“Sorry.” Royse checks another crate. “Maybe I meant brave.”
I roll my eyes and let him see it through my suit’s faceplate.
Guys call me nice things like “good” and “strong” and “brave” pretty often, but the kicker is that if I ever agree with them, if I ever claim that I’m really not so bad in my heart of hearts, they tend to change their minds.
But if I tell them straight out that I am that bad, they’ll bend over backwards even farther than before to imagine the best of me, like the purity of their own precious souls depends on it.
“I think if you’d met me selling fake miracle cures on Valnoc, you’d choose a different word,” I tell him savagely, the words leaving flecks of saliva inside my faceplate.
Royse goes very still. Then he turns away, trying to occupy himself with scanning th
