Page 62 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy
I look away too late.
Her eyes open halfway, unfocused at first, then sharpening when she sees me. For once, she does not attack the moment with sarcasm immediately.
“You’re staring,” she says, her voice rough with sleep.
“I am watching the corridor.”
“Is my face the corridor now?”
“No.”
Her lips twitch faintly. “Bad lie.”
“Yes.”
She shifts slightly, wincing as bruised muscles object. “How long was I out?”
“Eighteen minutes.”
“You said ten.”
“You were asleep.”
“That is extremely manipulative of my body.”
“You needed it.”
She looks at the archive case resting between us, then at my hand braced near it but not touching the latch. Something in her expression softens.
“You didn’t open it.”
“No.”
“Didn’t even peek?”
“I am not suicidal from curiosity.”
“That sounded judgmental.”
“It was.”
Her faint smile disappears as memory returns. I see the moment Teren’s death comes back to her fully. Her gaze drops to the blood on her cuff, and her fingers curl inward.
“I should have reached him,” she says.
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I was there.”
Her throat moves. “That’s the problem. You were there. You ran into the smoke. You got the case. You talked to him. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
The grief in her voice is quieter than her anger was. It hurts more because it has stopped trying to defend itself.
I choose my words carefully. “He made a choice before I reached him. He used the time he had left to save what mattered to him.”
“The data?”
