She knew she should stop him, but she didn’t. His voice was like tearing back scabs. It hurt to hear, and it left her exposed and raw and painful to the touch, and the pain felt good. Worse, it felt right.

“I’m not saying she should be killed. That whole thing about how if she’s ever going back to prison, Amos is going to shoot her? I understand that he’s joking —”

“He’s not.”

“Okay, I’m pretending that he’s joking, but I’m not advocating killing her. I don’t want her to die. I don’t even want her locked up in inhumane, shitty prisons. But that’s not what we’re talking about. Shipping with someone means literally trusting them with your life all the time. And, okay, I was on the Canterbury, and we had some people there who were deeply, deeply sketchy. But even Byers only killed her husband. Clarissa Mao set out to destroy me in particular. Me. I just… I don’t… How does anyone think this is a good idea? Someone who does the things she did doesn’t just change.”

She took a deep breath, pulling air into her bruised lungs. They still gurgled a little, but she was on enough reflex inhibitors that she wasn’t coughing herself light-headed anymore. She didn’t want to open her eyes, didn’t want to talk. She opened her eyes, sat up, her back against the headboard, her arms wrapped around her knees. Holden went quiet, feeling the weight of what was about to come. Naomi plucked at her hair, pulling it over her eyes like a veil, then almost angrily, she smoothed it back so her eyes were clear.

“So,” she said. “We need to talk.”

“Captain to XO?” he asked, carefully.

She shook her head. “Naomi to Jim.”

The dread that bloomed in his eyes hurt to see, but she’d also been expecting it. She felt its echo in her own chest. It was strange that after all she’d done – all the demons she’d faced and escaped – this should still be so hard. Holden’s hand terminal chimed, and he didn’t even look at the screen. The lines around his mouth deepened the way they did when he’d tasted something he didn’t like. His hands folded together, strong, controlled, calm. She remembered the first time they’d met, lifetimes ago back on the Canterbury. How he’d radiated charm and certainty and how much she’d hated it at first. How much she’d hated him for being too much like Marco. And then how much she’d come to love him for not being like him at all.