“Nathyn?” Blaine asked, glancing at the last to vote; they all knew where Blaine stood.
“Sorry, Vance. I see your point, I do, but we also need to find Bit. We’ll just have to face the consequences when she’s safe. But I have one condition. You let me lead, Blaine. You’re too wrapped up in your emotions regarding her. You have to follow my lead or I’ll go with Vance, and I’ll take Jer and Forrest, too.”
“Wait a sec!” snapped Jer.
“Fine,” agreed Blaine before Jeremiah could continue.
Vance let out a long breath he’d been holding. “Then that’s settled. I’m going up to the ship as ordered.”
The steward stayed long enough to memorize the directions to find the frequency. Blaine waved his mobile comm. device as Vance walked away, hoping he would call their little group rather than calling the captain directly. Either way, they were now committed.
Blaine let out his own long sigh. Things had not turned out as he had wanted them, but at least he had a team to work with. It could have been much worse.
Chapter Five
Bit woke to a raging head ache.
“Jackass,” she murmured to herself in reference to whoever had hit her.
“She’s awake,” a soft voice whispered from her left side.
Bit forced her eyes open and rolled her head to the side. A young girl and a man sat at a table, slowly counting her paper money. As she glared at them, the patient from the clinic approached her. Bit recognized the burning smell of astringent; she had it applied to her own skin often enough.
Her back ached from where Rudy’s friend slammed his gun into her, and the pressure of a post digging into it made it worse. They had her tied to a support beam, her arms wrapped around the wide beam. By the feel of it, they had used fabric to tie her hands. But more concerning than that was the fact they had doused the fabric with liquid of some sort. Bit assumed it was to constrict the bonds and make it harder for her to get loose, but an ugly thought crossed her mind.
What if it’s gasoline or alcohol?
She couldn’t smell anything, but there were plenty of flammable liquids that didn’t smell.
“Well, well,” began the patient. “I didn’t expect you to wake up so soon.”
“I’ve been hit harder.”
“And you will again. We’ve already sent someone to find Rudy. I’m curious to find out what he’ll do to you. Not to mention how you managed to beat up Rudy.”
“You gonna ask him that question?” Bit mumbled, forcing herself to sound groggier than she felt. “I’d love to see Rudy’s reaction to that question.”
The man from the clinic glared at her, not liking her taunting. Bit clamped down on her tongue. She had a tendency to mouth off when nervous. Then again, he didn’t appear to pay much attention when talking.
“I’d work on the wording, though,” continued Bit as she worked her bound hands back and forth, trying to fumble the cloth into loosening.
As she subtly fidgeted with her bound hands, she felt a painful tear on her wrist and hot liquid further wet the cloth. Despite her effort to remain relaxed, she flinched.
“Oh, are your bonds too tight?” the patient asked from his place in front of her.
“Actually, it’s your breath that’s bothering me.”
The man pulled back his fist and punched her in the cheek. She saw it coming and rolled with the blow as far as the restraints would allow. Still, he was a muscular man and had likely left a large black eye on her features. The blow made her head pound harder. Bit accepted the pain and continued to work the fabric of her bindings, trying to rub them against whatever sharp object had cut her wrist.
Bit masked her work by squirming against the pole. “I didn’t know you liked to play rough.”
The man’s expression was nearly comical. He didn’t know what to make of a girl who wouldn’t cry and flinch after being punched.
“Are you twisted?” he asked.
Bit squirmed again, feeling her bindings loosen another notch. “Would you like me to be twisted?”
“Don’t you get it, you sick freak? Rudy is coming, and he’s going to mess you up!”
“Like you did?” she purred as the fabric restraints gave way and the jagged metal sliced into her wrist again.
Bit didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the narrow pole, the sharp object digging painfully into her hand, lifted herself off the floor, and slammed both her feet into the man’s chest. He stumbled back, tripping over an uneven portion of the floor. Bit jumped forward, slamming her boot into his crotch. He twisted up into the fetal position, giving her time to turn towards the man sitting with the young girl.
The second man jumped over his chair—a bedraggled thing balancing on three legs—and swung at her. Bit ducked with ease, seeing the move coming, and rammed her fist up into his jaw. In a quick move, she shifted, grabbing his hair and slammed his face down onto her knee. The man crumpled, unconscious and bleeding from the nose.
Bit turned back to the patient, who was still on his side, wailing about his balls with tears streaming out of his eyes.
“Bit of a baby,” Bit mumbled, returning to the table. “This all my stuff?”
The girl nodded as Bit grabbed the piles of money and stuffed them in the bag. She grabbed the bundle of clothing off the table and stuffed those in too.
“Give me my shirt back,” she ordered, nodding to the girl draped in a shirt from her bag.
The girl scrambled out of it and handed it over with shaking fingers.
“I could have hurt you, but I didn’t.” Bit wrapped the shirt around her bleeding hand and wrist. “Don’t tell them where I went.”
The girl nodded, but the blank look in her eyes suggested she was in shock.
Bit threw the bag over her shoulder and raced out the first door she saw. It led into what looked to be the tiny apartment’s living area, with a two-burner stove and a tiny sink, along with some free space where a dilapidated couch sat. Bit crossed the room in three steps, jerking the door open to find a hall.
She glanced both ways, her heart skipping a beat as she saw a man leading Rudy and his friend toward her.
“There she is,” cried Rudy’s younger friend.
Bit turned away from them and bolted. At the end of the hall, she found a round hole knocked out of a wall. She jumped through it into another empty apartment that had been turned into a connector between two hallways. More footsteps pounded after her, resounding off the thin walls. Bit heard residents shouting from the floor below, yelling at them in various languages.
She reached the next hallway and picked up the pace. At the next turn, she found a ladder leading up to the next level. She scrambled up it, the rungs digging into her injured hand. On the next level, Bit ran back the opposite direction, trying her best to keep her tread light, though she was pretty certain they had seen her ascend the ladder.
At the far end, she realized they were directly behind her. Three doors dotted the very end of the corridor. She picked one and slipped into it, silently shutting the door. She turned to find an elderly woman sitting in a stained, patched Cozy-Chair, a remote in her hand. Her tiny television set was playing some old show from her youth. She looked at Bit, her eyes running to the fabric wound about her hand, blood seeping through it.
The old woman jerked her pale face towards the large, smudged window before her eyes rested on the T.V. again, as though Bit had never entered. Bit crossed to the window and jerked it open to find a deck with grating protecting its users from the lengthy drop. Damp clothing hung from the crossbeams, along with a few vegetable plants encased in hanging baskets. Bit squirmed out the window head first and rolled as she hit the deck. She carefully closed the window before huddling under the glass to hide.
It wasn’t long before she heard Rudy’s harsh voice. “You seen a girl, old lady?”
Silence.
“A girl with dreadlocks.”
More silence.
“Man, she’d tell us if she saw th
at bitch.” It sounded like Rudy’s younger friend.
“We’ve checked the other apartments, Dimitri, she has to be here. Maybe the woman’s senile. Check that room, I’ll check this one.”
After a short pause, Bit peeked over the sill of the window. The men had moved into the two other rooms of the generous apartment. Bit had a feeling the old woman had lived there since the apartment building had been its own, solitary structure. She was blessed with two bedrooms.
Bit used their absence to jimmy open the grating. It made a disturbing clank, but she slipped through it anyway. It was her only escape. Once hanging from the outside, she lowered the metal grate back to its place. To her astonishment, from the outside, the various levels didn’t seem to match. In fact, she noticed one apartment that looked to be built on an incline. It appeared the enormous structure had been built in columns over the years, rather than one floor at a time.
Bit didn’t pause to study the anomaly but began her climb over to the next column of apartments. Using her gashed hand hurt, and the fabric made it harder to grip anything, but she ignored the issue and kept moving. Just as she reached the edge of the old woman’s deck, she heard a voice announcing her presence. She glanced through the grimy window and spotted Dimitri pointing at her.
Rudy erupted into the room, a glare already on his swollen features. Bit grabbed a metal conduit and slid down it, pain searing her already torn hand. It was a fast mode of transportation, but it hurt like hell. She began to pick up speed, despite her efforts to the contrary.
Suddenly, the conduit turned in toward the building. Bit found herself hanging from the small horizontal piece, her feet swinging two stories above the ground. She spotted an open window just below her feet, just out of reach. Bit began to swing on the conduit, her hand burning with the movement. With a little momentum, she let go, hoping to slip into the window.
It half worked.
Bit’s feet went straight into the opening, but she hit the bottom ledge before the rest of her body could follow. With the speed of her descent, Bit found herself toppling backward out the window. She cocked her knees, digging her heels into the inside wall, barely keeping herself from falling head first.
Using her core muscles, she bent upwards, her bruised back screaming at her. She grabbed the window frame and pulled herself the rest of the way in. By the looks of it, a very poor family lived in the second story apartment. The walls were dented, antiquated wallpaper peeling from them. Pieces of plaster hung from the ceiling and a smell permeated the main room. Still, she spotted a queen mattress and a twin mattress, both made up and ready for the night’s respite.
Bit ducked out of the apartment, happy to have avoided the owners. She raced down the corridor, half-fell down a flight of stairs, and out into the street. From there, she ran full tilt, taking multiple turns until she felt certain she had lost Rudy and Dimitri.
Bit ran until her legs were shaking and a stitch plagued her side. She guessed she had run for at least a few miles through the city and was now in the entertainment district. Stadiums rose up around her and in the distance, she could see the tops of old rollercoasters. She knew, from hearing other kids talk, that most of the park was indoors now, with virtual rides, but a few of the iron structures still stood, looking lonely in the skyline.
Slowing to a walk, Bit pressed her arm against her side. People were looking at her and her makeshift bandage. She needed to get her hand bandaged properly, but normally she would have gone to Delci for that. Now the woman could not be trusted.
Instead, she ducked into a little first-floor shop. The owner stared at her from behind his counter.
“First aid supplies?”
“You got money or are you wasting my time?” the man asked with a glower.
Bit pulled a single bill out of her bag. It would be enough to buy what she needed. She didn’t want to show the comparative wealth tucked under her clothing.
“Near the back on the left wall.”
Bit nodded and limped away, suddenly finding one leg stiff after her long run. She found the first aid supplies, picking out what she needed. Returning to the counter, she paid for her purchases—adding a protein gel pack to the medical supplies. She hadn’t eaten since a half-order of breakfast on the flight, early in the day. Many hours and miles later, she was shaking with hunger.
She walked away from the shop, traveling two blocks before ducking into a shaded alleyway. Sitting in the dust, Bit unwrapped her hand, wincing as the fabric pulled against the drying blood. Bit tossed the ruined shirt to the side, grabbed up the bottle of rubbing alcohol and poured it over her hand and wrist. She hissed in pain as the liquid worked to kill the germs. Not worrying about cleaning up the uncut flesh, she wrapped her hand and wrist in cheap cotton bandaging before adding a layer of vet wrap.
There were better bandaging options—cuffs filled with antibiotics and gel like what they used on Mars—but Bit couldn’t afford them, or rather Jack couldn’t afford her stealing enough for them.
Bit leaned back and breathed a sigh of relief, suddenly thankful for all her previous injuries. Watching various crewmembers tend to her wounds had given her some idea of what to do, not to mention all of her own injuries she had been forced to care for when under the care of previous owners.
With the leftover supplies tucked into her bag, Bit leaned back against the tall building and began slurping down the protein gel.
What now? she wondered, trying to get a game plan formed. For a long moment, Bit couldn’t even remember why she’d come all the way to Earth. Her exhaustion clouded her mind, but slowly the thought of Douglas Zandri and her lost family stiffened her spine. I just gotta keep fighting.
She thought through her options, feeling defeated before the first day on Earth ended. Before allowing her to be kidnapped, Delci had suggested Zandri had moved north to Dobsonville.
Bit let out a long sigh. In her mad dash to get away from Rudy and Dimitri, she had run away from Dobsonville. Now, if her geography was correct, she was nearly twenty kilometers from the small suburb.
Well, there’s nothing to be gained by sitting here, she told herself as she jammed the last of her supplies back in her bag and climbed to her feet.
She began the long walk. Not all areas had mass transit. And those that did often were so crowded to make it impossible to travel in a timely manner. Bit remembered waiting an hour with her owner to get onto a train due to the enormous crowds. It wasn’t worth trying for a train at the midday rush.
Bit trudged through the crowded streets, exhaustion setting in. The thick crowds made it difficult, but she worked to keep track of her surroundings. The hair on the back of her neck stood to attention, sending a shiver down her spine. She scanned the crowds again but being short put her at shoulder height for most of the locals, and the crowd forced them right up against her—therefore she couldn’t see anything past the nearest couple pedestrians.
Out of frustration, and a continuing sense of dread, she found a narrow alley with an old fire escape. Climbing up to the second story, she peered out into the jostling crowd. After a few minutes wait, she spotted two men walking with the northbound traffic, their heads pivoting on their shoulders as they strained to see over the crowd and scan their surroundings. It was obvious they were searching for someone.
Bit knew it could have been a coincidence, but Randal had taught her to doubt any fluke. If they looked like they were searching for her, then they probably were. As Randal always said, “The simplest reasoning is probably the right reasoning.”
Bit glanced back down the alley towards the other end. It was blocked by a tall chainlink fence topped with razor wire. Though it was possible to get past the fence, she didn’t much fancy a thousand tiny cuts. She bent her neck back and examined the rest of the fire escape. It didn’t go all the way up to the roof—stopping where the original building ended—but she spotted an open window a floor above what had once been the original roof.
Heading up the next ladder,
she rattled the rusted fire exit against the old stone of the building. A man on the street heard the noise and turned to look at her. He began waving at her, yelling in a language she didn’t understand, though she got the gist of his message—get down from there.
Bit ignored him, though she understood why he was so upset. Half the iron bolts connecting the fire escape to the building were either sheared off or missing completely. Though far from safe, she suspected it was still a better choice than going back into the maelstrom of bodies trying to use the street where her predators waited.
As the man continued to yell at her, the nearby crowd began to take notice.
“Shit,” she muttered as she glanced over at the street, spotting the men she assumed were looking for her; they met her gaze for a moment before shoving their way toward the alley. “Double shit.”
Bit hurried up the next ladder, her stiff leg slowing her down. By the time she reached the next landing, the stitch in her side had returned. She pushed her body, ignoring its call to slow down. Her body didn’t realize that it would hurt a lot worse if she slowed down.
She reached the top of the fire escape just as the two strange men began climbing the first ladder. Bit didn’t recognize them but based on their looks and the way the pedestrians avoided them, she guessed they belonged to Rudy. At the top of the fire escape, Bit took a firm hold of a narrow pipe—that looked more secure than the fire escape—and began jumping up and down.
The iron structure rattled loudly against the stones of the building as she repeatedly brought her weight down on it. The men below continued to climb as fast as they could on the shaking ladder as they yelled up at her to stop. Bit couldn’t help but smile as she jumped again. The top most portion of the fire escape detached from the building, momentarily balancing on the ladder heading down to the middle level before it collapsed.
Bit tightened her grip on the pipe and let the iron grading fall away from her feet. It landed hard against the next level, jerking it from the stones. The domino effect continued until the very bottom. The two men jumped off the collapsing structure just in time, landing hard on the alley floor and rolling with the impact. They rolled right into the next building, cursing as they came to a stop.
Mayhem and Mutiny Page 3