Cassie sleeps soundly through the entire night. Her normal dreams stay away, and whenever she does fidget, it’s easily settled by just squeezing her a little.

  I get close to the same feeling Corax does when he watches over me. I just get to make her happy, to chase away whatever bad thoughts try to cloud her mind. It’s nice. I’m glad I get to give her the good night’s rest she desperately needs. Thankfully, it’s not possible for me to get uncomfortable. I’d hate to have to shift and disturb her.

  Unfortunately, the night can’t last forever. Cassie sleeps for a long time, but she eventually begins to stir. I don’t try to wake her, I just continue to read and silently offer the choice to go back to sleep.

  She takes the offer twice, but eventually comes fully to consciousness. The moment she does, she pushes me away and jumps to her feet, only for the wires connecting her legs to her battery to go taught and send her tumbling to the floor.

  “Shit!”

  “Are you ok?” I scramble to get to the edge of the bed and chase after her.

  “I’m fine!” She shoves herself into a sitting position, and roughly reattaches the wires to the battery terminal.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing.” She shoves her battery in her backpack, scrambles to her feet, and quickly puts it on. She begins to check her pistol, her foot rapidly tapping against the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “I want to get moving.”

  “Is that all?”

  She keeps checking her equipment without a word.

  “I don’t think we should go out if something’s wrong.” I don’t want her to be distracted, I’m not going to let whatever we do tonight be more dangerous than it has to be.

  Cassie takes a deep breath, but doesn’t put her gun away. She just continues to stare at it.

  “About last night.” She pauses, and I stay quiet to let her finish. “I… I made a mistake.”

  “Oh.” My mind dies. Threads go limp, disregarding whatever thought they were doing. Only a few threads can summon the energy to keep moving, to keep me slowly thinking. “Ok.”

  “No! I didn’t mean! Fuck!”

  “It’s ok. I understand.” She hadn’t slept for over 24 hours, she wasn’t thinking clearly. I should have thought of that and stopped her. No matter how much it hurts, that’s my problem, not hers. “It’s just like when you got drunk. We can just agree it didn’t mean anything.”

  “No I- shut up and let me talk.” She shoves her pistol into its holster, and sits on the bed next to me. Her eyes are pinned to her foot tapping aggressively against the floor, discordant with the music below. “Look. I don’t regret last night. It was… nice. Since you worked on my hand I’ve…” She gives a small shake of her head. “It’s just that if you die. I’d be sad of course, but I could move on. Still save everyone else. But now? If we, you know, and you die? It’s fucking terrifying.”

  As fragmented as it is, I think I can still follow her train of thought. I’m glad she doesn’t regret it, that breathes a little life into my mind.

  “I’m sorry.” What do I even say? How do I help her? If my death is her biggest fear, maybe I can help that? “I’m not going to let any of us die. I promise.”

  “No, you’ve done everything you can to make sure we don’t die.” She gestures to Corax. “You won’t stop trying to get yourself killed.” She turns to me and lifts her finger to poke me in the chest, only to quickly look away the moment she sees me. “Fuck, I dirtied your shirt.”

  “I can cover up.” The bedsheet is so thin, it won’t even affect my temperature that much. I wrap it around my shoulders instead of my cloak. “You can look now.”

  She looks back, her eyes meeting mine only to glance away a moment later. She lets herself fall back on the bed, staring at the ceiling for a long minute.

  “Were you lying last night?” Her voice shatters the silence.

  “About liking the kiss?”

  “Alright, you don’t have to say it out loud.” Her eyes flick to the far corner of the room. “Yes, about that.”

  “No, I wasn’t lying, I just didn’t know how to process it at the time.” Do I tell her I spent most of the night thinking about it and barely paid attention to our book? Is that weird? “I thought about it a lot last night, and was really looking forward to doing it again.” The thought rushes out quietly before I can stop it.

  Cassie snorts, and turns her head to look deep into my eyes for a few seconds before glancing away again. She glances at my backpack that Corax has made his nest in, and then stares at the far corner of the room.

  “I wanted to do it for a while.” She admits at barely more than a whisper. “I liked it too, I just thought we should get home before I said anything.”

  “Wait, is that why Ivy kept asking questions about me dating someone?” In hindsight it’s pretty obvious, I just didn’t think it was possible for someone to like me.

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  “That sounds like her.” Cassie draws her knife just to have something to fidget with, spinning it in her fingers. “I don’t think I can pretend like last night was nothing.”

  My mind rushes fully back to life, a thousand threads moving with renewed energy.

  “Me either.” My voice betrays my relief and excitement.

  “But look, we need to make some things clear first.” She sets the knife to the side and props herself up on her elbow to look seriously into my face. “Do not die on me. I don’t care what happens, I don’t care what you think you have to do. We do it together, got it?”

  “There are some things you can’t help Corax and I with though, like hacking.” That’s just a fact. “We’ll discuss it before I go diving into the next unknown server.”

  “You fucking better. Second, I fucking suck at relationships. They’re not like my books. They’re messy, and things go wrong. You’ll learn things about me you hate, and I’ll do the same to you. Can we just skip all the passive aggressive bullshit and discuss problems like adults?”

  “I would love to.”

  “Good.” She breathes out a sigh of relief. “Do you have any limits you need to put in place?” She asks.

  “I’m going to need you to teach me how most of this works.” Relationships were yet another topic Finn didn’t put in my head. “So, probably? I just have no idea what that would be yet.”

  “Alright. Basically just do what you’re doing. Nothing really has to change.”

  “Except we kiss sometimes?” My voice once again betrays my hope.

  “Yeah, something like that.” She looks shyly away from me yet again. “Just don’t forget us doing… this doesn’t mean we’re obligated to do anything. You can say no to anything, don’t let me push you into anything you don’t want to do.”

  “That’s good to know, thank you.”

  “Finally, and this isn’t a requirement, just a request.” Her voice is far less certain suddenly. “Last night, I was laying on my good arm.”

  I wait a few seconds for her to continue, but her posture makes it clear her sentence is finished.

  “Ok?” I have no idea what she’s getting at.

  “Don’t make me ask.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Can I touch your stomach?” She asks nearly silently.

  “Oh!” That must be what she was trying to do when her mechanical shoulder moved! “I don’t have any skin, it’ll just feel like touching a piece of aluminum.”

  “Just. Can I?”

  “Of course.” Hang on, I get to make requests too. That’s how this works, right? Or is that pushing it too far? Screw it, Cassie said we can work things out like adults. There’s no harm in asking. “Can I touch yours?”

  Her face, already pink with embarrassment, turns a shade deeper.

  “I guess that’s fair. Just, lay down.”

  “Do you want me to stay covered? Or should I remove the blanket?”

  “Just get like you were yesterday.”

  “Ok.” I lay down, open my blanket, and she scootches over to me. She remains sitting instead of lying down with me. The shattered remains of her arm still have some delicate parts exposed. It’d unfortunately be too dangerous for her to lay on it.

  She reaches out towards me, only to pause a few inches above my skin.

  “Can I?” She asks quietly.

  I take her hand in mine, and bring it down in contact with me. Her warm hand presses firmly on me, my internal arms holding up my skin plates giving a small amount under the pressure.

  “You’re soft?” She retracts and gently pushes with her hands a few times, her previous embarrassment entirely forgotten.

  “I have individual arms that hold up every skin plate.” I send a ripple through my body, slightly extending and retracting one plate after each other. “It gives easy access for repairs, but also has some give when pressed on.”

  “That’s so fucking cool.” She starts to run her hand across me, only to pause when she gets to a small scratch in my skin. “Is this me?”

  “Yeah.” When she woke from a nightmare and lashed out with her knife, it left a small scratch beneath my silicone skin. Getting sand blasted by the storm actually almost entirely hid it, but I guess it’s still present enough to feel. “It’ll buff out easily, I just haven’t exactly had time to work on it.”

  “Yeah.” She traces a finger across it a few times before resuming her movement across me. “How does this feel for you?”

  “Like you’re running your hand across my skin? Is it supposed to feel like anything else?”

  “No, it’s just… are you enjoying this?” Her hand pauses, and she looks at me.

  “Oh! Yeah, it’s enjoyable. If I’m missing something, I can set my sensitivity higher.”

  “No, it’s fine.” She traces her fingers across my side, seemingly entranced by the feeling.

  I tune my sensitivity a little higher regardless. My mind is nearly overwhelmed by the sudden sensation, and I rush to turn it back down. It felt good, but perhaps too good. If I let myself get used to that, my regular sensitivity will feel way too dull.

  “Alright.” She lets out a sigh after a few minutes. “I’m satisfied.” Despite saying that, she still hesitates for a moment before she retracts her hand. “I just really wanted to do that last night.”

  “My turn?” I say hopefully.

  “If you want to.”

  “Well, I don’t want to do it if you don’t want to.”

  Instead of responding, she quickly removes her shirt and lays back.

  My mind short circuits once again when I see her. All her scars, her scratches, her powerful muscles just beneath her skin. It all paints a story and I want nothing more than to read everything.

  I reach out, gently placing the tip of my finger on a small crater in her skin.

  “What happened here?”

  “That was the first time I got shot.” I can’t even begin to dissect what emotions are in her voice, and I can’t tear my eyes away from her to look at her face.

  I trace my thumb across the crater and around the rim, feeling every piece of it, memorizing every contour.

  I move my fingers to a large, jagged gash.

  “And this one?”

  “That was shrapnel from when I lost my legs.”

  “This one?” I move to a thin raised portion on her side.

  “I didn’t quite dodge a knife.”

  I trace my way across the constellations on her skin, asking about every single one. I trace across a small, shiny patch of skin she says is from the first time she tried to run with her new legs, run my fingers across her fading surgery scars, tenderly touch a long cut that never healed correctly due to infection, and many, many more.

  Only once I’ve learned the reason behind every single story on her perfect skin do I retract my hand.

  “Thank you for sharing.”

  Cassie nods, and quickly puts her shirt back on.

  “I’m glad we got that sorted out.” Cassie focuses on checking her pistol once again. “We should get moving though. We only have enough money to stay here for three days, we need to make a little bit of cash, and be ready to leave as soon as the storm is over.”

  “Alright. Let’s get started.”

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