Ignite by Tana Stone

Chapter Nine

Kalex

As soon as the doors swished open, I realized I’d made a mistake. I’d never been to Zoey’s quarters, and what had seemed like a good idea at the time—to find her right away and ask her if any of the station’s new design could contribute to random energy fluctuations—now seemed impetuous and ill-timed. Although she wasn’t dressed for sleep, she did look either sleepy or drunk. I glanced over her shoulder into her tidy quarters, which carried the same faintly floral scent she did. The bed was still made.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Have you been drinking?”

Her expression instantly sharpened, and she put one hand on her hip. “Excuse me?”

Once the words had left my mouth, they sounded ridiculous. Why should I care if the woman was drinking in her own quarters after hours? I cleared my throat and straightened, trying to remember the reason I was there.

Before I could speak, she glanced past me into the empty corridor. “What are you doing here? Did you get lost?”

I frowned at her. “Of course, I didn’t get lost. I’m the captain of the ship. I don’t get lost in my own ship.”

“Good.” She folded her arms tightly over her chest. “Then what are you doing at my door? I don’t hear sirens, so there isn’t an emergency. And if this is about what happened with Serge, I’m handling it.”

This was not going like I’d expected it to, although now I wasn’t sure why I’d expected anything else. I couldn’t seem to take a step without getting into a fight with the infuriating woman.

“No emergency,” I said, then paused. “Wait. What happened with Serge?”

Her expression of irritation morphed into regret. “So, you’re not here about that?”

I crossed my arms in front of me. “No, but maybe I should be.”

Zoey’s shoulders sagged, and she huffed out an impatient breath as she stepped into the hall with me. “Like I said, I’ve got my foreman on it. We’ll figure out why the cable snapped and have everything up and running so your precious schedule isn’t affected.”

I gave my head a quick shake. “A cable snapped? What are you talking about? When did this happen?”

She raised one eyebrow quizzically. “How did you miss it? I thought you were the captain and knew everything that happened on your ship.”

Annoyance flared in me, making my heart race and my skin prickle with heat. The woman had a talent for getting under my skin like no one I’d ever met. I curled my hands slowly into fists and inhaled a slow breath to steady myself. “I am the captain, and unless you want to end up in the brig, you’ll tell me exactly what happened.”

Her eyes flashed as she glared up at me. “Fine, but good luck keeping the project on schedule with me in the brig.”

I remained silent, waiting for her to talk. She was right, of course. I couldn’t throw her in the brig. For one, it wasn’t constructed yet, and for another, I did need her to keep the project moving. The thought of tossing her in did give me a slight thrill, though, so for now, that would have to suffice.

“It happened after you stalked off earlier today,” Zoey said.

“I didn’t stalk off,” I said, despising the petulance in my voice.

“Okay, after you calmly and reasonably walked away,” she said, giving me a sugary smile. “Better?”

I growled. I preferred her snark to her sugary tone. “Go on.”

“Nina, Reina, Serge, and I decided to go down to the promenade level to check on the progress there. While we were viewing the buildings, a steel beam fell from above.”

I made a quick mental calculation of where the construction crew was working in the station and how far the promenade was below that. The steel beam must have plummeted twenty stories, which meant that we’d been lucky it hadn’t crashed through the promenade flooring. My mouth went dry as I thought about the potential damage and death.

“No one was hurt?”

She shook her head. “I pushed Serge out of the way just before the beam hit him.”

“What?” Breath hitched in my chest. “You were almost hit?”

“Not me, Serge. I wasn’t in the path of the beam, but Serge was, and he wasn’t paying attention, so I had to tackle him. He wasn’t too pleased with me afterward.”

I could imagine how the tiny Gatazoid would have complained after being tackled. Even imagining him squawking didn’t lessen the panic and fear that choked me.

I stepped closer to Zoey. “You could have been killed. What were you thinking?”

She didn’t back away from me, instead tipping her head back. “I was thinking that I had to save Serge. He may be a royal pain in my ass most days, but I couldn’t let the little guy get crushed.” She cocked her head at me. “I thought Drexian warriors were all about saving others and being heroes.”

“You aren’t a Drexian warrior.”

“Maybe not, but I don’t stand by and let my friends get killed.” She glared at me. “Not if I can save them.”

I returned her fierce stare, hating that she’d come so close to being killed, and hating even more that it made fear claw at my throat.

“If it makes you feel any better, if I hadn’t saved him, your timeline would be way more fucked.”

I flinched. “You think my main concern is the timeline?”

“Isn’t it? I mean, it’s all you’ve talked about for as long as I’ve been here. You’re so obsessed with getting finished on time I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bonus in it for you.”

“I assure you, there is no bonus.” I wrinkled my nose on the last, distasteful word. “Inferno Force warriors don’t care about compensation.”

“Aren’t you lucky?”

We held each other’s fiery gazes for a few beats until I finally stepped back and scraped a hand roughly through my hair. “Do you enjoy provoking me?”

“Me?” She laughed, the high sounds echoing off the corridor’s curved walls. “You’ve done nothing but challenge me at every turn. Do you know how hard it is to do my job when you’re constantly breathing down my neck?”

I instinctively glanced at the soft, brown skin of her long neck. “I do not breathe down your neck. I have never touched your neck.”

“It’s an expression. It means you micro-manage me. I can’t do anything without you making some sort of criticism.”

“That is untrue,” I said, shaking my head vigorously. “It is my job to oversee you and every crew member of this ship. If I offer constructive suggestions—”

“Constructive?” Her laugh this time was sharp. “Telling someone they need to work faster isn’t constructive.”

“Like I’ve said before, I was tasked with overseeing the construction of this station and ensuring it would be ready for the first arrival of tributes. My attempts to get the crew to work faster have only been in pursuit of that goal.”

She leaned forward. “Well, that pursuit almost got someone killed today.”

Her words hung in the air between us for a few moments, and I blinked hard, as if I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly.

“You’re blaming the accident on me?” I asked, my voice low and deadly.

Her defiant expression faltered. “That’s not what I said. Not exactly.”

Rage tore through me as the reality of her accusation hit me, but I wasn’t angry at her. I was angry with myself. Had my insistence of speed caused corners to be cut? Were workers being careless because they were afraid of falling behind and incurring my wrath?

I looked down at Zoey as she prattled on in an attempt to backtrack from what she’d said, but I wasn’t listening to her words. I didn’t need her apologies or explanations. She was right. I was the captain, and I was responsible for what happened on my ship, even if it was a station under construction that I was dying to get off.

I’d put my selfish desire to return to Inferno Force above all else, and that had put the station, and everyone on it, at risk. Even if I hadn’t dropped the beam that had almost crushed Serge and Zoey, my actions might have created the chain reaction that did. The cold realization settled in my gut like a stone, along with the certainty that the thought of Zoey getting hurt terrified me more than anything else.

“Zoey,” I said, my voice hoarse as I attempted to interrupt her. “Stop talking.”

She did stop but only to suck in a breath. “You can’t tell me to stop talking. Not when I was trying to apologize for blaming you—”

I desperately needed her to stop talking so I could tell her that she was right, and I was wrong, but the only way I could think of stopping her mouth from moving was crushing my own to it.