

“I know.”

“Half the settlements between here and Jericho have a different definition of law.”

“I know.”

I watched her face.

“Supply convoy misses one delivery and people start trading wedding rings for antibiotics.”

Her smile faded.

Not completely.

Just enough.

“I know.”

Something about the way she said it stopped me.

Not defensive.

Not theoretical.

I waited.

Astra looked down into her glass.

“I spent four days in a settlement south of the Red Line once. Their recycler failed.”

That wasn’t the sentence I expected from her.

“Summer?”

“July.”

Jesus.

She nodded slightly, like she’d heard the thought.

“They’d been rationing drinking water for two days before we arrived. Toilets stopped working first. Then the clinic shut down anything that needed proper sterilization.”

Her voice had changed.

Still soft.

Less playful.

“By the third day, everybody smelled like metal and sickness.”

No drama.

Just memory.

“Convoy was supposed to bring replacement parts.”

“Supposed to.”

“Didn’t come.”

“No.”

“What happened?”

Astra smiled faintly.

“One of the local mechanics rebuilt the regulator out of two farm pumps and part of an old refrigeration unit.”

I stared at her.

She raised an eyebrow.

“Still think I’m playing?”

“Maybe you’re committed.”

“Maybe.”

She took another drink.

Then looked toward the black windows.

“But I still thought the sunset was beautiful.”

There it was.

I shook my head.

Astra turned back. “What?”

“That.”

“What about it?”

“You people come out here, see one sunset over the desert and decide suffering has atmosphere.”

She didn’t bristle.

That would have been easier.

Instead, she thought about it.

“That isn’t what I said.”

“Close enough.”

“No.”

There was the first real edge I’d heard in her voice.

Small.

But there.

Good.

She faced me fully now.

“Something can be terrible and beautiful at the same time.”

“Easy position when you can leave.”

That came out sharper than I intended.

Astra went quiet.

For the first time all night, I thought I might actually have offended her.

Then she nodded.

“That’s fair.”

I blinked.

“You’re agreeing with me?”

She gave me an incredulous little smile.

“Don’t sound so disappointed.”

“I was prepared.”

“I can argue if it makes you feel better.”

“Wouldn’t want you straining yourself.”

Astra shook her head.

“I know I can leave,” she said. “I know what that means.”

I waited.

She didn’t explain.

Of course she didn’t.

“But I still love it here.”

“Why?”

She looked around again.

“At home, everything tells you where you belong.”

I said nothing.

“Which doors you use. Who you’re supposed to know. How loudly you’re allowed to disagree with someone important.”

There was a little bitterness beneath the sweetness now.

Interesting.

“Out here,” she continued, “nobody gives a damn who my father is.”

That one slipped.

I saw it.

So did she.

Her eyes came back to mine.

I could have asked.

Who’s your father?

What family?

What exactly are you doing this far from them?

Instead, I drank.

Not because I wasn’t curious.

Because I wasn’t giving her the satisfaction.

“You were going to ask,” she said.

“No.”

“You absolutely were.”

“Careful.”

Astra smiled.

“With what?”

“Getting comfortable.”

That only amused her.

Wrong answer.

She leaned a little closer.

“You’ve asked me a lot of questions for a man who doesn’t seem to like me.”

“I like information.”

“And yet you know almost nothing about me.”

“You’ve worked hard to keep it that way.”

She considered that.

“Maybe I like watching you try.”

There it was.

That bothered me.

More than it should have.

The room had gotten louder around us, but somehow she seemed closer than before.

Her perfume reached me now.

Something warm and floral.

Not strong.

Expensive enough that I had no idea what it was.

Her eyes moved over my face.

Slowly.

Then back to mine.

“You always this curious,” she asked, “or am I getting special treatment?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“How interesting you turn out to be.”

Astra’s mouth curved.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s never true.”

She tilted her head.

“Find me pretty?”

Direct hit.

I should’ve expected it.

I looked at her.

Really looked.

The pale hair.

The ridiculous blue eyes.

The dress.

The mouth that had spent the last half hour smiling every time I tried to corner her.

I took my time answering.

Probably a mistake.

“I assume you own a mirror.”

Her smile widened.

“I’m making conversation.”

“Of course you are.”

I drank.

She was enjoying this far too much.

After a moment Astra asked, “Do you flirt with every woman you interrogate?”

“So now it’s an interrogation?”

“You’ve asked where I’m from, where I’m staying, who I travel with, who booked me, who introduced me, and where I heard your music.”

She counted the last few on her fingers.

I looked at her hand.

Then back at her.

“You kept track.”

“I was curious.”

“Careful. Sounds suspicious.”

Astra laughed again.

There.

That was better.

Somewhere in the last half hour, the tension in my shoulders had eased.

I noticed only because realizing it put some of it back.

“You know,” she said, “for a man who insists he isn’t flirting, you look away at remarkably convenient moments.”

I turned slowly toward her.

“Wasn’t aware I was being graded.”

“Oh, you’re being graded.”

“How am I doing?”

Astra’s gaze traveled over me once.

Deliberately this time.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

I stared at her.

She smiled.

My own words.

Right.

Annoying woman.

Marlow appeared at my shoulder.

“Five minutes.”

I hadn’t heard him coming.

That alone told me I’d been paying too much attention to the wrong thing.

I glanced toward the stage.

Then at Astra.

She followed my eyes.

“Your turn?”

“Apparently.”

“I was beginning to wonder if you actually sang or just sat in dark corners asking women invasive questions.”

“I contain multitudes.”

She laughed.

I stood.

The movement pulled at the cut beneath my ribs.

Not much.

Enough.

Astra’s gaze dropped to my side.

Then returned to my face.

She didn’t ask.

I noticed that too.

I reached for my hat where I’d left it on the bar.

“Try not to hate me.”

Astra looked up.

Her smile turned slow.

“Little late for that.”

I stopped.

She lifted her whiskey toward me.

My line.

Again.

I put the hat on.

“Careful, Astra.”

“With what?”

I adjusted the brim.

“Starting to think you enjoy annoying me.”

“I thought that was obvious.”

Marlow called my name from the stage.

The room answered.

I started toward it.

Halfway there, I made the mistake of looking back.

Astra had turned on the stool to watch me.

One elbow resting against the bar.

Whiskey in hand.

Smiling like she’d learned something useful.

I faced the stage again.

I’d come to the M42 wanting a drink, a song, and enough noise to clear the evening out of my head.

Instead, I’d found a woman I couldn’t place.

A woman who gave away plenty and somehow told me nothing.

A woman who had managed, against all reasonable expectations, to improve my mood.

That last part bothered me most.

I stepped beneath the lights.

For the next forty minutes, at least, Astra Vale could be somebody else’s problem.

That was the plan.

03Part Three

Stage lights were kinder than daylight.

They hid what needed hiding.

The bruise along my jaw disappeared beneath red light. The cut at my ribs became an afterthought. The brim of my hat dropped half my face into shadow, and from twenty feet away I probably looked considerably less tired than I felt.

Useful arrangement.

The band was already waiting.

I nodded to Rafe at the guitar.

He counted us in.

First chord hit.

And the rest of the room went away.

Mostly.

That was the thing about performing.

A gunfight narrowed the world until there was only movement, distance, timing.

Music did something similar without requiring anybody to die.

Usually.

The first song was fast.

Something loud enough to shake the dust out of the rafters and familiar enough that half the room knew the chorus.

People pushed toward the stage.

Someone whistled.

A woman near the front shouted something I chose not to hear.

I smiled anyway.

That got another cheer.

This version of me was easier.

He didn't have to wonder why a woman from the Capital knew how to survive a failed water recycler.

He didn't have to care who her father was.

He didn't have to figure out why she had heard a song that had never made it onto the Free Frequency.

He just had to hit the next line.

So I did.

By the second song, the room was mine.

That probably sounds arrogant.

It was also true.

I knew how to work a crowd.

Knew when to step forward.

When to let the band carry something.

When to pull back from the microphone until people leaned toward me without realizing they were doing it.

Some skills kept you alive.

Some just paid for fuel.

Occasionally they were the same skill.

I found Astra during the instrumental break.

Still at the bar.

Still on the stool.

But she wasn't flirting with the bartender anymore.

She was watching me.

Properly.

One hand around her whiskey. Chin resting lightly against the other.

No playful little smile.

That was new.

I held her eyes for half a beat.

Then turned back to the crowd.

Professional courtesy.

The next song was slower.

One I'd written after a winter out near the Glass Desert.

Nothing complicated.

A road.

A woman.

A bad decision.

The usual.

I sang the first verse lower than I normally did.

The room quieted.

Somewhere during the chorus, I looked toward the bar again.

Astra hadn't moved.

Interesting.

She caught me this time.

Her mouth curved.

There she was.

I looked away first.

That was getting irritating.

By the last song, my ribs hurt.

Not badly.

Enough to remind me they existed.

I finished anyway.

The final chord rang out beneath the noise of the room, and for a few seconds I stood beneath the lights while people shouted like I'd done something considerably more impressive than remembering lyrics.

I tipped the brim of my hat.

“Try not to kill each other before tomorrow.”

Someone yelled, “No promises.”

“Fair.”

The room laughed.

I handed the microphone back to Rafe and stepped down.

The adrenaline followed me.

Different kind than earlier.

Cleaner.

The tension between my shoulders had finally loosened.

Almost all of it.

I headed toward the bar.

Astra was gone.

I stopped.

Looked toward the door.

Nothing.

Tables.

Nothing.

Back hallway—

“Looking for someone?”

Her voice came from behind me.

I turned.

Astra stood near the edge of the stage holding two glasses.

She offered one.

“I took a risk.”

I looked at the whiskey.

Then at her.

“You watched him pour it?”

“Very carefully.”

“Learning.”

“I’m adaptable.”

I took the glass.

Her smile said she'd been waiting for that.

We moved away from the stage before the next band started setting up.

The Last Star had gotten louder while I was performing. More people. More smoke. More bad decisions.

Astra found a narrow stretch of wall beside an old service door where we could hear each other without shouting.

She leaned against it.

For a moment she just looked at me.

I waited.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“You’re very different up there.”

I drank.

“Disappointed?”

“No.”

She said it quickly enough that I believed her.

Astra glanced toward the stage, then back at me.

“You look like you’re actually enjoying yourself.”

“I was.”

“That bad over here?”

“Company.”

She smiled.

There it was again.

Except this time I let myself smile back.

A little.

“See?” she said.

“What?”

“You can do it.”

“Do what?”

“That.”

I immediately stopped.

She laughed.

“Very mature.”

“I have a reputation.”

“Yes. I’ve noticed.”

“People exaggerate.”

“I’m sure.”

She took a drink.

The blue dress caught pink light from a sign across the room and went almost translucent at the edges.

I looked at her face.

Deliberately.

She noticed that too.

Astra seemed to notice everything that would have been more convenient if she missed.

“I liked the second song,” she said.

“Most people like the first.”

“The first one knows it’s good.”

I looked at her.

She shrugged.

“The second one doesn’t seem to know anybody is listening.”

That shut me up for a second.

Not because it was profound.

Because it was accurate.

“Who taught you to listen like that?”

“Who taught you to answer a compliment with another question?”

“Natural talent.”

She laughed.

I took another drink.

Definitely better mood.

That felt dangerous.

Astra studied the brim of my hat.

“Can anybody see your eyes under there?”

“Sometimes.”

“Seems inconvenient.”

“Still alive.”

She gave me a look.

“You've used that one already.”

“Still true.”

“Do you rehearse these?”

“Constantly.”

“I knew it.”

Someone squeezed past us carrying a tray of drinks.

Astra shifted closer to make room.

Closer than necessary.

Her shoulder brushed my chest.

Soft.

Warm.

She didn't move away immediately.

Neither did I.

That was probably where the evening changed.

Nothing happened.

That was the problem.

I could smell her perfume again.

Feel the warmth of her arm through my shirt.

See the tiny stones at her throat catching the bar lights whenever she breathed.

She looked up at me.

No joke this time.

The noise of the room faded around the edges.

Not completely.

Enough.

I remembered the questions.

Capital.

Father.

Songs she shouldn't have heard.

Answers that never quite landed where I aimed them.

Useful information.

My body contributed none.

Astra stepped back first.

Barely.

“You’re thinking again.”

“I do that.”

“I noticed.”

“Useful habit.”

“Doesn't look like you’re enjoying it.”

“I manage.”

Her eyes traveled briefly across my face.

“You know, I wasn't sure what to expect from you.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I thought you'd be more…”

She paused.

I waited.

“More what?”

“Impressed with yourself.”

That got a laugh out of me.

A real one.

Short.

But there.

Astra's face lit up like she'd won something.

“Careful,” I said.

“Oh, I’m keeping that.”

“Keeping what?”

“Evidence.”

“Destroy it.”

“Never.”

I shook my head.

She was trouble.

Maybe not the kind I originally thought.

Still trouble.

We talked until I stopped keeping track of how long we'd been standing there.

Music.

Bad venues.

A singer in New Jericho who once set his own sleeve on fire during an encore and insisted it was intentional.

Astra did an impression of him that nearly made me spill my drink.

She talked with her hands when she got excited.

That seemed oddly important.

So did the way she asked questions without making them feel like questions.

I'd spent the first half of the night trying to pry information out of her.

Somewhere along the way she'd gotten plenty out of me.

Nothing dangerous.

I didn't think.

That thought immediately put some of the tension back.

Astra saw it happen.

Her smile softened.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You do that.”

“Do what?”

“Disappear.”

I frowned slightly.

“I’m standing right here.”

“Physically.”

I didn't answer.

She let it go.

That surprised me more than if she'd pushed.

Most people couldn't resist pushing.

Astra simply finished her whiskey.

Then looked around at the crowd pressing closer as the next band started.

“It’s getting loud.”

“It’s a bar.”

“I’d noticed.”

She turned toward me again.

There was something different in her expression now.

Still playful.

But quieter.

More deliberate.

“I know somewhere we could actually hear each other.”

I didn't answer.

There it was.

Simple enough.

No coy little performance.

No pretending I wouldn't understand.

My first thought was yes.

Fast.

Immediate.

That bothered me.

Astra waited.

Those blue eyes stayed on mine.

No pressure.

That somehow made it worse.

I could go with her.

I wanted to.

There was no ambiguity left about that.

And wanting it that clearly was exactly the problem.

I'd spent years learning to recognize the moment judgment started slipping.

Sometimes it happened because you were angry.

Sometimes afraid.

Sometimes exhausted.

Apparently sometimes it wore a pale blue dress and looked at you like that.

I thought about the Capital.

Her father.

The song she shouldn't have known.

The way she'd moved when the drunk came too close.

The answers she'd avoided.

Good instincts had kept me alive this long.

That was what I told myself.

Something about her felt wrong.

Maybe it did.

Or maybe I simply didn't trust anything I wanted badly enough to make me hesitate.

Astra's gaze dropped briefly to my mouth.

Back to my eyes.

Still waiting.

I took a slow drink.

“Think I’ve had enough conversation for tonight.”

There.

Smart decision.

Probably.

Astra's expression didn't fall.

No disappointment.

No embarrassment.

If anything, something amused flickered behind her eyes.

“Another night, then.”

Not a question.

I looked at her.

“Confident.”

Astra smiled.

“You hesitated.”

Damn.

For once, I had nothing useful to say.

She stepped around me.

Close enough that the bare skin of her arm brushed my hand as she passed.

Maybe accidental.

I didn't believe in miracles.

Astra took two steps, then looked back.

“Goodnight, Orion.”

I watched her disappear into the crowd.

Longer than necessary.

Then looked down at the empty glass in my hand.

Good instincts.

That's what that had been.

Definitely.

Marlow appeared beside me.

I hadn't heard him coming again.

“You’re slipping.”

“Go away.”

He looked toward the crowd where Astra had vanished.

Then at me.

“Interesting.”

“Marlow.”

“Going.”

He left with the unmistakable posture of a man enjoying information he planned to misuse later.

I put the glass on the bar.

Outside, the desert had gone cold.

I walked back toward the ship beneath a sky full of stars and spent most of the way thinking about a woman I had very intelligently decided not to follow.

The decision got smarter every time I repeated it.

By the fifth time, I almost believed myself.

04Part Four

Four nights later, somebody tried to kill me in a drainage ditch.

Which was rude.

The job should have been simple.

A man named Harlan Creed had been moving people through the southern checkpoints under forged labor permits, then selling them somewhere considerably less voluntary on the other side.

Government inspectors had somehow failed to notice.

Repeatedly.

Money does terrible things to eyesight.

Creed traveled with six men, changed vehicles twice a week, and slept in a different settlement every few nights.

Atlas had finally gotten his route.

An abandoned pumping station fifteen miles west of the Red Line.

Creed would stop there just before midnight to exchange vehicles.

I’d come in through the dry flood channel behind the station, stay below the ridge, and reach the service building without ever crossing open ground.

Quiet.

Clean.

Ideally boring.

I liked boring.

Boring meant the plan worked.

I parked the ship six miles out and covered the rest on foot.

The moon was bright enough to be irritating.

Wind pushed dust along the bottom of the channel in thin silver ribbons. Somewhere beyond the ridge, an old transmission tower blinked a red warning light at nobody.

I checked the time.

Twenty-three forty-one.

Creed wasn't due for another nineteen minutes.

I kept moving.

Something felt wrong around minute seventeen.

Nothing dramatic.

No mysterious noise.

No prophetic chill down the spine.

The flood channel was simply too quiet.

I stopped beneath the remains of an old concrete overpass.

Listened.

Wind.

Metal ticking somewhere as it cooled.

Nothing else.

I crouched and looked toward the ridge.

No movement.

Still wrong.

I reached down and picked up a stone.

Tossed it ten feet ahead.

The shot hit where my head would have been.

Concrete exploded beside it.

Well.

There went boring.

I dropped behind the channel wall as another round punched into the dirt.

Two shooters.

Maybe three.

One high.

One somewhere ahead.

They had angles on the route.

My route.

That mattered.

I drew.

A third shot sparked off the concrete above me.

“Little early,” I muttered.

Nobody apologized.

I pulled a small mirror from my coat and angled it past the edge.

Flash of movement.

Ridge.

One shooter prone behind a collapsed barrier.

I fired once.

The rifle disappeared.

One.

Gunfire came from the other side.

Closer.

I moved before the rounds landed.

Up the embankment.

Across broken concrete.

Behind an overturned utility crawler that had been rusting there since before whoever was shooting at me learned to shave.

Boots hit gravel somewhere ahead.

I waited.

Three steps.

Two.

A man came around the crawler with his weapon already raised.

I caught the barrel, drove it aside, and hit him hard enough to make the rest of his evening theoretical.

He went down.

Another man appeared behind him.

I fired.

He didn't.

Two.

So much for six guards.

Creed had brought friends.

A round caught the side of my coat.

Heat followed.

I ducked.

Looked down.

Blood.

Mine this time.

Annoying.

I pressed a hand against my ribs.

Not deep.

Probably.

The man I’d dropped beside the crawler groaned.

I grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him halfway upright.

“Who told you the route?”

He smiled through bloody teeth.

Not smart.

I tightened my grip.

“Try again.”

“They said you'd come alone.”

Everything inside me went very still.

“Who?”

He coughed.

“Fuck you.”

“That's less useful.”

I heard gravel shift behind me.

Let him go.

Turned.

Fired.

Three.

The man on the ground looked suddenly less confident.

I crouched beside him again.

“Who said?”

His eyes flicked toward the pumping station.

Not an answer.

Enough.

I stood.

“Stay here.”

He laughed once.

“Where the hell would I go?”

“Good point.”

I headed for the station.

The rest of the job took nine minutes.

Creed had been inside the service building with two more men and a vehicle already running behind it.

So much for the midnight exchange.

He had known.

They all had.

One of his men surrendered.

He lived.

The other made a different choice.

Creed tried the back door.

I caught him twenty yards from the vehicle.

He turned with a pistol.

I shot it out of his hand.

He screamed and dropped to his knees.

“You know who I am?” I asked.

He looked up at the hat.

The gun.

Then my face.

“Orion.”

“Good. Saves time.”

“I can pay you.”

“Everybody says that.”

“Whatever they offered—”

“Nobody offered me anything.”

That confused him.

Men like Creed always struggled with that part.

I pulled a restraint from my belt and tossed it into the dirt in front of him.

“Hands.”

His face changed.

“You're taking me in?”

“No.”

Relief came too quickly.

I almost felt bad ruining it.

“I’m taking you somewhere else.”

The relief disappeared.

Better.

By sunrise, Creed was locked inside the holding room of a settlement where three families had been looking for people he'd sold.

I left before anybody decided to make a speech.

I didn't want one.

The job was finished.

Successful, technically.

That should have been the end of it.

Instead, I spent the flight back replaying four words.

They said you'd come alone.

The ship flew itself while I sat in the cockpit with a medical kit balanced on one knee.

The round had only grazed me.

Long, ugly cut across the ribs.

Nothing worth bothering a medic with.

I cleaned it.

Disinfected it.

Regretted disinfecting it.

Then closed it with adhesive strips.

Good as new, assuming the definition was flexible.

The cockpit windows reflected my face back at me.

Hat off.

Hair a mess.

Bruise darkening along one cheek.

I looked like somebody who'd recently discovered a flaw in his planning.

Accurate.

Very few people had known my approach.

Atlas.

The contact who gave him the route.

Me.

That was it.

Unless the transmission had been intercepted.

Unless Creed's people had been watching the channel already.

Unless somebody followed me.

Unless—

I stopped.

That road went nowhere useful.

Paranoia was just pattern recognition with bad manners.

Useful until it wasn't.

I pulled my shirt closed and leaned back.

The ship hummed around me.

For no particularly good reason, I thought about Astra Vale.

Capital jewelry.

Soft hands.

A song she shouldn't have known.

A woman who somehow told me everything except what I actually wanted to know.

Then:

Another night, then.

I frowned at the windshield.

Ridiculous.

She didn't know about Creed.

She didn't know Atlas.

She didn't know the route.

As far as I knew, she didn't know anything about the job.

There was no reason to connect her to it.

None.

That was the reasonable conclusion.

I sat with it for several seconds.

Didn't help.

My side hurt.

I wanted whiskey.

The Last Star had whiskey.

That was the only reason I changed course.

Obviously.

05Part Five

The Last Star looked exactly the same.

I didn’t.

Four nights wasn’t enough time for the place to improve itself.

Same failing lights outside. Same line of questionable vehicles along the wall. Same red sign buzzing above the door like it had a personal disagreement with electricity.

I parked the ship near the edge of the lot.

Sat there for a minute.

My side hurt.

Not badly.

Just enough to remind me that somebody had known exactly where I was going to be.

They said you’d come alone.

I looked at the bar entrance through the cockpit glass.

Whiskey.

That was why I was here.

I’d already established this.

I got out before I could argue with myself.

The room hit me with heat and noise.

Music from the stage. Glasses knocking together. Somebody laughing loud enough to qualify as a distress signal.

I automatically checked the exits.

Front.

Back corridor.

Kitchen door.

Window beside the stage that still didn’t open all the way.

Then the people.

Marlow behind the bar.

Rafe near the sound board.

Three faces I recognized.

Two I didn’t.

Astra Vale leaning against the far end of the bar.

Of course.

She was wearing red tonight.

Not bright red.

Dark. Almost wine-colored beneath the blue lights.

Another dress that probably cost more than the building’s electrical system.

Her hair was loose over one shoulder.

She was talking to a woman beside her, laughing about something.

Then she looked up.

Found me.

The laugh stopped.

Not the smile.

Just the laugh.

Her eyes moved over me once.

Hat.

Face.

Coat.

The way I was holding my side a little too carefully.

Back to my face.

That woman missed nothing.

I considered leaving.

Not seriously.

Which was the problem.

Marlow spotted me.

“You look worse.”

I headed for my usual end of the bar.

“You always know what to say.”

“Last time you had all your blood inside you.”

“Most of it’s still there.”

“That supposed to reassure me?”

“Yes.”

“It didn’t.”

He reached automatically for the whiskey.

Astra appeared beside me before he finished pouring.

I hadn’t seen her cross the room.

That was becoming irritating.

“Another night, then.”

I looked at her.

She looked entirely too pleased with herself.

“Don’t start.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was going to say hello.”

“Sounded dangerous.”

Her eyes dropped toward my ribs.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

Astra looked at Marlow.

He looked at me.

Then wisely found somewhere else to be.

She turned back.

“Nothing seems to have done a number on you.”

“I won.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

“No.”

Her smile softened.

Not pity.

Good.

I didn’t want pity from her.

Or anybody.

“You’re all right?”

“Fine.”

She watched me for another second.

Apparently decided that was all she was getting.

“All right.”

No pushing.

Again.

I hated how much I liked that about her.

Marlow slid the whiskey over.

I took it.

Astra nodded toward the stage.

“I’m on in ten.”

“Congratulations.”

“That sounded sincere.”

“I’m working on myself.”

“I can tell.”

She stepped closer.

Not enough to touch.

Enough that I caught the perfume again.

Same one.

My body remembered it faster than my brain did.

Unhelpful.

Astra looked up at me.

“You came back.”

“Bar’s still here.”

“Remarkable coincidence.”

“I like the whiskey.”

“Of course.”

I took a drink.

She was waiting for something.

I didn’t know what.

That put me in a worse mood.

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“You’re different tonight. You were more fun last time.”

“I was drunker.”

“No, you weren’t.”

Astra glanced toward the stage, where the band was checking levels.

Then back at me.

“Bad job?”

I held her eyes.

Something inside me tightened.

Could have been innocent.

Almost certainly was.

Still.

“Why?”

Her expression changed.

Barely.

There he is.

The suspicious bastard from Night One.

She saw him immediately.

“You’re hurt.”

“People get hurt.”

“And you look like somebody offended you personally by accomplishing it.”

I took another drink.

She tilted her head.

“There. That.”

“What?”

“That look.”

“What look?”

“The one where you start wondering whether every sentence I say has a second meaning.”

I stared at her.

Astra’s mouth curved.

“Missed me?”

Against my better judgment, I almost laughed.

Almost.

“You’re very pleased with yourself.”

“I usually am.”

Someone called her name from the stage.

She looked over her shoulder.

Then at me.

Something in her expression shifted.

Playful.

Knowing.

It reminded me of the last time.

You hesitated.

Astra backed away.

“Try not to interrogate anyone while I’m gone.”

“No promises.”

She turned.

Then stopped and looked back.

“Oh.”

“What?”

Her gaze traveled over me once more.

Slower this time.

“Fresh out of a fight suits you.”

And she walked away.

I watched her go.

That was a mistake.

Marlow reappeared.

“No.”

I didn’t look at him.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I was going to ask if you wanted another drink.”

I held up the full one.

“Eventually.”

He looked toward Astra.

Then back at me.

“Right.”

“Go clean something.”

“I own the place.”

“Then there should be plenty.”

He left.

The stage lights dropped.

Conversation softened around the room.

Astra stepped beneath the first blue spotlight.

I settled against the bar.

Watched the exits.

Watched her.

In that order.

Mostly.

She wrapped her fingers around the microphone.

The sweet woman disappeared again.

There was no warm opening tonight.

No slow introduction.

She looked out over the room and started singing.

You question my motives

Say you can’t trust me

My glass stopped halfway to my mouth.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Astra did not look at me.

That made it worse.

But what does it matter?

We’ve been through this before

Once.

We had been through it exactly once.

Apparently she’d found it memorable.

I drank.

You keep running away

Won’t let me get too close

The woman beside me laughed at something.

I didn’t hear what.

Astra finally let her gaze slide toward my end of the bar.

Not directly at me.

Near enough.

Tell me, cowboy

Don’t you wanna feel good?

There was absolutely no reason for half the room to turn and look at me.

They did anyway.

I stared into my whiskey.

Marlow coughed behind the bar.

I raised one finger without looking at him.

He found another project.

The bass deepened.

Astra moved closer to the edge of the stage.

There’s just something about that

Fresh-out-of-a-fight look tonight

My eyes lifted.

She was looking straight at me now.

No ambiguity.

That line hadn’t existed four nights ago.

I knew because I would have remembered it.

Astra’s mouth curved around the next words.

Come here

Don’t stop my hands

My jaw tightened.

This was ridiculous.

I should have been thinking about Creed.

About the ambush.

About intercepted routes and compromised contacts.

Instead I was thinking about her hands.

Soft hands.

I remembered them around a whiskey glass.

The brush of her bare arm against mine.

The fact that I had almost followed her somewhere quiet and had spent four nights being annoyingly aware that I hadn't.

Let me trace a path

Straight to your—

She paused.

Just enough.

My heartbeat kicked once, hard.

Heart?

Astra said it like the word surprised her.

Then, spoken low into the microphone:

I swear it’s your heart I’m after…

She laughed.

The room reacted.

So did I.

Not visibly.

I hoped.

Heat climbed under my collar.

I loosened it with one finger.

The song rolled into the chorus.

You don’t trust me

I know

No shit.

Still haven’t left, though

I looked toward the front door.

It was ten paces away.

Clear route.

Nobody between me and it.

Astra watched me check.

And smiled.

Goddammit.

You can watch the door

You can keep your gun close

My hand was resting beside the revolver.

I moved it away on principle.

That earned the smallest change in her expression.

She’d noticed.

Of course she had.

But I bet you don’t know

Which one’s gonna betray you first

The bass dropped lower.

Astra took one slow step toward the front of the stage.

Me

My mind went immediately to the drainage ditch.

Creed.

The man bleeding in the dirt.

They said you’d come alone.

Astra.

Capital.

Money.

Songs she shouldn’t know.

A father she wouldn’t name.

The possibility was absurd.

The possibility was not impossible.

Then she sang:

Or your body

And my body, traitorous son of a bitch that it was, answered before I could.

Pulse.

Heat.

That tight, unpleasant awareness of my own clothes.

I shifted my weight against the bar.

Astra saw.

Her eyes brightened.

Fuck.

Guess we’ll find out

The instrumental kicked in.

I took a longer drink.

Cold whiskey.

Didn’t help.

I’d spent most of my adult life learning to think when other people couldn’t.

Gunfire.

Pain.

Fear.

Chaos.

My mind had always been the sharpest weapon I carried.

Tonight, Astra Vale was making it increasingly unreliable.

The guitar rolled beneath the synth.

She turned away from the crowd for a few seconds during the instrumental.

Her hair slid down her back.

Red fabric caught blue light.

I looked toward the door again.

Still there.

Extremely usable.

I remained where I was.

Bad sign.

Verse two.

Astra faced the room again.

Take off those boots

Come join me in here

A few people cheered.

I closed my eyes for half a second.

That was not helping either.

I’ll tell you everything

You wanna hear

That line brought my brain back.

Briefly.

Everything I wanted to hear.

Exactly.

That was the problem, wasn’t it?

A good liar didn't tell you lies.

A good liar told you what you already hoped was true.

No names

No questions

Nothing you’d have to confess

She was mocking me now.

Openly.

My questions from Night One.

My refusal to follow her.

The fact that she had somehow managed to turn my suspicion into foreplay without asking permission.

Then:

Just let me—

Pause.

Astra looked directly at me.

I stopped breathing for a second.

What?

A beat.

You scared of me?

There was laughter around the room.

I didn't join it.

I did, however, feel the corner of my mouth threaten mutiny.

Scared?

No.

That would have been simpler.

I knew what fear felt like.

This was closer to standing too near the edge of something and wondering whether falling might be worth the view.

Astra knew it too.

That was the irritating part.

The next lines came softer.

You’ve stared at my mouth

Half the damn night

I looked at her mouth.

Immediately.

Christ.

Her smile deepened.

That felt unfair.

Then looked at the exits

Every time I smiled

I turned toward the door.

Stopped myself halfway.

Too late.

She laughed through the next breath of the song.

I dragged my attention back to her.

She had me figured out completely.

Not everything.

Not Creed.

Not Atlas.

Not the ambush.

But me?

Apparently enough.

If I wanted your bounty

Would I make it this obvious?

Every muscle in my body went still.

The room disappeared.

For one clean second, attraction vanished behind instinct.

My thumb touched the grip of the revolver.

Astra held my gaze.

Then she gave the smallest shrug.

…maybe

The room laughed.

She did too.

I didn’t.

Not yet.

There were people in my life who could get me killed.

There were people who would get paid very well for accomplishing it.

Astra had walked into the M42 wearing enough money around her throat to prove she moved in worlds where information traveled differently.

And four nights after meeting her, someone had known my approach route.

Coincidence.

Probably.

Possibly.

My pulse was no longer running hot for only one reason.

The chorus returned.

You don’t trust me

I know

No.

I didn’t.

Still haven’t left, though

Also true.

Annoyingly.

You can watch the door

I did.

You can keep your gun close

I did.

But I bet you don’t know

Which one’s gonna betray you first

I knew where this was going now.

Knowing didn’t help.

Me

Astra’s face disappeared briefly beneath red light.

Spy.

Informant.

Rich girl bored enough to play outlaw.

Maybe.

Or your body

My body remained aggressively unconcerned with investigative procedure.

The adrenaline from the ambush was still somewhere inside me.

So was the fight.

The near miss.

The blood.

The long hours afterward trying to calculate who knew what.

Apparently my nervous system didn’t particularly care whether the adrenaline came from someone trying to shoot me or a beautiful woman deliberately screwing with my head.

Either way, everything was already running too hot.

And Astra kept feeding it.

Guess we’ll find out

The bridge began.

Something in the arrangement changed.

Darker.

Sparser.

Astra stopped moving.

That made me pay closer attention than if she’d crossed the whole stage.

Maybe I know your name

Maybe I don’t

Cute.

Everyone knew my name.

I took another drink.

Maybe I know what you did

Three towns ago

The glass stopped against my lower lip.

No.

My entire brain came back online at once.

Three towns ago.

Creed hadn’t been three towns ago.

Not exactly.

But close enough that the wording crawled under my skin.

I lowered the glass.

What did she know?

Astra’s expression gave me nothing.

Maybe there’s someone outside

Waiting on my word

I looked at the door.

This time there was nothing playful about it.

Two men near the entrance.

One armed.

Normal for the M42.

Woman by the window.

No threat.

Back hall clear from my angle.

Kitchen exit—

My hand settled fully on the gun.

Distance to Astra.

Distance to door.

Distance to stage exit.

If she had people outside, going through the front would be stupid.

Better through the service corridor.

Ship was west side of the lot.

Could reach it in—

Or maybe—

I looked back at her.

Astra leaned closer to the microphone.

Those blue eyes found mine beneath the brim of my hat.

I just like you nervous

Silence.

Then she smiled.

I stared at her.

For perhaps two seconds, I genuinely hated that woman.

Then I laughed.

Quiet.

One breath through my nose, head dropping slightly.

She’d gotten me.

Not about the ambush.

Probably.

But everything else.

Night One.

The questions.

The exits.

The hesitation.

She had seen exactly what I was doing and instead of reassuring me like a sensible person, she had apparently gone home and written a song designed to make it worse.

Psychotic.

Beautiful.

Effective.

The instrumental break began.

No lyrics now.

That should have helped.

It didn’t.

Astra stepped away from the microphone.

The guitar bent slow and dirty beneath the synth.

Bass moved through the floor and into my boots.

She turned beneath the red lights.

Not dancing exactly.

Moving with the music.

The slit in the dress opened when she stepped.

I watched.

Stopped pretending I wasn't.

There wasn’t much point anymore.

My glass was cold against my fingers.

Everything else was hot.

The collar of my shirt felt too tight.

My pulse was too fast.

Even the gun against my hip felt heavier than usual.

I could leave.

That became a very important fact.

The door remained ten paces away.

Nothing prevented me from using it.

I could finish the whiskey.

Walk outside.

Get back on the ship.

Do something sensible.

Astra turned toward me.

Her eyes went to the door.

Then back to me.

She knew exactly what I was considering.

I stayed.

Her mouth curved.

The final chorus started.

So don’t trust me

I watched her.

Who asked you to?

That one landed differently.

My hand loosened around the glass.

Who asked you to?

For four nights I’d been trying to solve the wrong problem.

Could I trust her?

Was she safe?

Was she telling the truth?

Astra’s answer was apparently:

Who cares?

Terrible philosophy.

I liked it immediately.

Just come a little closer

She stepped toward the edge of the stage.

Like you’ve been wanting to

No smile now.

No joke.

Just her eyes on mine.

Invitation.

My heart hit harder.

I swallowed.

The analytical part of my mind tried one more time.

The ambush.

Her background.

All valid.

All relevant.

All becoming increasingly difficult to arrange into anything resembling a coherent thought while Astra Vale looked at me like that.

Keep one hand on your gun

If it makes you feel better

Something about that line finished what the others had started.

She wasn't asking me to trust her.

She wasn't asking me to relax.

Wasn’t asking me to stop being myself.

Keep the gun.

Keep the suspicion.

Bring both.

Come anyway.

My mouth went dry.

I took the last swallow of whiskey.

Didn’t taste it.

Astra saw that too.

Of course.

But sooner or later

Something’s gonna give

I set the glass down.

Very carefully.

Me

She held my eyes.

Or your body

My body had already voted.

Repeatedly.

The situation in my trousers had become sufficiently inconvenient that pretending otherwise was now an insult to both of us.

I shifted once.

Small movement.

Astra caught it.

Her eyes flicked down.

Back up.

And there it was.

Victory.

Not smug.

Worse.

Delighted.

I breathed out slowly.

Hell.

My money was on the body.

Come find out

That was it.

No revelation.

No sudden trust.

No reasonable conclusion.

Just a decision.

Potentially an atrocious one.

Still mine.

I pushed away from the bar.

Checked the exit one final time.

Habit.

Then I stopped giving a damn about it.

The crowd was already starting to cheer as the final note stretched through the room.

I headed toward the stage.

Astra watched me coming.

Her expression changed with every step.

First satisfaction.

Then amusement.

Then something warmer.

Something that told me she had been waiting to see whether I’d actually do it.

I reached the stairs just as the music cut.

The room erupted.

Astra lowered the microphone.

I was close enough now to see the flush along her throat.

Close enough to see the tiny catch in her breathing she probably thought I’d miss.

Good.

Nice to know I wasn't the only one having difficulties.

She stepped down toward me.

We met at the bottom of the stage.

For half a second neither of us moved.

I still had one hand near my gun.

Just like she'd told me.

Astra looked down at it.

Then up.

“Feel better?”

I let my eyes drop to her mouth.

No reason to hide it now.

I ran my tongue once across my lower lip.

Her breath caught.

Small.

But I heard it.

That improved my mood considerably.

“Not particularly.”

Astra’s smile came slow.

I leaned just close enough that she could hear me beneath the crowd.

“You’re very pleased with yourself.”

“Shouldn’t I be?”

Marlow called my name from behind the stage.

My set.

Astra glanced toward the sound, then back at me.

I stepped closer.

“You spent that whole song making promises from behind a microphone.”

I leaned in until her smile finally slipped.

“When I’m done up there, we’ll see how brave you are without it.”

For once, Astra Vale had nothing to say.

Behind me, she laughed. It sounded considerably less certain this time.