"We need to talk."
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
He jerked his chin toward the hallway. "Come with me."
Oh, hell no. "I’m kind of busy," I said, gesturing vaguely at the hatch panel. "Maybe later."
Xyrek tilted his head as if amused by the idea that I thought I had a choice.
"Now," he ordered.
Before I could tell him to go fuck himself, Josie’s high-pitched screech cut through the moment like nails on a chalkboard.
"You’ve got to be kidding me!" she shrieked, stepping between us like some kind of alien guard dog. Xyrek barely glanced at her, which she didn't take well. "You ignore me for days, but the moment she—" Josie spat the word like venom "—messes with your ship, she gets a private meeting?"
"It’s none of your concern," Xyrek retorted flatly.
"None of my concern?" Josie gasped. "I trusted you! I defended you!" She turned to the rest of the group, gesturing wildly. "You all saw it! She’s been messing with things she doesn’t understand, and now he’s rewarding her for it!"
Nobody looked at her. Even Tom turned his head as if this had nothing to do with him. But Xyrek finally noticed that I had been working on the panel. Before he could comment on it, I vented my exasperation at her. "Josie, I swear to whatever alien gods are listening?—"
"This is bullshit," she cut me off. "You don’t even like him!"
I snapped my fingers. "Exactly! I don’t like him! Finally, something we agree on!"
Xyrek let out a low growl as if deeply offended by that statement and turned his attention to the exposed panel beside the hatch. His already foul mood curdled into something darker. A slow, dangerous silence stretched between us.
Then, in an eerily calm voice, he asked, "What. The. Frygg. Is. This?"
Oh, shit.
I resisted the urge to take a step back. "Uh?—"
His jaw clenched, his hands balling into fists at his sides. "You tampered with my ship?"
"Tampered is a strong word," I hedged.
His head snapped toward me, and his black eyes blazed like actual flames. "And yet, the panel is open, the casing is missing, and I see tools that look suspiciously human-made wedged intomycontrols."
He bent slightly; his large frame towered over me as he plucked one of my makeshift tools from the wiring with two fingers. He examined it, then flicked his eyes back to me. "Explain. Now."
The entire room held its breath. This was the perfect time for them to find out how Xyrek would punish disobedience. Not one part of me rejoiced at the prospect of being the guinea pig.
Josie crossed her arms, fully pleased with herself. "See? I told you she was messing with things she doesn’t understand."
Xyrek’s broad shoulders rose and fell with a slow, measured breath, his posture radiating barely contained fury.
I held up my hands. "Okay, first of all, I completely know what I was doing. Second, you locked us in. What did you expect me to do? Sit around and wait for you to come back with zero information?"
His upper lip curled. "Yes. That's exactly what I expected. Because this ismyship—not some human scrap heap you can tinker with like a junker."
That pissed me off. I pressed my fists into my hips and matched his glare. "Well, maybe if you actually told us what the hell was going on, I wouldn’t have needed to do some problem-solving of my own."
His nostrils flared. "Problem-solving?" He turned the tool over in his fingers, then, with a sharp snap of his wrist, crushed it like it was nothing but cheap plastic. I was proud that I managed to hold back a flinch.
"That’s not how things work here," he said, his voice deadly quiet. "Let me make this clear, human. You do not touch my ship. Ever."
The way he said human like it was an insult made my fingers curl into fists. But self-preservation made me bite out, "Noted."
