“Rache,” Michael said softly, taking her left wrist in his hand. “This is my choice. If you drag me back to Unity, it’s going to have to be kicking and screaming.”
She finally dropped her glare and looked down at Michael, her face tight and slightly flushed with drink.
That was Jarek’s cue.
“Think I better let you crazy kids talk this one out,” he said, starting down the stairs. “Just don’t skip the sleep, Mikey. The adventure starts tomorrow.”
11
“What the hell, Michael?” Rachel said once Pryce had abandoned the remaining dishes and retreated to another room.
“I have to do this, Rache,” he said. “I have to see it through. I’d say it even if it was just for Hux, but I have a feeling this is a lot bigger than that.”
“Oh, good!” she hissed, her face hot with frustration and whiskey-fueled fire. “You have a feeling. I was afraid you were risking your life for nothing!”
“Rache—”
“Look, last night was fun and everything, but I’d rather not have to storm another fortress for you. You need to get out while you still can.”
A silence passed between them, and she found herself wishing she hadn’t had those two heavy drinks.
“This isn’t one of your comics, Spongehead,” she said. “Those people weren’t fucking around back there. And where the hell was your precious Resistance? They hid under their rock while the Reds tortured you.”
“It’s not like that, Rache. They didn’t—”
“Didn’t what? Didn’t know where you were? It took me less than two days to crack that one, Michael, and I barely even know where the fuck I am right now. A fucking mercenary came to pull you out of there of his own free will before your Resistance friends so much as raised a finger. I don’t like him, but at least he didn’t leave you to die. You can’t go back to ‘friends’ like that.”
How could he not see that?
“Rache . . .” He reached out to touch her arm.
She shrugged it off, too irritated for contact.
“The rest of us can’t do the things you can, Rache. Busting me out of the Red Fortress would have taken everything the Resistance has and then some. We’re severely outgunned here. It’s why I need to make sure what Hux and I found doesn’t go to waste. I promise they were trying to find a way.”
She snorted. “Jarek didn’t have an army. Where were his excuses?”
That put a deep frown on Michael’s face. It probably caused him physical pain, hearing his sister praise the morality of a man like Jarek Slater over that of his precious Resistance. But so what? Jarek might be a dick—scratch that, he was a dick—but she couldn’t deny that things might’ve gone much differently at the Fortress if he hadn’t been there.
Then again, maybe this was all just the whiskey talking.
“That’s different,” Michael finally said. “Jarek might not be like you, but he’s—Jesus, he only did it because he thought I could help him find his suit.”
“What is it with this suit?” she said. “What’s the big deal?”
“Do you remember those Iron Man holos I used to read?”
She nodded. He’d had his head buried in every holo comic he could get his hands on for the better part of their childhood.
“It’s kind of like that. He’s damn near unstoppable in the thing, and as far as we can tell, he’s the only one who can use it—not that that’s stopped anyone from trying to get hold of it. Plus there’s the whole thing with Al.”
She frowned. That entire thing had been unbelievable. She still wasn’t entirely convinced it hadn’t been another person on the line screwing with them for kicks. But if this suit of Jarek’s was real, why not Alfred the AI too?
“Where the hell did he even get his hands on that kind of tech?” she said.
He shook his head. “No idea, but he sure wants it back.”
That was obvious enough. Which also meant he wouldn’t be likely to just forget about Michael and leave him be, not until he got his precious suit. Still, she could handle Jarek. And once they got back to Unity, it wouldn’t matter anyway.
“Do you know how to contact Jarek?”
“We have some mutual contacts, I think.”
“Good. Then we should leave Newark. Now. You can get word to Jarek or the Resistance from Unity if you’re really so desperate to help them.”
Jarek was camped out downstairs, but she had other ways of getting them out of the building. With a little luck, they could be back to Unity by noon tomorrow.
Michael reached over to take her hand. “Rache, it’s not that simple.”
She turned a hard look his way.
He held her gaze. “This is my decision. I believe in this. You can’t keep trying to protect me forever.”
“Not if you’re so damn set on getting yourself killed.” She pulled her hand free of his grip and set her jaw. “I’m not leaving you to go on a freaking road trip alone with that trigger-happy idiot.”
Understanding and alarm flooded his eyes. “Rache, I don’t want you to—”
“Oh, no. You don’t get to have it both ways, Spongehead. If you’re so set on seeing this thing through, you don’t get to tell me to sit out.” She grabbed her staff and moved to the top of the stairs. “If you go, I go. That’s the deal.”
She started down the stairs.
“Where are you going now?” he called.
“To make your stubborn ass a shield in case I’m not there the next time it gets shot at. Try to get some sleep.”
“Rache?”
She paused.
“Can I borrow your comm? I need to check in with my people.”
Of course he did. She stripped off her comm and threw it to him, maybe harder than necessary, then continued down the stairs. “We’re not done with this conversation, Spongehead.”
SHE FOUND JAREK SPRAWLED OUT on an armchair he’d pulled over to one of the worktables close enough that he could prop his feet up on the table’s bench. The half-empty bottle of whiskey sat on the table in front of him. His eyes were closed and his breathing light, but she couldn’t tell if he was asleep or not.
She decided she didn’t care and went over to inspect the supplies on Pryce’s extensively stocked shelves. The invitation Pryce had given to “make themselves at home” before he’d disappeared upstairs might not have included the use of the shop area, but she didn’t need much, and he didn’t seem like the type to begrudge someone a few scraps when it might be a matter of life and death. She gathered what she needed, found a rotary engraver from the giant wall of tools, and returned to the worktables.
She paused next to the larger table, frowning down at the still lines of Jarek’s face and the shallow motion of his breath. He didn’t look particularly peaceful for a sleeping man, but how would he? He’d killed at least nine men back at the Fortress, and given the ease with which he’d done it, she could only imagine how many more corpses he’d left in his wake over the years.
It was a disturbing thought, and yet she didn’t feel this was a hardened murderer she was looking at.
Whatever. If she was going to be watching Michael’s back around Jarek, it wouldn’t do to start worrying about his soul.
She was about to turn to her work when he said, “Take a picture.” His eyes came open in a way that told her he’d been awake all along. “It’ll last longer.”
She managed to stifle her surprised jolt, but she still sucked in an audible breath. The sound ignited a wolfish grin that spread to his eyes.
Asshole.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“Much as I’d love to have you along, sunshine, there’s no need for that. I’ll keep Mikey safe. You can go home and not worry a single golden hair. Or maybe you just want a reason to bitch too.”
She dropped her cargo on the table and pointed her staff down at Jarek’s sprawled form. Maybe it was the remnants of the whiskey talking, or maybe she was just pissed at the Spongehead’s b
ad judgment, but she couldn’t take this shit right now.
He frowned at the tip of the weapon as it settled in front of his face. Then he burst into motion, tugging the staff aside and springing to his feet so fast she didn’t have time to so much as blink. He pinned her to the table with her arms tucked uselessly at her sides.
She bucked against him a few times, reaching for her power. His grip loosened. She looked up to find him watching her with an expression that was hard to get a read on. Slowly, almost gently, he released her. He held his hands up but didn’t step back more than an inch or two, which left him firmly planted in her personal space.
She held his dark eyes. Her pulse quickened, a thrill she’d almost forgotten stirring in her chest. Need burned in his eyes. Any moment, he was going to kiss her—she could feel it. Would she kiss him back if he did? Or would she put his well-formed ass through the wall twenty feet behind him?
“I, uh . . .” His eyes searched her face in a way that seemed utterly unlike everything she’d observed of him since they’d met. “I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.”
Goddamn right they had. She wasn’t sure why that made her angry, but it sure as hell did. She clenched her fist, enclosing him in a cocoon of her will, and shoved him back into the table five feet behind him. She squeezed harder, intensifying the pressure of his cocoon.
“So you’re . . .” he managed to squeeze out between breaths, “saying you would like to come then?”
“Goddammit.” She relinquished her hold on the energy.
He slumped back against the table with a little puff as she scooped up her staff.
“You’re a child,” she said into the silence. “You know that, right?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he inspected the pile of scraps she’d laid out on the table.
She waited for the inevitable: the paltry attempt he’d make to salvage his pride or mark his territory and establish his dominance. That was what guys like him did, right? She’d learned from experience it was best to smack down the bullshit before it took root. But the attempt didn’t come.
“How are you hitting me past my glyph?” he finally asked. “Is my shield faulty?”
She frowned. “That’s the first thing you wanna know?”
“Considering I might be stuck for the time being around an arcanist who wants to kick my ass, yeah. That’s the first thing I wanna know. Why? Were you expecting me to ask what it’s like to have powers?” He wiggled his fingers for dramatic effect.
Dammit all to hell, she was fighting to keep herself from mirroring his grin. Something about the stupid thing was infectious. Worse, he was right—that was exactly what everyone asked when they found out about the things she could do.
“Your glyph is fine,” she said. “There’s just more than one way to toss around an asshat.”
He chuckled, and she felt that stupid grin tug at her mouth.
“My mind is safe, though?”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “I don’t know if I’d agree with that assessment, but you’re guarded from telepathic influence, at least.”
He nodded. “Great. So what are the ways?
“What?”
“What are the ways one tosses an asshat?”
She considered. There wasn’t any great reason not to tell him. If she did end up needing to wipe the ceiling with him, nothing she told him would help him much anyway.
“Well,” she began.
He held up a finger and looked back toward the spiral stairs. “Is that you up there, Pryce?”
There was the sound of a clearing throat, and then padding footsteps and light creaks as Pryce began descending the staircase. “What are you two up to down there? I hope you’re not making a mess of my supplies.”
“It’s like you read a book called Things Grumpy Old Men Say 101,” Jarek called back. “And don’t pretend you weren’t eavesdropping, you old weirdo.”
Pryce shot them a guilty smile as he drew into view and made his way over to the table. “Couldn’t sleep. Too curious.”
“What’s it like being you?” Jarek said, looking at him as if he were an alien.
Pryce ignored him and turned to her. “Care to sate an old man’s curiosity?”
“What, are you an enthusiast or something?” she asked.
Jarek laughed. “You have no idea.”
Pryce shrugged. “I am a man of many fascinations. An intellectual polygamist, if you will.”
She looked between the two of them, then shrugged and gestured to the bench. She grabbed a small metal plate for her pile of scrap and sat down on the bench opposite them.
Jarek watched with interest, but Pryce looked like a kid whose parents had told him Santa was coming.
“The most efficient way to exert telekinetic influence over something is to form a direct connection with it,” she began, reaching out with her mind to find the little plate and trickling a tiny bit of her own body heat into it, shaping it to do her will.
The plate rose smoothly from her fingers to float between her and her audience.
“This kind of connection wastes less energy.” She concentrated, picturing the piece in motion, and it began to weave a figure eight through the air. “And it also makes precise control a lot easier.”
Pryce was staring, eyes wide and mouth agape.
“Freakin’ Jedi,” Jarek said.
The bulb paused in midair. “Freakin’ what?”
He looked at her as if she’d sprouted a third arm from her forehead. “Have you not seen . . . ?”
The smile she’d been holding back finally spilled over her face. “Of course I’ve seen Star Wars. Jesus.”
“Oh, thank the maker,” Jarek said, placing a hand to his chest. “I mean, otherwise, what’s the point?”
Pryce nodded his silent agreement, his eyes still fixed on the floating plate.
“Do you wanna hear the rest or not?”
“Apologies, master,” Jarek said. “Do continue.”
“So. When someone—let’s say an insufferable mercenary—decides to get cute and shield something from an arcanist’s mind using a glyph or whatever, I can’t form that direct connection, which means I have to get creative.”
Jarek listened attentively now, genuine interest in his eyes.
“Different arcanists handle these things in their own ways. I’ve heard of people resorting to calling wind, for instance, but that’s kind of a shitty workaround. I basically conjure up a solid wall in my mind and push that against the shielded space. Or maybe into it. It’s kind of abstract, but . . .”
She willed the plate to resume its figure eight, this time fixing it in a hard case of her will, not unlike she’d done to Jarek a minute ago. The plate wove through the turns, its flight noticeably more jerky than before. At each turn, there were tiny sounds as if the plate were striking a physical surface in the thin air.
“It’s clunky and less efficient than a direct connection, but it works.”
“I’ll say. Felt like I’d been hit by a car back in the brig.”
Pryce arched an eyebrow, glancing between them.
She let the plate drop back to her open hand. “Yeah, I was a little revved up at that point. And you didn’t seem to be taking prisoners.”
“Not a problem,” Jarek said. “I would’ve done the same thing if I had Jedi powers.”
She set the plate back on the table. “I didn’t say I was sorry about it.”
He smiled. “I know.”
They regarded each other in silence.
“I’m not so sure about this Jedi talk, either,” she said. “Arcanism might be on the mystical side, but at the end of the day, it’s bound by energy conservation just like the rest of the universe.”
“Star Wars was based in this universe.”
She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Whatever, man. You know what I’m trying to say. I’m not tapping into some magical energy here. It’s all give and take.”
“I knew it!” Pryce said,
thrusting his hands into the air.
She couldn’t help but smile at his fervor.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jarek said. “Keep it in your pants, old man.”
“You first,” Pryce mumbled.
She cleared her throat.
Jarek turned back to her. “So do you have to kill us now that you’ve told us all your secrets?”
“I wouldn’t say have to,” she said. “Sometimes I do things just for the fun of it. And that was hardly all of my secrets.”
“Intriguing.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, then glanced down at his comm. “Think it’s better if I hear the rest of them later, though. I’m useless without my beauty sleep.” He stood, his expression leaning toward serious. “We’re gonna leave in a few hours. You should sleep too if you’re coming with us.”
She nodded but made no move to stand. As much as her body craved sleep, she needed to at least get the glyph etchings laid down on the new catcher tonight. The actual enchanting she could always do on the road—or in the air.
Pryce remained seated as well. “Caught between the Resistance and the whole Red nation, the fate of Fela and who knows what else hanging in the balance. What have you gotten yourself into this time, son?”
“Agh, who knows,” Jarek said. “As long as I get Fela back, everything else can burn, for all I care.”
“Spoken like a true mercenary,” she said.
Jarek gave her a lazy two-fingered salute and turned for the stairs.
“He doesn’t mean it,” Pryce said quietly.
“The hell I don’t, old man.” Jarek’s voice rang down as he disappeared above.
Pryce smiled a weary smile, then turned his attention to the scraps she’d laid out from the pile. “And what are we doing with these here?”
Maybe she should feel bad for dipping into his things, but Pryce didn’t seem put off in the least.
“Enchanting.” She picked up the engraver with a flourish, unclipped her own catcher, and handed it over to Pryce. “Making a copy of this thing.”
He turned the catcher over in his hands. “And what does this doodad do?”
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 10