She took a moment just to glare at the auto-washer embedded on the wall—it was a sliding door about a meter wide and tall, and like everything else in the apartment, it was unreliableat best. The wash function worked well, but it was crapshoot as to whether her clothes would actually be dry when thedonelight came on. More than once, she’d been forced to drape damp clothing over the shower rod and let it air dry.
Once she’d finished on the toilet, she took a quick shower and got dressed.
The bathroom contained a tiny shower stall, a sink, and a bowl protruding from the wall that was her toilet, and it felt about the size of a coat closet. Despite being crowded and leaving her with bruised elbows a few times, it was enough for her. Better her arms than her belly, anyway, which seemed prone to bump into everything. She wasn’t used to being so…ungainly.
She was brushing her teeth when the door buzzer went sounded.
Shay paused, her mouth fully of toothpaste, and looked at the front door—which was behind her in the main room—in the mirror. She settled her free hand atop her blaster.
The buzz came again.
Trying to ignore how nauseous the toothpaste made her, she spat into the sink, set the toothbrush down, and quickly rinsed and wiped her mouth before stalking into the main room.
Pressing a shoulder against the wall beside the door, she raised the blaster and checked the charge. The view screen mounted near the doorframe hadn’t worked since she’d moved in. Any time she opened the door, she was doing so blind, and that was especially concerning in a place like this.
Her visitor pounded on the door. Shay felt the vibrations through the wall.
“Who is it?” she called.
“Open up, terran,” demanded Vrisk, her so-called landlord, his voice muffled through theclosed door.
“What do you want? I’m busy.”
“Your payment is due.”
Shay pushed away from the wall to glare at the door as though she could see Vrisk through it. “The fuck you say? I paid for a month!”
“It’s been a month. Hand over the credits or get out.”
Righteous fury burned in her belly. Shay gritted her teeth, switched the blaster into her left hand, tucked it behind her back, and disengaged the locks on the door.
“I so don’t have time for this shit,” she muttered, slapping theopenbutton.
The door—the only thing in the apartment in decent working order—whipped open to reveal her two-hundred-ten-centimeter tall landlord, an ilthurii with dark brown bark scales and crimson eyes. He was one scary motherfucker, but that hadn’t stopped Shay from approaching him when she needed a place to stay, even if this was a dump.
Desperate times…
His hairless brow ridges were drawn down—whether in annoyance or in constipation, Shay neither knew nor cared. It was the look he always seemed to wear.
“It’s only been three weeks,” Shay said, glaring up at the overgrown lizard. “The deal was a month.”
Vrisk leaned down, the spines around his face and head flattening as he grunted. “If I say it’s been a month, it’s been a month. I want my credits, terran.”
“You’ll get your damned credits in a week.”
“I am not running a fucking charity.” He held his hand out. “I want what is due.”
Shay smacked his hand away. “You’ll get what’s duewhenit’s due.”
Vrisk snarled and stepped closer, shoving a clawed finger inher face. She barely managed to keep herself from shoving her gun into his.
“You will pay now, terran, or I will sell your room and everything inside it to another by the day’s end,” he said.
Shay’s jaw hurt from how hard she clenched it to keep her words from spewing out. Oh, the things she wanted to say to this asshole.
Think of the baby…
Shay tucked her blaster into the waistband of her pants and hid it under her shirt. “Stay there.”