I woke. As I opened my eyes, my head swam and the room swirled around me. I squeezed them shut again and waited for the spell of vertigo to pass. My temples throbbed.

Exactly how much did I have to drink last night?

I tried again.

This time the room remained stationary. There was an arm draped over me. I turned my head and looked at the slumbering hulk beside me, his broad-shouldered sprawl taking up much of the bed.

Oh no.

I made a quick assessment of the room I'd woken up in. It wasn't the room I'd paid for. So it had to be his . . . whoever he was. Luckily, I was no stranger to making a discrete exit the morning after a tryst. I carefully withdrew—wriggling my legs, knees, then torso from under him. Each movement measured and honed by years of practice.

As I removed myself from under his arm, the man emitted a suspicious grunt, interrupting the silence. I froze, naked, at the side of the bed. Waking him would only serve to complicate things.

What is his name, anyway?

He was tall, muscular, and tanned. His black hair was cut short and there was some kind of tattoo behind his left ear. Something written in an alien language I did not recognize. I looked at a small scar on his forearm, and had a flash of recollection from the night before. Standing at the bar, asking where he'd got the small, curved pale scar in the shape of a letter U.

'Oh, this? Got it in combat.'

He flashed a smile, then, and I felt something shift inside me. Maybe it was the drink, maybe it was the loneliness of the job, but a part of me wanted to ask the man more. Find out where in the galaxy he had been, what he'd done, in the hope that he found me just as fascinating.

His name floated up out of the murk.

Ahro.

I remembered laughing when he told me. 'Really?'

'Yes, really.'

'As in bow and arrow?'

Ahro shrugged his huge shoulders. 'That's the name my mama gave me.'

'I'm sorry, I don't mean to poke fun . . .' I had said, trying to downplay the way I'd reacted to it.

Ahro shifted on the bar stool to face me better. 'Anyway, where'd you get a pretty name like Aurora, anyway?'

'Buy me another drink and I'll tell you.'

I remembered how he'd matched me drink-for-drink, and the firm grip of his hand around mine as we walked through Space Port 66 in the dead of night together, him asking, 'My place or yours?'

I got dressed quickly and secured my weapons in place. The room had its own bathroom and before leaving I took the opportunity to splash my face with cold water and drink quickly from the faucet.

Ahro hadn't so much as stirred. I considered leaving some kind of note, then decided against it. I had never been one for relationships. I had always preferred liaisons whose passions burned brightly on the night of their inception and were extinguished by the next morning.

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A fleeting romance.

It was simpler that way.

For me, for everybody.

I left his room and closed the door as gently as possible, then strode away.

Outside the hotel building, I slipped my shades on and tried to get my bearings. Last night I had felt the need to let my hair down. To drink and relax. Connecting with Ahro at the bar had not been part of my plan for the evening, but I rolled with it anyway, knowing it had been a while since I'd taken a companion for the night, and I had an itch to scratch.

Sometimes you just go with the flow and see where it takes you.

It had been a long while since I'd dreamed about Paden. I'd learned to let go of my pain, to move on from it—to not dwell on it and allow it to define me. But my assignment had brought everything flooding back. What Jed Teague had done to his victims, how he had used them and then killed them had struck a chord. No wonder when I'd finally closed my eyes I had been pulled back to the past. To the night Paden had vanished.

Sometimes I wondered if I took jobs like Jed Teague because their completion made me feel better about the situation. Taking somebody like Jed Teague out of circulation had to be better for society as a whole, didn't it? Removing the bad apples before they could spoil everything around them.

After my meeting with Lerii in the tower, I had contacted Tanile's father to let him know the job was complete. Jed Teague was dead. Justice had been served.

Though I knew it was of little comfort. Now that it was done, there was only the loss that remained. Tanile's father would have to work his way through it, navigate the grief and somehow make it to the other side.

Can I say that I've done that? I asked myself. Can I say I've touched the other shore?

No, I was still battling the rapids of my own grief, struggling to keep myself afloat.

I just didn't like admitting it.

When I reached my own hotel, I found a man with weathered, leathery skin waiting outside the door to my room. I wondered if he worked for the hotel manager.

"Hello," I said, miffed by his presence outside my room.

The man gave a sigh of relief at the sight of me. "Thank heavens you're back. I thought you'd never return."

"Excuse me, can I help you?" I asked. "Do you work for the hotel?"

"No, no. We met last night. Have you forgotten? I hail from L'fal."

I frowned. "L'fal? I'm sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about."

I found myself beginning to grow impatient. All I wanted was to drink more water, lay on the bed I'd paid for and get a couple of hours more sleep. Let the booze work itself out of my system. All the advancements of the modern age and still no viable cure for a hangover . . .

"L'fal!"

"Yes, L'fal. You said that. It still doesn't mean anything to me."

"We spoke about it last night. You told me to meet you here this morning."

I faltered. "I did?"

Something about what the man was telling me struck me as truth. I could not remember the conversation, not yet, but there was something about him rang a bell.

He nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, yes. You agreed to help us."

"Help you?" I asked with a groan of despair. "Honestly, friend, I'm in no fit state to help myself right now, let alone anyone else."

"Please..." the man implored.

I unlocked the hotel room door. "Come on, clear out of here."

"But last night—"

I closed the door on him. How drunk had I been last night? What else had I agreed to with people?

I drank a bottle of water and sat on the edge of the bed. I heard shuffling outside my door, and then a knock.

"What is it?" I yelled.

"I'm still here."

"I told you, I'm not interested."

A pause.

"But I paid you."

I clutched my head in my hands. What did I get myself into last night? "You did, huh?"

"Yes, you said that money had to change hands. So that's what we did. You said it is as good as a contract."

I got up, opened the door. "You paid me to work for you?"

"Yes."

"And I accepted?"

"Yes."

I folded my arms. Looked at him skeptically. "If that's the case, where's the money?"

The man pointed to the pouch on my belt. I felt inside it and, sure enough, felt a single coin in there. I removed the metal disc and studied it. It was misshapen, its surface smoothed by years of being handled.

It was solid gold.

"You paid me with this?" I asked, admiring the way the coin glimmered in the palm of my hand.

"Yes."

I returned the coin to the pouch. "Okay. Tell you what, there's a diner around the corner from here. I need caffeine. And you need to tell me what it is you want me to do. Right? I plan on leaving this planet tomorrow. My work here is finished. So this had better be worth me delaying my departure."