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Despite myself, I blushed.
“It’s… difficult sometimes,” I admitted. “But when you have no other road, what can you do?”
“But you did have a choice.”
“What choice? I either did what I was told or I would have been sold to God knows who. I don’t know about you but I prefer the devil I know than the one I don’t.”
The leader’s mouth curled beneath the visor.
I turned my head to one side, peering at the smile closer.
It wasn’t that it was an ugly smile that got my attention.
Far from it.
There was something about it I recognized.
I’d seen it before, I realized.
And not beneath a visor.
Somewhere else…
“I was kidnapped and forced to go with him,” I said, recalling where I was and what I was doing there.
It might not seem like it at first glance beneath the broad open sky and rolling sand dunes that echoed into the far distance, but I was every bit as much a prisoner here as I was inside.
“When the alarm went off, I knew I had to get somewhere safe,” I said. “I was trapped in Egara’s room and if I didn’t do what he said, I feared what he would do. We were in the middle of a riot. A girl does what she has to. The same way a guard must do his duty.”
“The two of you were out here a long time. You sure nothing happened between you two?”
I looked at him coolly.
“Nothing that didn’t happen in his cell,” I said, raising my chin.
That smile curled his cheek once more and memories stabbed at me from the darkness.
That smile rang alarm bells but I couldn’t identify their source.
“With the romantic atmosphere I thought something might develop between you,” the leader said.
“Nothing but open animosity. And if you must know, he sold me to the merchant back there. He wanted to exchange me for the shuttlecraft. He gave me to the merchant so he could escape. He got what he wanted. He’s probably halfway across the galaxy by now.”
The leader stared at me for a moment.
What was he looking for? I wondered. A sign I was lying?
I wanted to lick my lips but refrained from doing so.
I hated that visor he was wearing.
Understanding a man was hard enough without a shield in the way.
“Yes, I suppose he is,” he said, dropping his gaze to the sand. “Did he mention where he might go?”
I pinched my lips and peered upwards as if trying hard to remember.
“Not that I can recall. We didn’t talk much.”
