I laugh humorlessly. “My sacrifices? Oh, that’s—” I shake my head and exhale a harsh breath. “Do you know why he abandoned me on Earth?”
“You’re the prophecy. You’re the one who sparks the war. He couldn’t bring you back. He had to leave you there. It was your destiny.”
I nod my head as if I’m okay with it. “Oh . . . it was my destiny! So it’s all part of the plan?”
Giffen exhales in relief. “Yes.”
Rage boils over as I yell at him, “Screw your plan! And screw him!”
“Not! Working!” Raspin yells at Giffen. He storms to the doors, ripping them off their tracks as he leaves the room.
“Now you’ve made him mad,” Giffen sighs in frustration.
“Just let me see if I understand you. You want me to allow you to hand me over to the Alameeda in exchange for my sister, but you don’t want me to retaliate against you by using my ability to see the future to harm you in any way.”
“Yes, and—”
“Wait! There’s an and? Why is there an and?”
“We need you to be our eyes on the inside. We want to communicate with you and—”
“You want me to spy for you.”
“Yes.”
“You guys have some big, fat, huge, bouncy—”
Raspin enters the room dragging Trey’s unconscious body behind him. I don’t know what they did to him, but he looks dead. With a hand around Trey’s throat, Raspin lifts him up, ready to gut Trey with his knife if I blink at him the wrong way. “Ya shefty wee monster! I’ll carve him to prove to ya that I am heartfelt,” he seethes. He’s being honest.
“Wait! Please!”
Raspin’s hand stills just above Trey’s chest.
“Okay, I’ll do it! Just stop!”
“Ya swear upon it?” Raspin asks angrily.
“I swear on it,” I reply in desperation, trying to reassure him. “Astrid gets saved and I get thrown away again. It’s fine. We have a deal. Just don’t hurt him, okay?”
Raspin looks like he doesn’t believe me. “Should something happen to Astrid, it happens to him. I gut ’em all if she’s harmed.” He raises his knife, placing it to Trey’s neck, drawing blood as he begins to cut.
“Nothing will happen to her!” I try to placate him in a stream of words. “I’ll make sure of it!” He stops cutting. It’s an eternity that I wait—those seconds I watch Raspin take as he decides whether or not I’m telling the truth. A part of me isn’t sure if he’ll believe me. Even when Raspin lowers the knife in his fist, I have trouble breathing.
My legs are numb with fear. When he stops holding Trey by the throat, my chin drops to my chest for a second in relief and I let go of the breath. He places Trey on the ground against the wall. I stare at Trey for several seconds, trying to see if he’s still breathing. There’s a swollen knot by his left temple. It’s hard not to lose my mind as I strain against the metal on my wrists, finding that I can’t free myself. The cut on Trey’s neck is slowly dampening his collar with his blood.
I turn my attention back to Giffen. He rises from his chair, pulling out his communicator from the pocket of his Comantre uniform. I can’t believe that my father is associated with these two psychos—then I think about how he abandoned me—maybe it makes perfect sense. I clear my throat and ask, “Does Pan know about this plan?”
Giffen’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “He knows.”
In a shallow tone I ask, “Does he agree with it?”
He ignores my question. “I need to take your image.” He holds up his communicator in front of me.
“What are you planning to do with my picture?”
Giffen snaps a couple of shots. “I have to send it to Kyon Ensin. We’ll pretend to be Comantre Syndics. He doesn’t know who we are or who your sister is. Hopefully, none of them have realized yet that she has Alameeda blood or that she’s a priestess. When Kyon responds, I will demand a trade: you for her. I will tell him that she is Comantre and was working in the Isle of Skye when the unrest broke out. I will ask for her safe return in exchange for yours.”
“How do you know she’s not already dead?” I ask.
“She’s too pretty for that. They’d keep her for entertainment.”
Raspin smashes another chair, unable to contain his rage.
I blanch. “Why wouldn’t they know that she’s a priestess—or at least know that she has Alameeda blood? Isn’t it obvious?” I ask in a near whisper, trying without success to keep my inquiries between the two of us.
“She wasn’t born with pale hair like yours. She has Pan’s coloring—black hair, but her eyes are blue. We altered them before she went in.”
“How did you do that?”
“We injected pigment to make them green, but it only lasts a few rotations, then it reverts to her normal hue.”
“Alameeda blue?” I ask.
“That’s right, like her mother’s.”
His attention is back on his communicator again. “Wait,” I say, seeing that he’s about to send the pictures he took of me.
“What?” he asks.
“You want this to work?” I ask, meeting his eyes.
“Of course!”
“If you want this to work, you should hit me.”
His eyes narrow. “What?”
“I look okay right now—I look like you’re not serious about getting your supposed consort back. You have to make it urgent or Kyon will take a little time to find out exactly who Astrid is before he hands her over. You have to put it on a faster time line. You have to take the control away from him and keep it. If he thinks that you might kill me, he’ll lose the advantage. He can’t know how you got me or that you have Trey. When you meet him to exchange us, it can’t be here and we have to go alone—just you and me, Giffen.”
Raspin growls at me, “Going!”
“He can’t go,” I argue. “There’s too much emotion there. He can’t cope. A priestess could read him like a billboard. You can get out alive with Astrid because of your telekinetic gift. It’s the only way I can think of where everyone has a shot at survival.”
Giffen looks at Raspin. “It sounds like a good plan.”
“That’s because it is a good plan,” I mutter.
Raspin nods his head. He starts to walk toward me. “Seriously?” My eyes shutter in scorn. “You’re not hitting me, Incredible Sulk!” I glare at him like he’s a lunatic, which he definitely is. He hesitates and looks at Giffen.
I shift my head and nod toward Giffen. “You,” I assess him. “You do it.”
Giffen glances at Raspin, who shrugs and gestures with his hand toward me. Giffen squares his broad shoulders and walks to me. As he stands above me, looking down into my defiant face, I can’t tell if he wants to do it or if he’s reluctant to do it. I just know that he will do it. I take a deep breath, trying to brace myself. “Ready?” he asks. I nod.
The open-palm slap to my cheek from his rough hand makes my face turn away from him. Blood sprays outward through my parted lips in an array of red. If I hadn’t been in a fight before, the sting of it might’ve shocked me. I never know whether to clench my teeth or loosen my jaw when I see it coming. If I clench my teeth, I usually end up with a few loose ones. If I loosen my jaw, I run the risk of biting down on the soft, fleshy tissue inside and shredding a hole in it. The best thing to do would be to duck, but that would be counterintuitive, since I want him to hit me.
His green eyes lean near mine; his breath is warm on my rapidly swelling skin. “Does a priestess feel pain?” he asks.
Lowering my forehead, I drive it into his nose, hearing it crack as blood spurts out to spatter my cheeks and his. As I reel with dizziness and an aching skull, I try to smile when I murmur, “Yes. Do you?”
“Careful,” he groans, his nose bleeding profusely as he smiles. “Don’t make me fall in l
ove with you, priestess.”
“Shut up.” I spit blood. “Uhh, that’s so much worse the second time,” I say to myself, trying not to groan as I gather my courage. “Okay, I’m ready. Hit me again, and then take my picture.”
It’s extremely scary how quickly Kyon responds to the images that Giffen sends to him. What’s also frightening are the layers of signal blockers Kyon is able to hack through during each of the communications Giffen engages in with him. Giffen has to cut the connection off a few times so Kyon won’t trace our location.
Seething over Kyon’s lack of cooperation, Giffen glares at me. “Your Alameeda intended is a sneaky, blond wacker!” he says with disgust, but it sounds less dirty somehow because his speech is so refined.
“He’s not my anything, lost boy,” I state calmly, wishing I could brush my hair back from my throbbing face. They haven’t uncuffed me from the chair, even though I agreed to all of their demands. I guess I’m just untrustworthy.
Giffen scowls at me. “Don’t deceive yourself. The moment he returns you to his home you’ll be made his consort.”
“You say that like it bothers you.”
“Why should it?”
I shrug, which seems to bother him more. He gets surlier. “He wanted to communicate with you last time to verify that you’re alive. When I contact him now, be brief. I need to tell him the location of the exchange before he can track the signal.”
I don’t argue. What’s the point? “Let’s do this.”
Giffen eyes me suspiciously, glancing uneasily at Raspin. Raspin is watching me as if he expects me to disappear at any moment and take with me his ability to get back his truluv, which I think might mean his “soulmate.”
Giffen makes the connection. Kyon answers, “You keep ending our conversations just when they’re getting interesting.”
“Have you located my consort?” Giffen asks.
“I have. She’s a bit untidy, but nothing you’re not used to, I’m sure.”
Charming, I think.
“Let me see her,” Giffen demands.
His jaw eases somewhat when a feminine voice comes through the communicator saying, “Gif?”
“Are you well?” he asks Astrid, relief in his tone. I groan inwardly, He’s so bad at this!
She’s not allowed to answer him. Instead, Kyon asks, “What of my consort?”
Giffen glances at me. “According to her, she’s not your consort,” he states vehemently.
I glare at him with a what-the-hell-are-you-doing look on my face. He doesn’t have to argue about something as stupid as my commitment status. What happened to “be brief”? I say with my eyes. Giffen glares back at me with an I-can-say-whatever-I-want-to look.
Kyon growls, “She belongs to me—make no mistake. If you do not show her to me in the next few breaths, I will kill your consort in the most painful way imaginable.”
Giffen’s jaw clenches. He taps a few buttons before sliding his communicator onto a small table he has placed in front of my chair. Kyon’s head-and-shoulders image appears as a holograph, being projected from the communicator like a video speakerphone. He doesn’t look happy about the state I’m in.
“Resist, did you?” he asks with a grim look. “How is that working out for you, Kricket?”
“I have it all under control.” I try to smile but my fat lip and puffy, black eye hurt more when I do. I wince and sag a little in my chair, letting my actions belie my words. “You don’t have to come get me. I can find another ride.”
“It’s not an inconvenience. It’s probably on my way,” he says quietly.
Giffen barks out, “Diadem Rock—in two parts.”
“I will be there—and, oh, if you touch her again, I will cut off both your consort’s hands.”
“If you fail to deliver Astrid in one piece, Kricket dies.”
Giffen ends the communication.
CHAPTER 16
DARKEN THE STARS
Raspin’s knife is drawn as he walks toward me. I flinch for a second, worried about what he intends to do with it. When he moves behind me and gathers my hair in his fist, ready to slice it off to help me heal, I growl, “Stop! Don’t cut my hair! It’ll look suspicious if you do!”
He hesitates.
“You shouldn’t know about what my hair does when you cut it. It’s one of their secrets. He’ll wonder how you know, and then he’ll wonder why you would help me when you were the ones who beat me up.”
Raspin drops my hair. Instead, he touches the tight cuffs that pin my hands behind me. He enters a code, and they spring open. I almost can’t move my arms—their stiff ache is excruciating—but I slowly bring them in front of me, then bend over at the waist and hug myself. “You want to help me?” I ask Raspin when he hovers in front of me. He stares at me in an oafish sort of way. “When I save Astrid’s life for you, you owe me. The only payment I’ll accept from you is in the form of protection. You owe me Trey’s life, Raspin. No matter what happens, you have to protect him.”
I wait as he crouches down to my eye level. “It takes the best in us to tie ourselves up fer love.”
“Did my father teach you that?” I ask with a bitter laugh. “Love is the worst, Raspin. It sets fire to us just to see who it can kill.”
He looks at me almost helplessly. From behind him, Giffen nudges his shoulder with a canteen. Raspin takes it from him and holds it out to me. I drink, trying hard to ease my tight throat.
“We have to go,” Giffen says in a quiet voice from behind Raspin. “Would you like to change before we leave?”
My torn and bloodstained lilac dress is a tale of sorrow. It’s also grass-stained and split up the side, exposing my right leg and most of my thigh. I wouldn’t actually care all that much, but thinking of facing Kyon in it makes me feel even more vulnerable. “Is Charisma still here?” I ask.
“Is she the older or the younger female?” Giffen counters.
“Younger.”
Giffen goes to the doorway; one door still hangs askew from Raspin’s rampage. He speaks to a couple of armed men in the corridor outside.
When Charisma enters the room, she gives a soft cry, seeing Trey bleeding and unconscious on the floor. Her face pales, but she fights it as her voice hardens. “Trey needs medical attention. Will you let us tend to him?”
Giffen seems to remember Trey. He appears about to argue with her, but Raspin pushes them both aside, clearing a path to Trey. He picks Trey up and hoists him over his shoulder before staring at Charisma expectantly. They start to leave the room together, but Giffen stops them. “You can get someone to treat him,” he instructs, “but then you have to bring back something for Kricket to wear—something she can travel in.”
Charisma’s attention is drawn to me for the first time. She blinks back tears when she sees my swollen face. I lift my chin because I don’t need pity. “Bring me what I wore here, Charisma,” I murmur.
“All right,” she replies in a weak voice.
She leaves the room, and with her departure I’m alone with Giffen.
Giffen paces for a bit, every once in a while looking in my direction. I confuse him, I can tell. I haven’t tried to bargain with him, or attempt to get him to change his mind. I haven’t asked him any questions about himself or the other lost boys, or Astrid, or Pan, or the prophecy. It’s bothering him.
“Are you hungry?” he asks me in an irritated tone. “Do you want something to eat?”
“No. Kyon will feed me; it’ll give him something to do. He’ll want to show me how well he can take care of me.” I don’t really know if that’s true. I just want Giffen to stop talking to me.
Giffen’s frown darkens and he becomes surly again. “He won’t be able to care for you long. He’s going to die like the rest of them!”
I don’t reply.
Giffen resumes pacing. In a few moments
, he pauses to evaluate me. “You’re nothing like her.” I raise my eyebrow, wondering for a moment whom he means. “Astrid,” he says, studying me. “You’re nothing like her; she is all heart.”
I don’t react, except to say softly, “Well. I guess Pan picked the right one, then.”
That response was not what he was hoping for from me, because he looks a little like I punched him in the stomach with my remark. “She’s part of the prophecy too, did you know that? We have to protect her,” he says cryptically.
“Then protect her.”
“It’s what I’ve sworn to do.”
“Well, from where I’m sitting, you’re not very good at it.”
The silence stretches on for a bit. When he doesn’t stop staring at me, I look at him with a level gaze and ask, “What? What do you want from me, lost boy? Do you want my understanding? Do you want me to say it’s okay that you’re kidnapping me and trading me to the enemy?” I keep my voice calm but full of scorn. “Do you want my forgiveness because you’re just doing what you’re sworn to do?” I shake my head before looking up at the ceiling. “If I had a nickel for every time I’ve found myself in this same situation, I could buy this entire planet!” I straighten and meet his eyes again. “So get away from me with your whining for absolution. You get nothing from me!”
In the very next moment, Charisma enters the room with clothes piled in her arms. Her eyes shift from me to Giffen. We both look primed to kill each other. She hurriedly comes to me, getting between us in an attempt to shield me from him. “I brought the clothes,” she says in a voice that’s an octave higher than normal due to fear. I rise from the chair, ready to get on with this. She turns toward Giffen, “Please excuse us while she changes.”
His handsome jaw hardly unlocks as his mutters, “I’m not letting her out of my sight.” He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall.
With reddening cheeks, Charisma faces me. “It’s okay,” I murmur to her. I shrug off the black jacket, exposing my silver crested starcross armband Trey gave me. Giffen is at my side immediately, lifting my arm and tugging it off me.
Sea of Stars (Kricket #2) Page 28