“Don’t talk to me about my family,” she said. “And stay away from my brother.”
She spat on the floor by Navi’s feet. Then she turned, Remy in hand, pushed past the staring rebels, and left the room.
? ? ?
“Ah, Eliana!” Patrik looked up from his table in the common room. “How lovely to see you up and about at this hour.”
Hob, seated beside him, glanced up at her, then scowled at the notebook he was writing in.
Eliana hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d been lying on the tiny, lumpy pallet she shared with Remy, tensely staring at the ceiling with an iron fist in her stomach and knots turning in her shoulders. She’d borne it for a good hour before giving up.
Now, she was…what? She didn’t know. Looking for information? Maybe these rebel saps knew something about the people who’d taken her mother.
Looking for a fight? Her body melted a little at the thought. God, yes, a fight would do the trick. She longed to punch something until the skin broke on her indestructible fists. Maybe she could wake up Simon, piss him off. He’d try to hit her, and she’d make him pay for it.
“Patrik.” She stepped into the room and nodded at him—a little sheepish, a little soft. The apologetic bounty hunter, finally starting to see the error of her ways. It was almost a funny enough thought to make her laugh right there in front of them. “Hob. I was hoping someone would be awake.”
Patrik beckoned her over. “Someone’s always awake here. We’re peeling potatoes. Well, I’m peeling potatoes. Hob’s writing.” Patrik let out an aggrieved sigh. “I’m used to it though. Doing all the work around here, I mean.”
“You poor, overworked darling,” said Hob, his voice a deep monotone.
Eliana chuckled and took her earlier seat at the hearth.
“And will you not say hello to me?”
Eliana jumped to hear Simon’s low voice from the shadows. She hadn’t noticed him there, slouched in a stained, high-backed chair, long legs propped up on an overturned crate. He gazed at her over the rim of his glass, blue eyes gleaming in the firelight.
Irritated with herself for having missed him, Eliana snapped, “Are you ever not drinking?”
With a tiny grin, he mumbled into his glass, “Helps me sleep. Keeps me sharp. Keeps the voices at bay.”
“Which is it, then?”
“All. Or none.” He leaned his head back against the chair, closed his eyes, and let out a long, animal groan of satisfaction. “What about you, Eliana? What voices do you hear in the deep dark of night?”
The sound of her name on his lips lingered in the crackling hot air by the fire. Eliana tore her gaze away from his bared throat; long silver lines of scar tissue shifted as he swallowed.
Then, from the nearest door, a soft voice broke the silence: “Patrik?”
Patrik turned, a smile spreading across his face. “Linnet! Shouldn’t you be in bed, little one?”
A small child, maybe eight or nine years old, crept forward from the shadows, a ratty doll clutched in her hands. Bandaged cuts and purple bruises marred her pale skin.
“I don’t like sleeping,” said Linnet. She climbed into Patrik’s lap and stared gravely at Hob’s notebook. “I think I’m ready now.”
Hob looked up at her. “You don’t have to, Linnet, if you don’t want to.”
The girl’s fingers were white around her doll, her thin lips cracked. “I want to. I promise.”
Eliana’s throat clenched at the girl’s haunted expression. “What are you going to do to her?” she asked sharply.
Linnet peered at Eliana through the shadows. “Who’re you?”
“Just a monster who likes to wear masks,” Simon mumbled into his glass.
Linnet’s eyes widened in alarm.
“Linnet’s going to tell us her story for Hob’s collection.” Patrik fixed first Simon, then Eliana, with a cutting glare. “And no one’s going to interrupt her, are they?”
Hob opened his notebook to a fresh page. “You’re nine years old, aren’t you, love?”
Linnet kept glancing over at Eliana with something like awe on her face. Her gaze dropped to the knives at Eliana’s belt. “Yes.”
Hob began writing. “Can you tell me your family name?”
Linnet rested her chin on her doll’s head and said nothing.
“What about where you lived?” Patrik asked softly.
Linnet squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head a little.