Lightning Bringer: (Lighting Seeker Book 2)

Showcasing Empty Threats

Dash had known better than to suggest Vale remain on bed rest. It didn't matter that he outranked her when it came to all health procedures. She would not be deterred. So when Vale tried to sneak out of her room as soon as the painkillers let up long enough to give her clarity, she yanked out the needle that administered them and slowly pushed through the door where she found Dash waiting for her.

He didn't bother looking surprised as she moved through the door, looking exhausted and pale. "Wow. Figured you'd be up half an hour ago," Dash said pushing off the wall he had been leaning against. He shot her an amused grin, his bright green eyes mischievous. "You've lost your touch Lightning."

Vale snorted. "Noted. I'll work on that." She walked past him, wary of getting too close. She knew she was at a disadvantage when she was so exhausted, even with her reattached arm in place.

"I wouldn't go that way," Dash said, unmoving as he watched her slowly make her way down the hall.

Vale gritted her teeth, annoyed that he had stated something so obvious. She had never been on this vessel. She didn't even know where in the world they were. And despite wanting to walk off in a huff and rip the ship apart, so taut with grief and anger over her current circumstances, she turned around. "Why?" Vale asked as politely as she could muster.

"Well unless you want to fall off the back of the ship by opening the hatch at the end of the hall, there isn't much else to do over there." He shoved his hands in his dark trench coat pockets, calling Vale's eyes to his form of dress for the first time.

He wore all black, a pair of dress pants covered most of his glistening jet boots. A buttoned-up black shirt had been pressed and sat across his taught chest. The trenchcoat flowed down towards the ground like wet ink on a page, a dark brush stroke in an otherwise pale hallway.

He noticed her confused expression and shrugged. "Ace's doing. We have a final debrief before I head back to The Ingus."

"Ah," Vale replied so she had something to say. The Ingus was the hospital airship that hid in broad daylight, rescuing passengers from airships that were rumored to be loyal to the rebellion. It was strange to think that AI's had gotten to a strange level of paranoia. Especially when they were often the ones used for determining logic and laws throughout the societies of the word.

"Should I change?" she asked, praying that Ace hadn't come up with a garish outfit for her. But then again, Dash looked fine in his, perhaps Geo wouldn't punish her with something formfitting.

"Probably." He began to walk in the opposite direction. "But if Geo can't find you, you won't have to!" he shouted over his shoulder. Vale moved to catch up, the idea of being dressed like a mannequin in a storefront enough of a terrible idea to make Dash's company preferable.

They moved in silence down the hall and around the corner. Dash pressed his hand into the wall and a door popped out of the metal panel, revealing a lift. Squeezing in, Vale stared out of the three walls covered in graves, catching pieces of the sky as the lift sprang to life, creaking as it moved.

The entire thing seemed to protest their weight as it stuttered upward, cursing in the language of mechanics and metal. Vale kept her eyes on the small pits of the sky that called to her past the grates, doing her best to ignore her heightened claustrophobia. She was moving in a small death trap. "How old is this thing?" she managed to ask after several failed attempts at calm speech.

Out of the corner of her eye, Vale caught Dash touch one of the walls in a gentle sign of respect. "The Veteris is a marvel. It's older than the first AI's." The deathtrap came to a sudden stop and Vale threw the door open before Dash could move. She stumbled onto a deck, all pretense of calm gone.