by Natalie Grey
“Yes,” Tersi said quietly. “That’s exactly it.” And then, because nothing in her demeanor eased, he asked awkwardly, “Are you all right?”
“No.” She gave a laugh that was half a sob. She wiped at her nose, looking embarrassed at the sudden outburst. “I lost someone, too. Recently.” She wiped at her eyes now, two angry dashes of her hands. “I’m never going to see them again and I can’t deal with it.”
Tersi hesitated, and then reached out to take her hand. To his surprise, she looked over at him gratefully.
“It’s not the same, I suppose.” She managed a smile. “It’s my brother.”
She didn’t seem inclined to explain what had happened, and Tersi didn’t press her. “It doesn’t make sense that you get to go on and they don’t,” he said finally.
She bit her lip and nodded. “It’s killing my parents,” she said quietly.
“And I suppose—this mission.” He cleared his throat as she looked over at him sharply. “Trying to save someone who’s in danger, after someone you know has just died.”
It seemed like he’d said both the right and wrong thing at the same time. Her eyes met his for a moment and she looked away.
“I hate her,” she said, after a moment. “I. Hate. Her.”
He blinked, and then understood. “Ghost?”
“You have no idea how much she’s destroyed,” Dess said, her voice low and furious. “How many people she’s hurt.”
“I thought—” Tersi cleared his throat. “I thought you didn’t want her dead, though.”
“I don’t know what I want!” Her voice rose. “Yes. I do. I want her to die. I want her to die the same way she kills everyone. I want it to hurt. But it’s not that simple. Wanting someone to die, it’s … it’s scary. I feel like I’m her, just executing people who cause her trouble.”
“Trust me,” Tersi said drily, “you are nothing like her.”
She gave him a look that said she didn’t believe him in the slightest.
“Hey, come on.” He tapped at her arm, trying to pull her out of her funk. “Are those bones metal? Tortured any civilians lately?”
She looked away and shook her head. He wasn’t sure if she was answering him, or telling him to stop talking.
He bit his lip, wondering what to say next.
“The thought of you going in there and shooting her just seems so final,” Dess said at last. Somewhere nearby, Talon’s voice could be heard, and the pound of footsteps, but there was no alarm, and so both Dess and Tersi settled back onto the crates. She looked over at him and took a deep breath. “And someone like you, like Talon and the rest—you’re all so nice, so joke-y, and you’re just going to go in and kill someone. Just like that.”
Tersi watched her.
“You never said why you went back,” she reminded him. “Or why you liked poetry.”
He cleared his throat and accepted the diversion gracefully. Like Dess, he didn’t know what the rules were. He wasn’t any good at this part of dating. With Sphinx, he hadn’t had to be—it had just happened.
Now, he had the sense that he was messing it all up.
“The poetry….” He shook his head. “It spoke to me. There’s nothing else to it, really. It shifted the world. I could read something and it made everything new. It seemed like magic. I didn’t like my own poetry, but who does?”
Dess gave a little laugh.
His heart lifted as he smiled at her. He liked her laugh. He liked talking to her when he wasn’t making a complete muddle of it.
“As for coming back here … I missed it.” He cleared his throat again awkwardly. “The purpose of it. Poetry is beautiful, but it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to do all the things I thought I’d do in the Navy. Took me a couple of years, but I made it into the Dragons.” He shrugged. “I’m really good at it. All of it.”
“Killing people,” Dess said. She looked away and rubbed at her head. “I’m not being fair to you again, I’m sorry.”
Tersi was about to ask what that meant when the lights came on and Talon came into the armory—and Tersi forgot anything he was about to say.
Talon was almost exclusively good-natured. He reserved his vengeance for people like the Warlord, who had killed thousands. Even Ghost had not yet earned much of his anger. He dealt with violent criminals simply, without descending into the mess of hatred and fury that could trip up a lesser fighter. Tersi rarely saw him angry.
He was angry now.
“Was there anything,” he said quietly to Dess, “that you might have forgotten to mention about yourself?”
Dess had not spent much time with Talon, but she had the good sense to look very, very worried. Unfortunately, she also looked guilty.
“What’s going on?” Tersi asked. His eyes flicked between the two of them.
Talon waited a split-second, but Dess said nothing, and his lip curled. He looked at Tersi with a grim smile. “Oh, I’ll tell you what’s going on. The woman we’ve got on board is Ghost’s niece.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DESS FROZE. She did not look over to where Tersi was staring at her, his mouth open in shock. She didn’t look at Talon, either.
“War room,” Talon said curtly. “Now.”
It was awkward getting off the crates without their help, but Dess didn’t dare ask Tersi for help now. She remembered the feel of his hands at her waist, his breath on the back of her neck, and she felt her cheeks heat with shame.
She stumbled as she walked. What were they going to do with her?
Use her the way Ghost was using Harry, that was how. She knew it, deep in her bones. It felt like she had ice water running in her veins and she fought the urge to sink into a little ball on the ground and cry.
Her father should have known they weren’t ever going to outrun this. Maybe it was why he was sitting in that little apartment on Seneca, drinking himself to death as her mother fell apart in a quieter, more measured way. Maybe that was why her father could hardly seem to look at Dess.
He’d done this for her, and he knew it wouldn’t be enough.
In the war room, there were two screen ons. On one of them, Lesedi was sitting with a contemplative look on her face, and on the other, the Dragon Dess recognized as Nyx was partially in the frame as she stripped off her armor. There were a series of bruises already appearing on her skin, with some abrasions as well, and under any other circumstances, Dess would have asked her what happened. Right now, she only looked numbly at it, and then over to the older man sitting at the table in the war room—Aegis, if she remembered correctly.
“I’ll cut to the chase,” Lesedi said simply. “Does John Hugo know who you are?”
“Yes.” Dess shook her head helplessly. It wasn’t like she’d meant to deceive them, at least not at first. She’d walked into that hotel room on Seneca and been shocked that so many Dragons were just letting her go by without a single sideways look.
She knew what Ghost had done to some of them. She’d even heard Nyx mentioned before—though always as Melissa Alvarez. One of Dess’s cousins had been the person tasked with tracking down Mala Brennan, a task they were still working on. Everyone knew she wasn’t dead. Everyone also knew she was going to be soon enough. Ghost wanted Nyx to hurt.
Ghost wanted a lot of people to hurt.
“I’m guessing he thought we knew,” Lesedi said. When Dess looked up, the woman had locked eyes with Talon. “If you’ll recall, he made a little mention of how we must know about the defections in Ghost’s organization. Most likely, he simply forgot to mention it.” She shifted in her chair and added, somewhat pointedly, “And he probably assumed Dess would tell us.”
Everyone had been looking between one another, communicating in that silent way Dragons did, but now they all looked back at Dess and her reprieve was over.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“You’re sorry?” Talon’s voice was far too pleasant. He came to lean on the table in front of her, staring her down; he ignore
d a hastily cut-off sound of protest from Tersi. His gaze was fixed on Dess. “You knew about Eternas. You knew about all of Ghost’s stations—”
“I didn’t—you know about—”
Talon cut her off without even raising his voice. “—And you let us find it out slowly, bit by bit, instead of helping us. Why, I wonder?”
She’d come in here thinking they were going to shove her into an airlock and send a picture to her aunt, and only now did she see what he meant. Her jaw dropped open and fear clutched her chest. “No. No, no, no, I’m not working for her, no.”
Talon didn’t move. He stared her down, green eyes burning into hers.
“Talon—” Tersi began.
Talon shot him a blazing glance and he closed his mouth and looked away. He was hovering behind Dess’s chair, almost a protector … though he wouldn’t look at her.
Dess shook her head. “No,” she said again, and she knew she was babbling. She had spent her life planning out almost every word, every gesture, and in the past few months she’d fallen apart to the point that she could barely seem to get through a day without tears, without emotions rearing up when she least expected them.
And fear. Always fear, ever-present, until she thought she would choke or scream. Fear, lodged in her chest and burning its way out of her.
Talon opened his mouth, but Nyx cut him off.
“Why did John Hugo call you?” she asked. The words weren’t exactly friendly, but they weren’t nearly as angry as Talon’s. He looked at her over his shoulder and whatever passed silently between them, he stood back to give Dess some space.
Dess looked gratefully at her. “My family defected,” she explained. “Three months ago. Four.” It didn’t really matter, but she found solace in facts. “All except my brother. She got to him before we could.”
The Dragons looked at one another.
“So your brother’s still alive,” Tersi said. When Dess looked up, he was staring at her, and she saw the shadow of those few minutes in the armory.
When she’d thought that despite everything, he was someone she wanted to know better. She’d had a heady taste of freedom, knowing she could talk to anyone she wanted now, or go out to dinner with them, or be seen with them. Auntie Maryam wasn’t watching anymore. For the first time in her life, Dess didn’t have to think of what The Family would say—or wonder if it was safe to bring someone new in, who might get hurt.
What an idiot she’d been. There was no running from it when you were part of this family. You carried it with you and it spread to everything you touched. She should have known.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Harry is still alive.” Saying his name made it worse and better at the same time.
“Harry,” Nyx said. There was a speculative gleam in her eye. “He wouldn’t happen to work on ships somehow, would he?”
“Yes.” Dess looked over at her, swallowing. “He does. He’s an engineer.” It wasn’t the time, but she lifted her chin a little bit, proud despite herself. “A really good one.” It was one of the reasons their father had defected when he did. Ghost was asking for more and more those days, and Harry hadn’t ever had the good sense to pretend he was no good at his work.
The irony that he was the one Ghost had managed to capture was lost on no one.
Then her thoughts caught up with her. “Did you see him? Have you—” How would Nyx have seen him? Fear gripped her, then. “Did you kill him?”
“No.” Nyx shook her head. “No, I just wondered.”
Dess stared at her desperately, but the woman didn’t say anything else.
“It does, however,” Talon said, “leave me wondering why you’re so motivated not to have Ghost wind up dead?”
“She said she did want Ghost dead,” Tersi clarified. “Just now.”
Dess looked over her shoulder at him, wishing he hadn’t said that. He was trying to make it better, but she understood Talon well enough, even on short acquaintance, to know that Tersi was only making it worse. Every time he defended her, Talon would trust her less, not more.
“I asked Dess,” Talon said curtly, “not you.”
Aegis shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
Dess forced herself to look at him. “She has Harry,” she said. She set her jaw. As bad as honesty was, lying would be worse. He would know. “I wanted—to get him back. If I’m the reason she dies, that’s not going to happen.”
There was a silence.
“So you’ve been half in this mission from the start.” Talon sounded almost satisfied—a puzzle had been solved. “You came here to negotiate, but it was never Rhea Hugo you were interested in saving.”
“That’s not true!”
“Isn’t it? You dragged your feet on telling us where she might be. She’s on the planet, isn’t she?”
“No.” Too late, Dess realized she’d made it sound like she knew that for a fact. She shook her head, rubbing at her forehead and trying to collect her thoughts. She couldn’t think properly anymore, she never could, and she had to—or this man was going to kill her. “She wouldn’t—she would know you were going to come after her. Rhea, I mean. She wouldn’t hide her in the last place she wanted you to find.”
“Eternas was a surprise to John Hugo,” Lesedi observed. “If your family defected, and I assume they did so by offering information to the Alliance in exchange for protection, yes? Yes. If that’s how it happened, why was that not on the top of your list?”
There was a moment while Dess tried to formulate an answer.
“Harry.” The name was bitter in Talon’s mouth. His lips were twisted in a sneer. “Even with everything on the line, they were more interested in one person, one member of their family, than they were in the thousands who were living under a dictatorship.”
“It’s not a dictatorship.” Dess looked up at him and realized she’d said the wrong thing. Because it was, of course. Saying it wasn’t had been the way they made their peace with it for all those years, terrified of what would happen to them if they tried to run: it’s not that bad, lots of people have it worse, it’s not like it’s Ymir.
“You’re still on her side,” Talon accused.
Her head jerked up. “I. Am. Not.”
“You’d screw us over in a heartbeat to get your brother back. How is that ‘not being on her side’?”
“You don’t get it!” Dess curled her fingers into a fist, coming half out of her chair—and sitting back down when he leaned forward again.
“So, why don’t you explain it to me.” There was nothing nice in his voice.
And she hated him. All of a sudden, the feelings she’d been trying to get a handle on rose up to choke her and she leaned forward to match his cold smile with her own.
“Okay,” she said, her tone just as sweet as his. “I will. I grew up on Eternas. When I was old enough, I was trained to be a hostage negotiator. The upper echelons of the smuggling world aren’t exactly nice. I got people’s children back for them. When I wasn’t good enough at my job, innocent people died—so I got very good at it very quickly. And my family rose, because that’s what happens when Ghost is happy with you. Between me and Harry, she was happy with us.”
He didn’t say anything, but he looked a little wary at the venom in her tone.
“You don’t have the first idea,” Dess told him softly, hatefully, “what it’s like to have everyone you love bound up in that system. To see with your own eyes, every day, what happens to people who don’t fall in line. To know that she’d kill, and kill painfully, everyone you even met if you walked away. She took control of the family at thirty. You think about that. You think about what kind of person can take control of that kind of family, that young. She killed her own uncle to do it. They were close. She loved him. She did it anyway.
“My father always said we were going to go one day. We’d have drills. We had things stashed around the house—not together, because someone might find them and realize what we were up to—and he’d time us. We had to
go pack a bag and run. She had the houses searched sometimes. We’d wake up in the dark with soldiers there and not know if we were going to die for something someone else had done, or because they’d heard us talking about it, or if they were just there to look.”
Talon looked away, and she saw him shove the reality of it away. “You could still have—”
“Soldiers,” Dess broke in, “that were an awful lot like you.”
His head jerked back to her and, behind her, Tersi drew in his breath unsteadily.
“Like all of you,” Dess said. She swung her gaze around the room and hated all of them just then. “Smiling, joking, nice—and then just killing and never even thinking about it again. Soldiers who didn’t give a damn who—”
“I am going to give you one chance to shut up,” Talon said. “You know very little about me, Ms. Tasper.”
“I know enough! I know that it doesn’t matter who gets hurt as long as you complete your mission!”
For some reason, that hit him. The room went deathly still. On the screen, Nyx was half out of her chair—whether to hold Talon back, or get to Dess, it was impossible to say.
Talon took a deep breath.
“She didn’t know,” Tersi said quietly.
Dess closed her eyes. Why now? Why in God’s name would he intervene now? She looked in time to see Talon give him an ugly look.
“You stay out of this,” Talon said.
“You’re upset because she didn’t tell us, but she thought we knew.” Tersi had his hands out.
“She knew very well that we didn’t. She had plenty of time to enlighten us. Your feelings don’t change that.”
Tersi flushed. He gave Talon an annoyed look. “She thought we were going to get her brother killed, Talon.”
“She could have lost us Rhea Hugo and every member of both teams.” Talon’s voice was rising. “You’re defending someone whose loyalties are divided and dangerous to us—”
“Yeah, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Tersi shot back.
Talon’s face went white and, on the screens, Dess saw Nyx open her mouth—and then look to Aegis, who gave her a tiny nod.