Heated

14

A hand lands on my shoulder, and the nightmares of last night come to life. Nik is standing in front of me, ready to finish what he started.

Nik's predatory gaze causes my heart to thump against my chest from fear.

"No!" I scream, whipping around smacking the hand off my shoulder.

"Whoa, Bolts!" he yells, confusing my brain enough for Nik's face to disappear and for Lux's to reappear.

Fuck me, I nearly just attacked Lux. My eyes widen with shock and I feel my cheeks turn aflame from embarrassment.

Then I am brought back to present time and remember I was at the cafeteria with the boys for lunch. The table studies me closely, clearly thrown off my lash out.

Blinking, I finally choke out, "I'm sorry."

Two days have gone by since the shower incident, and needless to say I am not handling it well.

They are silent for a beat, just staring at me.

"Are you- what was that?" Lux asks, completely flabbergasted.

My hand slaps against my forehead, shielding my view of their concerned faces, "Sorry I just." I pause trying to think of what to say, "I am just on edge. I've been having nightmares and, clearly, they're bleeding into my real life."

All of that isn't a lie, I just chose to leave out the part where Nik is the perpetrator of my nightmares.

My blood continues to spike hot from lingering embarrassment.

"Do you wanna talk about your attempted murder?" Strykers asks to lighten the mood, but I just find it very tone deaf, considering what happened.

I shoot him a glare, and a hurt expression washes over his face, instantly making me regret it. He was just trying to be nice.

Fuck. I really need to get my head checked.

I release a heavy sigh, "Sorry, please just erase the last 5 minutes from your memory."

Alec smiles, "Erase what from our memory?"

I smile at that, before standing to my feet, "I'm just gonna go back to work. I need to keep busy."

When I turn to walk away, Stryker grabs my wrist. I flinch and extract my wrist from his grip.

He cringes, "Shit, sorry. Um- I'm here if you wanna talk about anything," he offers as his cheeks turn red.

I take note of the table observing the interaction and suddenly feel extremely awkward.

"Right, thanks Stryker," I smile. I wave goodbye and head back to my desk in Ordnance Bay.

Thankful to have not run into Vader, Tarkin, or another human for that matter, I walk in letting the sound of combat fade to white noise, then slump into my swivel chair.

Placing down the parts for the E-11 blaster rifle, I get lost in a rhythm of concentration.

—

After an exhausting 4 hours and and 55 minutes going by, I'm broken from my mind numbing trance of nuts and bolts when my stomach growls.

The tips of my fingers feel raw from the constant friction of fiddling with metal parts.

It is only 5 minutes until 17-Hundred so I know Lux and his friends won't be at the cafeteria yet. After the incident this afternoon I think that I'm actually better off not seeing them again today.

The lingering pit of embarrassment and fear still sits deep in my stomach.

I gently swipe at a small bead of sweat on my forehead and brush my hands off on the front of my pants.