Chapter 62

“No one touch my ship,” Jason said. “She’s mine.” He was trying not to throw out an arm and defend Colby against rambunctious arrivals. Colby, for his part, had gone more pale and bitten into a lip when the bodies descended, but had stayed put. This might have been either determined courage or sheer panicked paralysis. “Don’t make me arm-wrestle you.”

“He scares me,” said one of the set design people to his orange-haired friend. The friend looked at Jason and said, “If I give you twenty bucks will you put him in a headlock?”

Jason sighed, “How cheap do you think I am?” which made them laugh and—he hoped—not push any more. Colby was looking at him with huge eyes; that extra-dark stripe of blue caught firelight like a shadow trying to hide.

“Sorry, Jason,” Jillian put in, “we have to blow up your ship, it’s in the script, didn’t you read it?”