So the showers it is.
“Do we really smell?” Helen asks, worried. She sniffs her clothing.
“Not at all. I just wanted to get away from the others and talk to you privately, and I figured the showers were the best place to do it.” I put a hand on her hip. “Would you rather go somewhere else?”
“No, I like showering with you.”
Well, that makes two of us. I lock the door to the shower room and immediately Helen strips out of her clothing, tossing it to the ground. I decide it can’t hurt to get under the spray anyhow, and do the same. The moment I step under the water, Helen reaches for my cock and starts to stroke it.
“Helen! Wait! Kef!” I pry her hands off my cock.
“Oh, is this not what we’re doing?” She looks confused and slightly hurt, as if I’ve rejected her. “You said you wanted to be private with me in the showers. I thought that meant you wanted me to rub your penis.”
“No, no.” I move forward, pulling her against me in a wet hug, and trying to ignore the fact that now my traitorous cock is stiffening. Parts of me apparently really like the idea of a quick tug, but I ignore them. “I wanted to talk to you because I’m worried you’re needing to talk about what happened. Do you want to work through it with me? Are you all right?”
I know the first time I killed someone, I didn’t sleep that night. I saw his face in my dreams. It didn’t matter that he was trying to kill me, just that I’d actually taken a life. I want to help Helen if she needs to work through that.
“Well,” she confesses after a moment. “Zebah is creepy.”
And…again, I’ve read the situation all wrong. “Huh?”
“She smells like arousal when she talks to me. I don’t like it.” Helen wrinkles her nose. “If she touches me, I’m going to snap her neck.”
“If she touches you, you should absolutely snap her neck,” I agree. “Has she tried anything?”
“No, she just stares and giggles and tells me she likes danger.”
Okay, I can see how that would be creepy to Helen. “I mean it, love. If she makes you uncomfortable, snap her arm. Show her you mean business.”
Helen nods. “Especially if she pinches.”
I brace my hands on the side of her face and peer into her eyes. “Is anything else troubling you? Anything at all?” When Helen shakes her head, it makes me wonder. “What about the males you killed? Do you feel anything for them?”
“Should I? They’re bad guys, right?” She gives me an innocent look.
That worries me a little. Did they tinker with Helen’s emotions when they modified her reflexes? Can she not feel remorse at killing? Or has it simply not sunk in for her that she has stolen their lives? It’s hard to tell. “I just want you to know that I’m here if you want to talk.”
Helen reaches up to her braided crown and pulls the knife free from her hair, her locks spilling free across her shoulders with that single movement. She tosses it aside and gives me a pouty look. “Is that why you wanted to come shower with me? To talk?”
Kef, she makes it hard to think straight sometimes. My cock reacts as she saunters forward toward me. “I wanted to make sure you were all right, actually.”
“I’m wonderful,” she purrs, reaching for my body. “And you’re hard.”
I am. But with Helen’s assistance, I’m not for long.
CHAPTER 51
HELEN
We have two days to go before we hit Three Nebulas Station. That means Mathiras has to spend time on the bridge, working. It means that Adiron has to sleep during those times…which means that I’m alone with Zebah.
I decide that the best thing I can do is avoid her. My only experience being in forced proximity with people I don’t like was back on the Buoyant Star with the pinchers, and I don’t know how to handle this. Every instinct I have says that I should do something about her, but I know Mathiras wants her assistance and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want her dead.
So I head to the training room in the ship and throw knives at a target. All the while, I think of ways I could kill Zebah. Poison is too slow and messy. If she vomits, I’d have to clean it up. Plus, after being tight on food on the Star for years, it seems like the height of foolishness to waste food. So that’s out. A blaster would work, but it’s over quickly unless you shoot at a less vital spot—
I fling the knife at the target, not surprised when it slices directly through the middle. I flick another, but this doesn’t really feel like satisfying practice, because I’m not missing. It’s not a challenge. I close my eyes and send the third one flying, and I know without opening them that it hits the middle of the target. I just feel it.