If looks could kill. Cavalon had heard the turn of phrase before, but never had he seen it so aptly manifested. She returned her aggravated glare to her terminal and said nothing.
Cavalon palmed the hairnet off his head and balled it up as he slumped in the chair, trying not to feel like a teenager about to be reprimanded by the headmaster. He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his left hand, then blinked down at the silent and stationary obsidian Imprints lining his arm. He’d completely forgotten about the warning his best friends the intake guards had given him about utilizing his Imprint tattoos now that he had two sets. Using them had not, in fact, resulted in any “volatile interfacing, injury, or death.” This time, at least.
He held up his left arm. “You used these against the others, didn’t you?”
Rake didn’t respond, eyes remaining focused on her screen.
“But not me. Why?”
“I probably should have, but you were already using your other set. I didn’t want you to end up in the morgue on your first day.”
Cavalon swallowed hard.
“Just a lot of paperwork,” she added quietly, still not looking away from her terminal.
He squinted at her. Was that … a joke?
After a few moments of silence, she said, “I’ll start you in janitorial.”
“Uh, aren’t we gonna talk about what happened?”
She didn’t look up from the display. “I don’t like repeating myself.”
“What?”
“We already had that conversation.”
“We did?”
“Yes, would you like a summary? You, cut, shit.”
Cavalon slid farther down in his chair. “Right. I cut the shit.”
“That wasn’t you cutting the shit. But I think you know that.”
“It wasn’t my—”
She slammed her fist onto the desk. The astrolabe’s rings wavered from the vibration. “Do you think I want your excuses?”
Cavalon diverted his gaze. He felt like he knew the right answer, but he couldn’t stop his natural tendency to make everything fucking worse. “Is that rhetorical?”
She stood, menacing in her slow purposefulness. She dragged the knuckles of one hand along the top of the desk as she skirted around it. A few silver and copper Imprint squares unfolded onto the top of her hand, and she stopped, hovering over him.
He looked up. “Seems like I’m not the only one whose Imprints react on instinct.”
She grabbed him by the front of his vest. His feet slid out from under him as she lifted him out of his chair with an ease that implied Imprint-assisted strength.
That same fire lit in his stomach, the one that he couldn’t quite place the origin of. Not the painful kind of fear he’d grown up with, but some other kind of angst. Maybe a fear of authority he hadn’t been properly desensitized to. He imagined it a healthy reverence, generally beaten into soldiers early on in their careers. But he’d never been made to respect anyone except his grandfather, and even that only outwardly so.
Something told him Rake didn’t give two shits that he was unschooled in deference. She expected him to have it anyway.
She cleared her throat. “How do you think infractions are handled on a ship full of criminals?”
“Um … throw them in jail?” he said, wincing as the edge of his voice squeaked. “Er, the brig?”
“Sure,” she said, giving a receptive nod. “That’d be reasonable, in another division, anywhere else in the Legion. But keep in mind, every soldier I get … they already feel pretty at home locked in a brig. Confinement’s not always the most effective deterrent. Part of my job—a part I don’t hate, if I’m being honest—is coming up with … let’s call them creative punishments, to ensure everyone’s adequately reprimanded.”