Page 27 of Red Scale Daddy
“No.”
“You need someone who knows Dockside predators.”
“No.”
“You need someone who can keep breathing after being shot, stabbed, spaced, poisoned, insulted, or forced to listen to Loklo explain his business philosophy.”
Loklo says, “My business philosophy is sound.”
“You once tried to market hangover soup as a contraceptive.”
“It prevented romance by smell alone.”
Roma looks between us, and there it is again: the tiny almost-smile she kills before it can live. Then her face settles back into command.
“I do not need you,” she says.
“Maybe not.”
That answer catches her wrong. She expected pressure. Argument. Another shove against the locked door of her certainty.
I give her truth instead, because I am apparently making poor choices tonight with unusual efficiency.
“But you might,” I continue. “And if you do, there won’t be time to come back and ask.”
The bar’s damaged ceiling light flickers above us. In the uneven glow, her red hair looks brighter against the torn hood, and the bruise rising along her cheek makes my hands want to close around something breakable. That is inconvenient. I barely know her. She is arrogant, impossible, and pointed at the galactic core like a knife thrown at a black hole.
I should let her go.
I do not want to.
Roma takes one step toward the door, then stops just long enough to look back at me.
“You are unpredictable,” she says.
“Yes.”
“You disregard authority.”
“Often for excellent reasons.”
“You are reckless.”
“Usually.”
“You have no investment in surviving the mission.”
I hold her gaze. “Not yet.”
Her expression changes, not enough for anyone else to read, but enough for me. Interest, reluctant and unwelcome, threads through the anger. She hates it. Good. That makes two of us.
“You are crazy, Dux.”
“Sure,” I say. “But I’m still the best at what I do.”
She says nothing to that, which is the first sensible thing either of us has done in several minutes.
Then she turns and walks toward the door, and the room parts for her this time not because she is safe, but because she has become more trouble than most of them can afford.
