Page 51

“Working.”

“At what?”

He finally glanced over his shoulder, one silver-gray eyebrow lifting infinitesimally. I sighed, the sound swallowed by the hum of overhead pipes. “Right. Extremely relevant but somehow none of my business.”

He faced forward again and continued walking. I followed, my boots scuffing against the grated floor.

The passage opened abruptly onto another docking level—smaller, dimmer, nearly empty. No public boards flickered with arrivals; no vendors called out offers. Just a line of maintenance berths and several compact, unmarked transports crouched in the shadows.

He headed toward the last one without hesitation.

I planted my feet. “No.”

He turned, his expression impassive but his posture shifting almost imperceptibly into something more alert.

“I am not getting on a ship with you,” I stated, crossing my arms.

“It is not a ship.”

“That is not the important part of that sentence.”

“Transport,” he amended flatly.

“I don’t care if it’s a bicycle.”

His mouth twitched—just once, at the corner. A flicker of something that might have been amusement or annoyance. “You do not have those here,” he said, his tone even.

I blinked. “Was that a joke?”

“No.”

“I think you just made a joke.”

“I did not.”

“Accidentally, then,” I insisted, tilting my chin up.

He took a slow breath. “Talia.”

There was something deeply offensive about a man refusing to give me his name while using mine like he’d earned the right. My fingers tightened around my elbows. “You keep doing that.”

“Doing what?” he asked, though I could tell he knew.

“Saying my name.”

“It is your name.”

“That is not the point,” I shot back, frustration sharpening my voice.

His eyes narrowed slightly, assessing. I took half a step closer—not enough to invade his space, but enough to make my stance clear. Not too close. I had learned that lesson.

“You know who I am. You know where I worked. You know my registration history. You know where I paid for transport and apparently where my discarded wrist unit ended up.” I gestured between us. “You have searched my bag and interrogated me about things I didn’t steal.”

His expression remained unreadable. He said not a word.

“And I don’t even know what to call you.”

“You do not need to.”