by Suzi Goode
"Odessa?” she heard him say. She blinked several times before forcing her mind back to the task at hand. It didn't do any good to dwell on the man's maddeningly tempting appearance. Frustrated with herself, thinking she had to concentrate on staying alive more than she did on getting him into bed, she slammed the helmet on her head and adjusted the strap to fit snugly under her chin.
"Can you hear me?” she heard his muffled voice. She nodded.
"Good. Just make sure not to put the sound on."
He already had his helmet on and had finished tightening the strap, when he lowered his head and kissed her on her mouth—a chaste, good luck kiss. She was so stunned she didn't have a chance to react before he stepped back and took hold of her elbow. “Don't walk terribly fast, and try to lose focus, so your eyes look glazed over. Then we have a better chance of evading Pardua and his men."
"Everything comes with a price,” she drawled, still dazed by his moist mouth covering hers, if only for a brief second. Okay, one out of three wasn't too bad. He had kissed her, even if she wasn't resting on satin sheets with his weight lowered along the length of her thrumming body.
"Anything to stay alive,” the hushed response came.
She kept her eyes down, watching for the turns Harley made in front of her so she didn't miss them. As far as she could tell, no one paid them any attention, not even the soldiers meandering through the crowd.
She breathed a small sigh of relief at having satisfied her stomach. Her lightheadedness had vanished, replaced by a burgeoning sense of adventure. She was determined to get away from Romaydia. And in one piece. Humming softly to herself, she almost missed the fact that Harley had stopped and raised his hand to a door, which had a black number engraved into it.
He knocked. Holding her breath and glancing behind her in the direction they had come from, she saw no one suspicious or who appeared to be pursuing them.
Muttering, “I can't wait any longer,” he fished in the pocket of his leather pants and retrieved a small credit coin, inserting it in the place where a lock should have been. Silently, the door opened inward.
Making a shushing motion to silence her, he drew a gun from inside his jacket. He certainly came well prepared. Her heart hammered in her chest. Something had to be wrong if Eyani hadn't come to the door and flung it open.
Harley aimed his gun, which appeared to be old fashioned, to the right. He nudged her out of the way and against the wall before he stormed into the room.
Silence echoed painfully.
"Stay here."
Odessa heard the anxiety in his gruff voice. Disregarding his instructions, she followed him. At the sight that confronted them, she gasped and slapped a hand over mouth, trying not to vomit as she quickly looked away.
Eyani lay sprawled on the floor. Half his head was gone and splashed in a grotesque collage of blood and gore over the side of the single bed.
* * * *
Violette knew Odessa wanted to distract her. She was terrified for the young woman's sake. With the station closed down and her keeping company with Harley, the chances she would live till morning were almost zero. She caught the pair hurrying away. They were still so right for each other, yet how unfortunate they came from opposite sides of the fence, so to speak.
She had confronted Odessa as she ate her sandwich to ascertain if the woman felt she was making the right choice for herself. So many females had that taken away from them once they arrived on Romaydia. Violette stood back in the shadows. The noise in the public area had increased to a painful level. A plan had begun to form in her mind. It was risky, but it might work. As Harley and Odessa struggled to evade Pardua's long hand, she would approach him. Simply as a diversionary tactic. Nothing else. She would find Zorm and ask for his help. He was daring and young and would welcome the opportunity to put a crimp into the Murrach's orderly day.
The plan had holes as large as a structural beam in it, but she determined she wouldn't let the Murrach get away with murder again. Not this time.
Chapter 15
Harley didn't want to linger any more than he had already, but he paused to check the Ashtarian's wrist for a pulse. There was none. Quietly and efficiently, he searched the room, pulling out drawers, rummaging through the small bathroom area. He grunted once before he said in a nearly-inaudible whisper, “He won't be creating an invisible shield or reading minds anymore.” He shook his head, and his shoulders drooped as if they bore the weight of the Romaydian station on them.
Odessa repressed a sniffle. The Ashtarian had been genuinely kind when no one else had cared. She dared not look at the dead alien again, preferring to remember him as he had been when he was alive. Why would anyone want to kill such a harmless man?
Harley passed a hand over his brow and dislodged the helmet. They stood shoulder to shoulder. “We have to find another way to get off Romaydia."
Slowly, Odessa removed her helmet. She couldn't hide the tears streaming down her cheeks.
Harley held her tightly against his chest. “I wouldn't have wished something evil on the poor Ashtarian, but we have to get out of here in case Pardua comes looking."
"Where are we going to go?"
Gently, he smoothed her hair at the back of her head as he glanced around at the walls, as if he was searching for something. “Not here,” he whispered. “Let's go."
She clung to him, unwilling to release him and the comfort the close contact gave her. When had she started to feel he could give her solace? She tucked her head under his chin, feeling the tiny bristles of his unshaven chin on her scalp. “Don't let me go,” she murmured. “I'm afraid."
"I am too,” he confessed.
Three months ago, she would have been appalled to think she could have said such a thing. She had no alternative but to lean on him for survival. The thought rankled for a second before she huffed a miniature sigh. She didn't have much choice, especially after having witnessed Eyani's battered body. She had to trust Harley. There were no other options if she wanted to get off Romaydia alive.
Harley's thoughts spun. Somehow, there had always been a way out. Until Abby, and now Odessa. “I know of some understation tunnels where we can hide in safety until I find a way out of this mess. It's not my first choice, since it's hot and humid, and if Pardua looks hard enough, he'll find us. We can always stay one step ahead of him though. Let's go. There's no telling if the perps who did this will return."
She lifted her head and gazed into his eyes, her cheeks filmed with tears. His protective urges overwhelmed him. Even if it meant giving up his own life, he would save Odessa.
"Perps?” she asked, her lips curling at the edges in a saddened smile. She weaved a finger down his cheek. “I thought only the FBI said that."
"I watch a lot of videographs,” he said hastily, covering his tracks. He didn't want her to know who he was, just in case she was in cahoots with Pardua's men, which he doubted. Women could get even trickier than men if they had children or they believed their cause was a just one. How had she become involved in Roland Baylon's affairs?
He took her hand, and silently urged her to put the black helmet back on.
She shuddered. “I can't put this on again.” Her voice broke on a whimper.
"Please?” he pleaded. “I don't like wearing it either, but we don't have much choice.” Reluctantly, he admitted there was no safe place on Romaydia. He'd spent the last year sleeping with a gun tucked under his pillow to give him a semblance of safety. He jammed his helmet on his head, hating the trapped feeling it gave him and how the visor reduced his peripheral vision. He took small consolation that if someone shot at him, they couldn't kill him by shooting his brains out like they had the poor Ashtarian.
Once again, they strolled at a leisurely pace through the public area, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible. No one stopped them. He didn't dare look over his shoulder to see if anyone was following. A drug-crazed idiot never did that. The one action would have given away his disguise.
&
nbsp; Thankfully, Odessa hadn't heard him. He wasn't certain if the glazed look in her eyes was faked, or if she was so afraid she was trying to repress her tears.
In the second spoke past the public area, he stopped Odessa. “We go through here.” He cast a hand toward the wall.
"There's nothing there,” she countered, giving what appeared to be a solid wall a suspicious look. “Not unless we suddenly developed the ability to walk through solid obstacles."
Harley examined the area both for people and aliens, and for surveillance devices of any type. The consternation that usually accompanied being spied upon wasn't making his nerve endings tingle like crazy. It was safe to go ahead and open the concealed doorway.
Odessa watched. The man was insane if he believed he could get through a wall without tools. His long fingers slid along the wall before he stopped and pressed down hard.
Astonishingly, the wall opened inwards. The space was hardly large enough for a muscular man to pass through. He beckoned to her to follow into the darkness that almost swallowed him. “Don't worry. You'll be safer in here than out there."
She hesitated, having always been afraid of the dark and the unseen, treacherous creatures—like spiders and earwigs and poisonous snakes.
"It's all right,” Harley encouraged her, waving his hand at chest level. “They won't get you here."
Odessa stepped through the small door. Silently, it shut behind her. He fumbled in his pocket, fished out a short flashlight, and thumbed the switch. A mediocre light illuminated a tunnel barely wide enough for two men to walk side by side, not quite as tall as Harley.
Rising heat made her slip out of her helmet. “Where are we?” she whispered. “It's awful hot in here."
"In the underbelly of the station under the main power station.” Harley took off his helmet and threw it on the floor, where it rolled into a shadow. “That thing made me sweat like a pig."
His scent was stronger than before—raw male and a hint of tobacco and a pungent aftershave mingled together, teasing and tempting her in a way Roland's outrageously expensive colognes never had. “In the underbelly? How can a space station have an underbelly?” she murmured, half out of her mind with wanting him, but trying to focus on his words.
"Every habitation humans or aliens live on must have a power source and also a way of getting to problem areas in the habitation. This is accomplished in the underbelly of the station."
"It's spooky down here.” Odessa hugged her arms around her chest.
"Yeah, but it's not too bad when you're with someone,” came the gentle reply.
She said nothing. Grateful for his company, she followed him farther into the tunnel for several hundred feet before he stopped at a pile of goods stashed on the floor.
"I never knew the day I would need a hiding place, so I didn't want to be caught with my pants down.” He wiped a hand over his eyes. “Man, it's too hot."
Now there was an idea. She could just see him, tanned and throbbing and naked. “I'm not sure Eyani would have found it tolerable, even though he liked the warmth.” She missed the friendly, little alien.
"The only way this place would cool down was if someone completely shut the station down. The heat reminds me of Texas."
Is that where you're from?"
He nodded, knelt, and dug in the pile, then retrieved a gray army blanket and spread it on the slippery floor. “All we have to pray for is that no one blows up the place."
Sounds of metal clanking against metal and distant laughter made her shiver. “Blow up the place? Why would anyone want to do that?"
"On a space station, you have different kinds of people espousing different causes. Some are in favor, some are against, and many never make an issue, but there are others who take exception to another's belief and kill indiscriminately. It's mostly the innocent who die."
That got her mind away from wanting him. “So much for peace and harmony throughout the galaxy."
"That's an old wives’ tale. Pardua wouldn't hesitate to kill en masse if he could gain something by doing it. He plays the victim whenever he can. There's no way to win against a man who claims he's the injured party."
Odessa shook her head. “I don't understand.” She cocked her head to one side, listening to a sound much like that of a heart echoing off the wall.
He stopped and faced her. “That's a normal sound. The station humming is how I like to think of it. Anyways, it works like this. Say you cry foul, that your purse was snatched by a common thief who's done it a hundred times before, but everyone knows he needs the money from your purse to feed his ten hungry kids. Do you think you'll get your money back?"
"I see. Everyone perceives him as a victim, but they would look at me funny if I demanded my money back, knowing his kids were going hungry, but I could afford to lose a few dollars."
Harley grunted in the affirmative, knelt on the blanket, and rummaged in the pile of stashed goods until he came up with a container. “Right. So you see, once a man claims he's a victim, no matter where in the galaxy you are, society is conditioned to feel pity for him. So he's the one who'll win his case, even though he's in the wrong."
"How sad.” Odessa wanted to reach out and touch him, to console him, but he projected such sudden aloofness she hesitated. How could she make contact with him when he obviously didn't want contact? Uncle Peter had projected the detached demeanor from time to time, but then she simply left him alone until he came out of what was a rare mood for him. “You're like my Uncle Peter,” she blurted out, sliding her back down the wall so she could take the weight off her feet. She seated herself and pulled off her shoes, grateful the leather was no longer pinching against the baby toes. She hated shoes, but not as much as she hated the helmets for restricting her freedom.
"That's a compliment if I've ever heard one.” He opened the container and offered it to her. Inside, there appeared to be small chunks of bright orange and dull yellow dried fruit.
"Dried fruit?"
He nodded, helping himself to a darker chunk, perhaps a fig.
Hardly making a sound, he sat beside her to watch her rub her foot.
"I wish you could get to know him,” she said, homesick again and missing her brothers’ companionship and her uncle's surefire witticisms. “He's an interesting man, full of life, even though life has knocked him down more times than he cares to admit.” She bit into the yellow fruit she had selected, and was pleasantly surprised to find it tasted like a banana.
"Sounds like a man who's worth getting to know."
"After Aunt Gem died when I was barely out of diapers, he was really torn up. He would hold me in his lap and cry and cry. I cried along with him, which saddened him even more before he came up with the idea he could tell me fairy tales to cheer me up.” She reached for the container at the same time Harley did.
He gallantly lifted his fingers onto his lap, motioning for her to continue. “Like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty?"
"He told me his versions though. The Uncle Peter versions. He got Sleeping Beauty mixed up with Rumplestiltskin, and I didn't even know until I got into kindergarten and thought to correct the teacher that her version was wrong. When I went home and told Uncle Peter the real version, you know what he said? ‘Well, lass, it ain't but a story about a wicked stepmother. No harm, no foul.’ I still remember him saying that. And that was years ago.” This time, the dried fruit was tangy and red like a strawberry.
"He sounds like one cool guy,” Harley said, looking wistful.
"He raised me and my twin brothers by himself. I don't know how he kept us from tearing each other apart sometimes, but he did."
"What happened to your parents?” He reached over into the stash and lifted a bottle of water, and offered the clear plastic to her.
Water?” she asked, holding out her hand.
Harley's eyebrows slid upward in question. “Yeah. I don't do poison."
She ignored his statement. Apparently, this station wasn't a healthy place to be. She too
k a few sips and handed the bottle to him, trying to remember what her mother and father looked like. “They ran off together one night. Told Uncle Peter they would be back after they went to the movies, but they never returned.
"Uncle Peter called the cops and they searched for them for days. They just up and disappeared into thin air like they had never been born."
"Did they ever show up?"
"No. Uncle Peter struggled with his sister's desertion for a long while, especially since Aunt Gem had just died. He felt as if the whole world had begun to collapse on him.” Odessa smiled through her tears. He handed the water to her. Their fingertips touched, igniting a flame of desire along her nerve endings. She drank again and surveyed him as he took another sip. A muscle in his right cheek twitched as he recapped the bottle and hid it under the stash.
Odessa went on. “He came to the conclusion he had lost three of his relatives, but he had also gained three—my brothers and me. Later, he admitted we were godsends, brought him out of his suicidal thoughts because if he had done what he had half a mind to do, there would be no one to take care of us."
"Hard to imagine parents can leave their kids behind like that.” Harley shook his head in disgust. “You're really lucky to have an uncle like that."
"Uncle Peter doesn't talk about it. The few times I asked him about them, he said if they had forgotten about me, then it was best to forget about them too."
"Wise advice."
"What about your parents?"
"I don't remember them at all,” he said as if she was pulling a rotten tooth without sedation.
"Who raised you?” she asked out of curiosity.
"My big brother and his wife did. I was a latecomer, and I guess my parents figured they could do without an additional mouth to feed, so they passed me on to my brother."
"How sad. Um,” Odessa murmured, closing her eyes and reveling in being off her feet and out of her shoes. “That feels so good."