Rock picked up speed and slashed his sword at her on a yell. At the last second, Finn dove to her knees and leaned her head back, just narrowly dodging the blow. Coming to her feet, she turned and delivered a hard kick to the back of Rock’s knees.
He staggered before righting himself. Throwing the sword to the ground, the Kreetian swung out a hardened arm and slammed her into the dirt, rattling her teeth from the impact.
His hand hardened around her throat, cutting off her supply of air. Rather than fight him, she welcomed the pain and embraced the fear.
She didn’t just want to kill him, she wanted him to suffer.
Finn lifted a hand and slammed her palm against Rock’s cheek. As she did, she conjured up every horrible thing she’d ever done, every horrible thing she’d ever seen.
The screams of agony, the memories of Sophie’s lifeless body, her torture at the hands of the chancellor, AJ’s unseeing eyes as the breath left his body for the last time.
Finn took the pain of every lashing and the horror of all she’d done and let them flow through her and into Rock.
His hold loosened and his eyes widened in alarm. Tiny droplets of blood streamed from his eyes like tears. She watched as his mouth opened in a silent scream of terror.
Finn lifted her ringed fist and shoved it into Rock’s open mouth, engaging the shield.
“Do me a favor, Rock,” she growled. “Choke on it.”
The overpressure wave caused by the hard-light projection grew to the zenith of its specifications, forcing the contents of Rock’s head to evacuate through his mouth, nose, and ears. Gore showered down over Finn in a macabre fountain of blood and gray matter.
She pushed what was left of Rock’s body off her and got to her feet. In her tunnel vision, she missed the tiny armada of ships that had accumulated above the Dome.
Now that she was no longer under the spell of AJ’s eyes, Viper had stood up and her confused expression turned to the Dome’s peak and the ships raining firepower down on the Reliance soldiers surrounding the structure.
As she drew closer, Viper took in Finn’s bloody visage.
“You were right,” she told Finn in awe. “They came.”
Finn closed the distance between them and drew her dagger from the waistband of her jumpsuit. As Viper’s eyes widened in surprised confusion, Finn slashed the hybrid’s throat. Her scaled hands went to the wound in a vain attempt to stem the steady flow of blood as she gurgled a pained cry.
As Finn watched, her eyes rolled back in her head and the poison princess collapsed in a heap.
Wisely, the three remaining competitors gave Finn a wide berth. Supersonic watched her with terrified eyes, ready to run if need be.
Screams began to sound within the Reliance audience and she finally noticed the war waging above the Dome. Soldiers fell left and right, their blasters and pulse guns no match for the airborne ships and their firepower.
One of the smaller salvage ships in the group, more heavily armored than the others, broke away from the fracas and aimed a laser at the Dome. The beam collided with the structure’s projector, blowing it to smithereens. The hard-light projection around them flickered before disappearing completely.
They were free.
Shots fired around her from both sides, but Finn only had eyes for the chancellor. He stood near his seat, surrounded by a large group of soldiers protecting him. He yelled orders at them above the fray and darted panicked eyes around the arena.
Finn tightened her grip on the dagger and walked in his direction. She ignored the lasers and blasts firing all around her, waiting for the chancellor to spot her. A stray shot pierced her shoulder, but Finn barely flinched. She barely even felt it.
“Finn!”
She turned to see a small pod had landed several feet away, and found Conrad staring at her. His dreads were tied away from his face and his jaw was set with anger. His blue eyes scanned first the bloody dagger in her hand, then the blood and carnage covering her face and upper body. She watched, impassive, as his familiar azure gaze widened with horror.
Help had arrived.
FORTY
“You’re too late,” Finn muttered under her breath. She turned away from Conrad and continued walking.
As she reached the edge of the Dome, the chancellor finally noticed her and his eyes widened in alarm. She held his eyes as she bent to snag an axe in her free hand and broke into a sprint.
More shots pierced the air around her, but Finn merely ran through them, pumping her arms and legs as fast as they would carry her.
She darted through the chaotic crowd of terrified onlookers, dodging between shrieking Reliance ladies in their red-and-gold finery and the soldiers protectively positioned around them.
One of the guards surrounding the chancellor broke away as Finn neared and took aim with his blaster. No more than a meter separated them.
Finn raised the handle of the axe and sent it flying with a graceful flick of her wrist. It sailed through the air and landed with a sickening thwack in the soldier’s chest.
She sprinted to his side and snatched the blaster from his lifeless hands.
“Kill her!” the chancellor shrieked. Several of his guards turned in her direction and Finn dropped to a knee, taking aim with the blaster and leaving smoking holes in each of their heads. A nearby soldier she’d failed to see punched her in the jaw with a gloved fist.
Finn spit blood, ducking the next punch as it came sailing toward her temple. Their tussle drew the rest of soldiers from their position around the chancellor.
Finn head-butted one as he charged her right side. Turning gracefully, she launched a hard kick at another’s stomach. Yanking the blaster from around his shoulder, she shot four more guards in succession.
Her movements cleared a path between her and the chancellor, and Finn smiled coldly at the fear in his eyes as she palmed her dagger, still covered in Viper’s blood. She grasped the clean, upper quarter of the blade and launched it at the chancellor. It sailed through the air past his head, leaving a small, clean cut on his cheek.
His hand shot up to the wound to wipe at the small line of blood dripping there and he smiled.
“You missed!” he called to her smugly.
“Not quite,” she snarled back.
His smile faltered at the calm that had stolen over her features and his eyes widened in alarm. He gasped slightly as the veins in his face turned black, spreading out in a web around the torn flesh. Blood began to trickle from his nose as Viper’s poisonous blood coursed its way through his body.
He stumbled before barely righting himself, a new wave of soldiers rushing to his side. Finn picked up a nearby blaster and moved to finish him off.
Before she could take two steps, strong arms wrapped around her waist and squeezed. She smelled the mint of Conrad’s hair wax and let out a guttural scream.
“Let me go!”
It was too late. Conrad was already in the process of dragging her back through the Dome. Before long, the chancellor was swallowed by Reliance guards and she lost sight of him.
“No!” Finn screamed, launching an elbow into one of Conrad’s ribs and dragging her feet through the dirt in a bid to slow him down. He groaned in pain but held tight.
Conrad turned their bodies as he made his way to the pod in the Dome’s epicenter. Finn caught sight of Enyo’s multihued hair and found her tearing her way through screaming soldiers with her deadly claws and fangs, while Axel slammed even more into the ground with brutal force. He’d puffed up to twice his normal size and his half-Khaleerian skin had darkened to a deep shade of red. At the pod’s entrance, Grim watched their approach with eyes blackened by his rage; Aedan’s large, limp form was slung over his shoulder. Behind him, Iliana’s red hair clung to her dirt-streaked face as she took in the chaos with wide, horrified eyes.
In the distance, Shane cradled AJ’s bloody body in his arms. Unabashed tears streamed down the captain’s face.
“Don’t touch him!” Fi
nn shrieked and writhed in Conrad’s hold. “Don’t touch him!” Her arms and legs kicked wildly as she thrashed and bit at the air like a mad dog.
A sharp prick in her neck followed by a rush of cold stopped her movements short and the world around her went dark.
FORTY-ONE
Finn awoke sometime later to find herself in the sick bay aboard Independence with her wrists and ankles strapped to the bed in an inescapable hold.
She gave each a tug just to be sure and, as she suspected, they had no give.
“Shane thought the restraints might be safer for you.”
Finn glanced over to find Conrad sitting quietly in a chair across from her bed. He sat hunched over with his elbows resting against his thighs. A mixture of dirt, blood, and sweat smeared the ebony skin of his face. His blue eyes looked weary, and he had a swollen lip and cuts on his face and arms.
“AJ’s dead,” she told him in a flat voice she barely recognized.
“I know,” he said quietly, unshed tears pooling in his eyes.
“I didn’t protect him,” she whispered.
Conrad got up and moved to the side of her bed.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he soothed.
Finn felt cold. She searched for some emotion, something she could cling to but came up empty. It was as if everything had been shut off in the Dome, leaving her an empty shell.
“What about Viper and Rock?” she asked him. “Were they my fault?”
Conrad’s eyes darkened with pain as if remembering what he’d seen on Aquarii.
The last tiny shred of the woman she’d been before the Dome died at the sight. She turned away from him and stared at the opposite wall.
“Exactly. I’m the one who was stupid enough to trust Nova. I’m the one who chose to bring AJ to Aquarii. And I’m the one who killed those people.”
“Finn, you didn’t have a choice.”
Her fists clenched around the sheets at the half-hearted lie.
“I wanted to hurt them for what they did. I wanted them to suffer,” Finn hissed.
When she turned back to Conrad, he was regarding her like a stranger.
Good.
At least his eyes were wide open to the truth now.
“Conrad, Shane needs you.”
The deep voice drew Finn’s gaze to the doorway and she found Grim standing there. His giant red body was clothed in his usual garb, albeit slightly torn and covered in dirt. His dark eyes remained on Finn. The tenderness she glimpsed there would have enraged her if she’d been capable of feeling anything.
Conrad got up and left without a backward glance. The old Finn would have ached at the sight, but whoever she was now couldn’t force herself to care.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t get to you sooner, Finn.”
At the familiar feminine voice, she looked to Grim’s left and felt a tiny glimmer of surprise to see Senator Califax’s wife, the one who’d shown her a small kindness at the Unionization Ball on Cartan they’d attended weeks ago. Today, her stout frame wore a deep red jumpsuit with glittery gold feathers sprouting from the padded shoulders. Her brown hair had been tied up with gold ribbons.
What was she doing here?
Then it hit her; something oddly familiar about the woman’s voice. Finn remembered her strange vision of Mr. Green and the mysterious woman who came to visit him in the night . . .
I need you to find a way to tell the Teslan that the Luminary is coming for her. For them all.
“You were the one who sent Mr. Green to me.”
“Yes,” the plump woman said as she shot Grim a knowing look. “The Luminary and I have been on the same side for many cycles now.”
“And your husband? What side is he on?” Finn asked, remembering the revolting little man with the too-white teeth and wandering eyes.
“My husband wouldn’t know right from wrong if they bit him in his gold-dusted arse. His position, however,” she shared, smiling, “gives me access to the kinds of things our cause would be lost without.” Her smile faltered as she regarded Finn sadly for a moment. “I’m just sorry they couldn’t help us save AJ.”
At the mention of his name, Finn’s eyes flickered between Grim and Madam Califax before returning to their casual study of the wall.
“Get out,” she told them.
She could practically hear Madam Califax’s jaw hit the floor in shock at her rude dismissal. Regardless, the woman obeyed and the sound of her heels clacking against the floor announced her hasty exit as she retreated from the room.
“I meant both of you,” Finn told Grim while keeping her eyes on the wall.
“Dhala . . . I—”
“Don’t,” she cut him off coldly. Unfazed, he merely cleared his throat and tried a different tactic.
“Can you tell me what happened when you touched the Kreetian? Iliana says she’s never seen anything like it.”
Finn remained silent, closing her eyes and patiently waiting for him to leave. After several tense minutes of silence, Grim swallowed hard and tried again.
“Dhala, I’m so sorry. I never wanted this for you.”
She glanced in his direction and let out a quiet, humorless chuckle.
“I find that hard to believe.” She turned to see Grim’s dark eyes had widened at her tone, and he expelled a frustrated breath of air. She continued her thought in an almost robotic tone. “This is what you trained me for, isn’t it?” she asked him. “You needed a competent assassin for your bigger mission. Well”—she bared her teeth in a mock grin—“I’ve got some good news for you: You wanted a killer? You got her, and she’s ready to play her part.”
“I never meant for this to happen. My hands were the only ones meant to get dirty.”
“Wars aren’t won without casualties,” Finn told him flatly. “I know that now.”
“Dhala, please . . .” His gruff voice wavered in a way she’d never heard before. “What can I do to make this better? What do you want? Anything in my power to give to you, I will.”
“I want what you promised,” she whispered impassively. “What you made me believe every time you read one of your books to me . . . stories about men with honor and happy endings where justice prevailed. You made me believe in it even though you knew it wasn’t real.”
“You were just a child then . . . with the weight of ten worlds sagging on your tiny shoulders. I wanted to give you something to believe in. I wanted to give you hope.”
“That’s just it, isn’t it? You found a way to hurt me in a way even the chancellor wasn’t cruel enough to do. You made me hope. You made me believe the worlds could be a just place . . . that doing good mattered. And then . . .”—Finn’s gaze burned into his—“you sent me to steal from a courtesan and took all of it away.”
She returned her stare to the bare, white wall so she wouldn’t have to see the way the big warrior who’d never met a problem he couldn’t fix with his fists trembled, his eyes glistening in the artificial light.
A few seconds passed before she heard the sound of his retreating boots and Finn was finally alone. She closed her eyes with a sense of relief.
She sensed when visitors stopped by, like Iliana and Isis, but she refused to acknowledge their presence or even open her eyes.
Eventually, the foot traffic through the sick bay ceased and Finn let her body go limp. It only took seconds for her to fall asleep.
For the first time in a long time, she didn’t dream.
Two days had passed since their rescue from the Dome and AJ was finally getting a funeral. The Independence and her crew were on the run and had taken extra care to travel out of Reliance sight for the past forty-eight hours. Jax and Lex were leading them to their home planet, Tuathan. Finn knew little to nothing about the tiny planet in the farthest reaches of the Farthers, but Shane and Grim seemed convinced they would find both sanctuary and allies there.
In a few more days they would reach Tuathan and safety.
Only one task remained.
Finn wa
tched on as a somber Isis placed a fat purple flower on the large steel cargo box holding AJ’s body. Tears pooled in her silver eyes and tracked a pathway down her blue cheeks. She cast her stare downward and appeared to pray in a low whisper. A few seconds later, she moved out through the open door of the docking bay and pulled a quietly sobbing Tiri to her side. The little girl wore a black dress on her tiny lavender frame and her ringlets had been pulled away from her elfin face. Her green eyes remained locked on the box.
There hadn’t been time to obtain a proper coffin and Finn could tell from the haggard look on Shane’s face and the dark purple bruises under his eyes that the knowledge he’d be sending his brother off in a steel box meant for cargo burned deep. The captain ran hands over his stubble before placing them on the lid.
Conrad stood by his side in the bay, wraparounds covering his glowing eyes and his runic tattoos on full display. He placed a large hand on Shane’s shoulder and squeezed.
Grim and Iliana stood in the hallway watching the proceedings in the bay through a large window while an unusually solemn Lex, Axel, and Jax held each other a few feet away. Both the horned Khaleerian and the courtesan maintained stoic expressions.
Finn stood quietly in the hallway and kept her distance from everyone. Carrow, Aedan, and the other rescued hybrids were not asked to the join the quiet ceremony.
Long minutes passed with Shane hunched over the box, his shoulders shaking as he cried for his little brother. Conrad wrapped his arm around the captain and bowed his head. They’d sacrificed everything to give their brother a decent life, only to watch him die before his fifteenth birthday.
And it was all Finn’s fault.
She felt the familiar sting of guilt at the center of her chest and swallowed the lump rising in her throat. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t watch them float AJ out of the hold into the cold darkness of space.
Not in that box.
Finn rubbed the pins and needles from her chest as she turned away from the group, her footsteps echoing down the hallway as she went.
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