Saffron pouted as she looked up at the lid of the trash can. Damn that Malcolm Reynolds. Damn him and his fashionable whore. She jumped up and tried to push up the lid, but to no avail. She landed just short. “Wangbadan de biaozi!”

She slumped against the wall of the trash can and crossed her arms. The image replayed in her head over and over. Inara with that smirk and the gun in her hand. Of course she was a back up. She was stupid to not see it.

Another image popped in her head. Mal when she first conned him. The way he acted around Inara. It was oh so obvious that he was in love with her. Anyone who met them would know that. Inara was the only person who could make Mal’s head swim. Give him a blood rush. Be like a getaway car to him like in the stories she heard about Earth-That-Was. The love and lust was obvious. He wanted to be like one of the clients in her bed at his very core, except in a more permanent manner. To be the covers. Keep her warm and not ask any questions.

What a crock...

Another image flashed in her head. Inara in a backless black dress, practically taunting Mal. She laughed out loud at that one. “He wishes...”

Saffron’s attention quickly shifted back to her current situation. Mal and his crew were gone with the Lassiter and she was wallowing in misery in a trash can in the middle of the desert. They were going to be famous for this and she wasn’t even going to be a footnote. But he didn’t upset her plans for the fame. He did it for bragging rights. Scars and stories. If he ever made it to being an old man, which he probably wouldn’t, he wanted to tell his buddies, “You think you’re so great? Guess what I did.”

He could go to Hell for all Saffron cared. Because of him, she was going to be stuck on another back water moon for God knows how long. And small towns made her ears hurt. He must like drowning traitors in shallow water.

Saffron groaned as she could hear people approach the trash can. If she saw Mal again, she’d be the first to strike the matches. No