17 January 2261
Perie, Caldin – Borderworlds
Sam Cooper stopped talking.
I could tell from the way that she suddenly went tense across the table from me that something was up. I turned my head slightly to one side, my brow arching. She swallowed once, then again, finally taking a deep breath and focusing—again—on me.
“Can you go to the bar and get a pot of coffee and another mug for me?” she asked. Her voice had changed, taken on a tone that wasn’t quite strangled, but certainly wasn’t normal, either. I frowned, but started to get up.
“Sure. When I come back, are you going to tell me why?”
“You’ll see,” she muttered, already looking past me again. I glanced back over my shoulder, not seeing anyone I recognized—but that wasn’t necessarily surprising, considering I didn’t recognize a lot of people. That tends to be a side effect of significant amnesia—something I had the singular pleasure of suffering.
With a silent sigh, I headed for the bar, where Kallyn stood, watching someone coming in as intently as Sam had been. She glanced at me after I cleared my throat to get her attention, her brow arching slightly.
“What’s up, Ren?”
“Sam wants a full pot,” I said. “And another mug.”
Kallyn’s brow climbed higher, but she nodded. “Give me a minute.”
“Sure.” I turned away from the bar, leaning against its edge and looking over the people closest to the door, searching for anything or anyone that seemed strange or out of place. My gaze settled on a tall blonde with her hair pulled into a ponytail. She was dressed casually, but comfortably, and carried an oversized duffle bag that screamed off-world visitor. Wherever she was from, it sure as hell wasn’t here. Her eyes kept moving, surveying the landscape and population of Gamgee’s, as if she was looking for someone or something.
I suppressed a frown.
“You all right?”
I looked back over my shoulder at Kallyn and forced a tiny smile. “As all right as I get, one way or another. Do you get a lot of non-locals in here?”
She frowned for a second, then glanced toward the door. Her lips pursed, her brow furrowing. “Only sometimes,” she murmured after a second, then turned away to get the pot of coffee I’d come for. “Stick close to Sam, huh?”
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” I answered, my gaze lingering on the traveler. My gut was screaming warnings at me, but they weren’t ones I could quite parse out, not yet. I had good instincts, but I was still getting used to them again. It hadn’t even been three weeks since I’d woken up at the Cloisters and realized the magnitude of my amnesia—and that had been nearly a week after I’d been found half-frozen in the street by a member of the Resistance.
They’d promised to help me. Lucas Ross—the leader of the Resistance in the sector—had promised to help me. In that promise, I’d found a cause and a home for as long as I needed it. It had only been a few weeks, but it felt right. It felt like home.
I collected the coffee and the mug, then headed back to the table. Sam was watching someone and I was laying pretty strong odds on it being the stranger who’d showed up at Gamgee’s like she knew the place.
“Who is she?” I asked quietly as I set down the mug and pot, letting my body shield any view of Sam from the angle of the door. She looked up at me with a frown.
“What makes you think—”
“We promised each other no games,” I said, staring at her for a few seconds before I slid back into my seat. “I’m not playing. Are you?”
“No,” she said. She was looking past me again—past me and up. “But there’s not time to answer that question.”
My brows went up as I reclaimed my cup of coffee, on the verge of asking her what the hell that meant when muffled footsteps stopped just behind me.
“Sam, where is he?”
I twisted in my seat, glancing up over my shoulder at the blonde stranger. Up close, she looked tired—almost exhausted—and more than a little travel-worn. Wherever she’d come from, it hadn’t been close. I pegged her for late twenties or early thirties, but it was hard to tell from a glance what kind of work she did. That bothered me, though I couldn’t figure out exactly why. I filed that away for future exploration and simply stared up at her with an arched brow for a few seconds, then turned back to Sam.
“Obviously not here,” Sam answered, her tone matter-of-fact. “What are you doing here, Kara?”
“What does it look like?” She dropped the bag next to our table and kicked it underneath. She spared me only a fleeting glance before all of her focus landed squarely on Sam. “I need to talk to him.”
“He’s not here,” Sam said, reaching for the coffee pot and the spare mug. “Sit down. He’s probably still at work.”
“I’ll go hunt him down at the hospital, then,” the woman said, scrubbing a hand over her face. “Watch my bag?”
Sam grabbed her wrist. I saw the twitch before Sam did, my own hand snaking out to grasp the woman’s bicep before she could reactively pivot. My jaw got tight as the woman turned a glare on me sharp enough to flay someone with less wherewithal to ribbons.
Luckily, I was made of sterner stuff than that and returned her stare with a flinty one of my own. “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” I said, my voice deceptively quiet.
She jerked her arm free and slumped into the empty seat between Sam and I. “I wasn’t actually going to hit her,” she said, sounding glum. “I would have stopped myself.”
Sam seemed completely unperturbed as she poured the woman a cup of coffee. “I’m sure he won’t be too long, Kara,” she said, her voice firm but somehow soothing. It was a talent she had that I envied a little bit. In my gut, I knew that in whatever life I’d had before I landed here, that was something that could’ve been useful. “Just relax. When did you get in?”
“About an hour ago,” the woman muttered, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “Took way too long to clear customs.”
One of Sam’s shoulders hitched in a shrug. “They’re being extra careful the past few weeks since the Noah Walker was here.”
The woman froze for a second, then sucked in a breath. “Then the rumor’s true.”
“Oh yeah,” Sam said. “Very true. They were here for less than twenty-four hours before they pulled out.” She glanced at me for a second, then back to the stranger—one she certainly seemed to know.
“Luc must’ve flipped out a little.”
Sam smiled briefly. “We locked Luc up at the Cathedral to keep him off the street. Seemed like it worked.”
“Quick thinking,” she said, taking the mug that Sam handed her. Her gaze slid toward me for a second, her brow furrowing slightly. “You’re new.”
“You could say that,” I said, meeting her gaze. I lifted my mug, holding her eye as I took a sip and then lowered it again. “But as far as I’m concerned, so are you.”
Her brows shot up. Sam choked on a laugh, shaking her head.
“Ren, this is Kara. Kara, this is Ren. She and I are working together now.”
Kara’s brows climbed higher. “Really.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “I don’t like how you can sound both so surprised and so suspicious in exactly one word.”
“It’s a gift.” Kara studied both of us for a few seconds, her gaze lingering on me for a few seconds longer than on Sam. “I just never thought that he’d let you.”
“You say that like he’s completely in control of what I decide I want to do,” Sam said.
“You have to admit that he’s protective as hell.”
“Well, yeah.” Sam shook her head, leaning back in her chair. “But sometimes that protectiveness has to take a backseat. We’ve finally gotten that hammered through his skull.”
“Color me shocked,” Kara said, adding sugar and cream to her coffee before she took a sip. “I never thought he’d let you get deeper into this than you already were. Especially not after Carmiline fell.”
Sam glanced at me, then away, staring out one of the windows. “Well, you’d be wrong. I’ve been doing a lot lately. I’m his second, Kara, like you are for Jason.”
She flinched but covered it quickly—so quickly that I almost didn’t catch it—and covered by taking another gulp of coffee. “Yeah, well, we’ve been a little busy ourselves lately. Jason and Luc haven’t gotten to talk much.”
There’s a story there. I didn’t press. It wasn’t my place. I didn’t know her—not yet, anyway. I tapped a fingertip against the side of my mug, glancing away from them for a few moments to survey the rest of Gamgee’s, where Sam and I had set up shop next to one of the windows. Other than the off-worlder at our table, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. That should have allowed me to relax a fraction.
But why the hell had Kallyn told me to stick close to Sam?
“Is he okay?” The trace of concern underlaying Sam’s casual question gave me momentary pause. She was leaning forward again, her brow slightly creased, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth that hadn’t quite bloomed.
Definitely a story here.
“I’m sure everything will be,” Kara said, crossing her arms. I took a slow sip of coffee to help suppress my blooming frown. “He sent me.”
“He sent you?” Sam fidgeted with her coffee cup. I hid my expression behind mine.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
“Yeah.” She looked away. “I should go find him.”
“He’ll be here soon,” Sam said, her tone gentling slightly. “Just—have some coffee. Did you sleep on the flight?”
“Who ever can?” Kara said, then sighed, reaching for her mug again. “I’m fine, Sam.”
“Your eagerness to get to Luc and the way you’re dodging would suggest otherwise.” Her brows knit. “Kara. It’s me.”
“I know,” she said. “I know, Sam. But this—he told me to talk to Luc first.”
Sam glanced at me for a few seconds, the look in her eye suggesting that she was trying to sort through all of the reasons that this woman would need to talk to Luc before telling anyone anything else—and that she liked none of the possibilities. Her frown deepened. “Are you staying long?”
“I don’t know,” Kara sighed. “Maybe. Depends on a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“Like I need to talk to Luc.”
I looked at Sam. “Do you want to go try to round him up?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m sure he’ll be here soon. Probably just got caught up in wrapping something up. Life in the ER, right?”
It certainly seemed to be his life in the ER, anyway. Beyond that, I found I had very little frame of reference, which probably either should have terrified or reassured me. “Yeah,” I agreed, taking another long sip of coffee as I studied Kara for a moment more.
She definitely noticed, meeting my study with a look that wasn’t quite a glare. “You seem paranoid.”
“So do you,” I countered, continuing to study her as I drank my coffee. Laugh lines around the eyes and mouth, but only the beginnings, suggesting my initial guess was probably close to right. There was a messy sort of efficiency in the way her hair was pulled up and back from her face, as if it was part practicality, part a mask. This was a woman who prized both, a woman with secrets hidden in plain sight.
Kara inclined her head in slight acknowledgement. Point to me, I guess.
“And both of you have your reasons for it,” Sam said, as if trying to defuse whatever might be brewing. I wasn’t sure what she was worried about, but she clearly knew Kara, so I guessed it must have been something on her end more than mine. “So how about we not do this?”
“Do what?” Kara asked, her brows lifting as if to feign innocence. Sam scoffed softly, waving a hand back and forth between us.
“Whatever this is. Stop trying to figure each other out because there is nothing to figure out right now. You just are. Okay?”
There was something about the whole encounter that was bothering her and I could tell it had less to do with how Kara and I seemed to be reacting to each other than whatever had brought her here in the first place. I leaned back in my seat with a slight shrug, taking another sip of coffee. “If that’s what you want,” I said.
Kara shot us both a skeptical look. Sam sighed.
“It is,” she said, looking between us again. “And then after you tell Luc whatever the hell it is you have to tell him, you’re going to bring us into the loop, Kara.”
“That sounds dangerously like an order, Sam,” Kara observed quietly.
“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “It does.”
