“That you stay here. Barricade the door.” He juts his jaw out in my general direction and smiles. “Keep it locked tight and wait for me to return. Hopefully with Donner in tow.”
If there’s an argument to be made against this plan of his, it evades me. I find myself nodding in agreement moments later and sigh deeply. “Okay.”
“Wow, that was easy.” His smile turns to a grin.
“Sometimes asking nicely does the trick,” I counter, but my tone isn’t loaded with anything but playful teasing.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” In one fell swoop, a sober note hangs in the air again. “Okay, I’m off.”
A bad feeling overtakes me as Cole crosses the threshold. I protest his departure, but he clicks the door shut behind me with one final glance. It silences me, and I hold back, pacing the room like a loopy parody of myself to keep my anxiety in check. I scratch my arms and then wrap them around myself. The soft touch of my gown seems ridiculous to me. I study my reflection in the mirror, fighting back nervous giggles.
You look like an intergalactic trollop, I think.
It does me no good. All this nervousness and worrying almost makes me forget that I should keep an inventory of the system. If Cole runs into any trouble, he’ll send an infoflare through. I need to be ready for him.
The door stirs in its frame. I freeze, watching it with a mixture of suspicion and hope. What if Cole’s back already? Is it possible that he was successful in so short a time?
I get my answer when a keycard I don’t expect clears the room’s built-in security, revealing the face of that monster on the other side. For the next few beats, the air congeals around us. I blink but he doesn’t, his face an unwavering mask with that wicked grin of his.
“You had to know I wouldn’t let a bounty hunter hold you hostage.”
I bristle. “I’m not his hostage. I never was.”
Donner’s eyes heat with controlled anger. There is not a single thing I can do to manipulate the systems with his eyes looking over me. If I do, he—and the wretched AI—will figure out the secret that I’ve been keeping all these years. He’ll know for a fact that fixing systems isn’t the only thing in my neat little bag of tricks. And if he was so awful to me when he thought that was all I could do, who’s to say what horrible fate he has in store for someone who can hack machines with their minds?
One crude step in front of the other, Donner marches forward. He closes in right as it dawns on me that I’ll have to let him take me. I’ll find a way out of Donner’s clutches, I think as the panic skyrockets and fizzles around me.
Either that or Cole will find me. I’m sure of it.
17 Cole
I check the door again before my arm pulls back. I holster my arm to my waist, using my other hand and hip as a wedge. I take a deep breath. “One, two, three,” I mouth to myself before I flip on the switch. The magnetic charge in my arm activates. It rattles in my grip as the charge builds.
The door shakes for a second before it’s ripped out of place and flies toward me. I change the charge’s direction, and the metal sheet door reverses direction. It flies into the room and slams against the back wall, leaving a sizable dent in the black wallpaper.
I stand at the ready, waiting for whatever lurks in that room to come hurling out. But I neither hear nor see anything.
“I know you’re in there, Donner,” I call into the room as my back presses against the wall. “Come out with your hands up.”
The stark stillness consumes my senses. Something’s not right. Donner’s not in there and neither are his faithful AIs.
Without even checking the room, I sprint off in the direction I came. My boots slam against the floor, like loud thuds of thunder announcing my presence. I don’t care about all the noise I’m making as I shove past patrons and skirt around the corner with a mad fury. My heart is beating so hard, it pulses through my wires.
When I draw near the room I left Lily in, I halt, tumbling to my knees. The door’s wide open and void of life.
I was duped.
My hands cover my face in horror. He had me looking one way while he snatched Lily when my back was turned. The fury pumps through my veins and soaks into my blood. My arms shake, and that warrior flame of my ancient line roars to the foreground. Their battle cry fills my ears. My fingers curl into fists, and my teeth clench. A roar bursts from my mouth as I scream out my rage.
My entire body pumps with anger. It soars to such heights that it’s almost debilitating. My retinal scanners beep within my ears and draw my heart rate to my attention. Its rhythm is beating out of control. It’s a warning.
I need to get control of myself. This blind rage isn’t going to help me find her any faster, but it’s like venom circulating in my system. I blow out a shaky breath and try to collect myself.
“Are you all right?” A server asks he pushes a hover cart that’s topped with a bottle of champagne and large bucket of ice.
I nod. “I’m fine.”
He gives me a second glance before he walks away. I lean against the wall, trying to calm myself. The world feels like it’s crumbling around me. Having Lily by my side is the only way to hold it up.
I push myself from the wall and begin scanning the area, desperate to pick up a signal from Lily. She’s a neurapath. Sending out a beat was her best chance at contacting me without Donner intercepting.
I jog through the lounge’s back halls as I search for her and her electronic imprint. Seconds stream into minutes, and I continue to receive radio silence.
There’s only one possible explanation for her inability to reach me: comm-blockers. Donner is reportedly a huge fan of the tech. It fed his need for control by preventing his victims from sending anything out that he didn’t authorize.
I shake my head. I wasn’t going to let comm-blockers stop me. I promised her that I’d keep her safe, and I’m not about to let Donner make me into a liar. The faster I find her, the better.
I promised her that I’d keep her safe. It echoes on repeated within my ears.
“Damn it!” My breath shakes as it exits my mouth. Raw anger builds within me once again. For a second, that rage is louder and stronger than my own thoughts. It surrounds me, burying fire in my determination.
The first step in locating Lily is to dismantle Donner’s fucking comm-blockers. It isn’t going to be easy.
My wires tighten as the electrical current surges. I pull the patrol logs for the station from the database. Symbols, numbers, letters, and pictures stream before my eyes. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’m certain I’ll see it when it pops up—an anomaly, an unusual code, anything that doesn’t fit the routine flow of the station. I slump against the wall as the information whips through my mind.
When the entries come to a hard stop, I switch over to the video footage. I start with the lounge’s cameras before branching out and searching the surrounding sectors.
But there’s nothing. Fucking nothing. My fist slams into the wall. The wall buckles from the force.
A patron passing by shoots me an odd glance.
“Wait,” I yell, pushing myself from the wall. “Have you seen a girl with silver hair and neon eyes?”
Without speaking a word, he shakes his head ‘no’ and continues down the hall.
I spend the next hour stopping everyone I pass, asking if they’ve seen ‘a girl with a silver pixie haircut and glittering neon eyes.’ Everyone gives me the same reply and solemn look.
She’s disappeared without a trace, and it’s all my fucking fault. Why hadn’t I kept her close? Why hadn’t I seen this coming? It should’ve been obvious. If I had done my job like I’m supposed to, then I would have expected this trap.
Donner used her gift to feed her fake clues. He was a vile, soulless bastard but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew I would use her to find him, and she’s what he’s been after all along. She’s what he came here for. There’s no way Donner would let a telepath like Lily just slip through his fingers.
/>
“Fuck!” I yell, scaring the others around me.
Donner is probably boarding his rig and blasting out of the station as I sit here like a schmuck, spewing piss and vinegar.
Like an all-consuming glow inside, my ancestors rush my prescience. And I feel it. I feel her. She’s still here in Temis Station. Somewhere.
18 Lily
Donner zeroes in on how to best exploit me immediately. As could be expected, that means he went straight into my head, implanting small buttons that do things I can’t hazard to guess. Whatever it is, the button emits a small pulse, causing my brain to buzz and tingle as if swarmed by critters. I fidget, focusing on a single mental dot to summon the single-minded willpower to make it stop.
That’s when my muscles relax and my clenched jaw slacks.
“Don’t get riled up, dear,” Donner says, ever the patronizing jackass.
A compliance trigger. Lovely.
It’s a bit more on the nose than a dependence on narcotics, but as a means of control, it gets the job done. I hate to admit it, but Donner knows how to cover his bases.
How long would it take me to spot a chink in his armor? It’s the only out that I can see. As long as he or one of his proxies stays vigilant, I won’t be able to override the damn brain neutering device he’s installed to force my compliance. I guess I’ll just have to be patient and ready to pounce at any opportunity to exploit. My brain may be compromised with the sensory vibrations, but this is life or death.
Worse, it’s life or indentured servitude.
“Don’t feel like talking?” Donner says, and pouts with that fake, patronizing concern of his that is designed to ruffle my feathers.
I won’t give the bastard that satisfaction.
“Suit yourself.” He crosses the room and heads for the door. Hope surges in me, only to have Donner obliterate it. “Don’t get any funny ideas about the hardware. We’re monitoring you.”
Ah, the ominous we.
Donner flashes me a maniacal grin and steps out of the room. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, eyeing my surroundings in the process. In the periphery, a screen beckons my attention. A comm! I bite my tongue to keep from rejoicing. I know Donner’s playbook and leaving a comm like that, out in the open, isn’t a part of it. Too risky. That I’m able to find a gadget like that portends better things looming on the horizon.
I long to toggle an access into its system but any sudden moves are certain death.
Patience is thoroughly unappealing.
But maybe... I pondered the viability of connecting via a stealth-link. Basically shooting myself in the foot speed-wise, but it’ll give me a backdoor into the system. When the coast clears—and it has to clear eventually, else I might as well give up—I’ll make my move. It’s no easy feat, this low-key exploit of mine, but I manage to pull it off without setting off any alarms.
I should get some kind of prize for all these fires I’m sidestepping.
The stealth-link tides me over as a monotonous lull blankets the mood inside wherever it is that I am. My psyche rebels, flooding me with intense anxiety followed by boredom followed by more anxiety. Whenever I try to move, the neutralizing device that Donner planted inside my head activates.
I’ll kill him with my bare hands.
It’s like I’m a kitten threatening a lion, except that I’m aware of how ineffective I am right now. Absent my tools and caged in like I am, I can’t even determine where in the galaxy we are. Maybe if I send an infoflare up, reach out to other stations that might be in our general vicinity...
At first, I dismiss that idea out of hand. When the silence stretches on, however, I can’t help but try. It’s pathetic that this—a brief stint in isolation—is able to break me so quickly, but I can’t dwell on it. I close my eyes and try to find a branch in the system or any stray signal that I can leverage. All of those lines of communication zap back without response.
He must be using comm-blockers.
Damn it.
At the very least, the bastard could’ve left me with some droid minders. Any presence would be a comfort right about now.
“I trust you’ve had some time to come to your senses?” Donner asks as he breezes through the entrance. In his hands are meager offerings by way of food. “How easy are you going to make this for me?”
“Not hardly, you fucking —”
“Ah, ah, ah,” he says, wagging his index finger in my face. “Not another word, Lily. You will be quiet.”
Like hell I will, you deplorable shit—
“Easy,” he cautions. Can he hear me? “You will submit to me.”
My sight funnels into a disorienting manifestation of what I can only describe as tunnel vision. I nod despite the hate that’s sloshing through my veins. Panic sets in, insidious and invasive.
Donner places a straw between my lips. “Drink.”
And I do.
“Now, you will listen very carefully. Open your mouth.” My jaw falls open like a damned earthly drawbridge. Donner feeds me the food he brought gradually. As I chew, he starts to speak in a macabre, chilling voice that does little to dispel how utterly powerless and at his mercy I am. “You will be a good girl, won’t you, Lily?”
“I will,” I say.
The dot in my head vibrates. It’s a betrayal of free will.
Gently, Donner strokes the wig. He stares at it, then me, for a disquieting few beats before yanking it off. With two fingers under my chin, he lifts my head to meet my gaze full-on. “You’re too beautiful to destroy, Lily. You know that?”
Not again. Not this again. Please.
“Yes, I know that.” My voice is lifeless. Almost robotic.
Please.
“It’s your saving grace.” Donner licks his bottom lip.
I recoil from him internally. That old familiarity of his creeps me out, not least because I used to be his lover. The truth is that there were very few lows I didn’t stoop to back when he kept me on a steady diet of parasitic addiction. A ghost of a memory flashes in my mind, making my skin crawl. I recede deeper and deeper inside myself, horrified at what torment lies at the end of this particular road.
“I’m putting you back on the job,” he declares. “I have another telepath of dubious talent—haven’t taken him for a test ride yet but he’ll do for now.”
If I had any control of my bearings, I would be blinking erratically and gasping for breath. For a brief second, I reflect on how ironic it is that the only thing saving me from a panic attack right this second is Donner’s hold over me. That twisted fuck’s depravity knows no bounds, and I have to keep reminding myself that I can never, ever put a positive spin on this.
“I’ve thought of something special for you both to do.”
There’s a sinister ring to his words. My blood runs cold as Donner twines his fingers through my natural hair. Weird as it sounds, that small gesture sends me in a tailspin of terror far more intense than anything else Donner ever did to me.
19 Lily
I snap out of the trance as Donner leaves the room. Just when I start to question if he can be any more fucked up, he swoops in to show me that the answer is a resounding yes. Really, I shouldn’t be surprised that he always manages to find a way to outdo himself and top his prior wickedness.
I hate him. I thought I did before, but no, that was a minor, low-level dislike that doesn’t even begin to compare to the white-hot loathing rolling off me. I despise him. Not just for all of the injustices he’s forced me to do to quench his greed, though that certainly doesn’t win him any favors. No, his biggest offense to date has been to make me come to heel. He had—has—the ability to completely negate my own sense of self, to shadow and blunt my conscience, and to hijack my body to serve his all-encompassing and treacherously slippery self-interests.
Simply put, Donner has no qualms about overriding my autonomy. I become an instrument in his little toy chest, a vessel through which he can carry out his whims and wishes.
As soon a
s the door slides shut, I scramble my circuits in search of an exit.
It’s to no avail.
What’s worse, the AI hasn’t stopped within reach for me to try to push my way through their system to get a lock on the comm-blockers. If they could just do me this one little favor, there was a fighting chance I can piggyback off the signal and give Donner hell, no matter how little.
Breathe. Inhale, hold, and exhale.
I can’t afford to lose my mind. The plan that Donner devised will be grueling. I need to pull through and find a way out.
An eternity passes before I receive another visitor. To my dismay, it’s Donner. Again. I snarl at the sight of him. If I have to live through a redo of my first time under his authoritarian wing, I will be reduced to a pile of smoldering spite.
For all the good it does me.
“Come on, Lily, don’t be like that,” Donner says with a snide smile. “You are a central part of my plan.”
The way he says “plan” makes my skin crawl. His words play back in my mind. I’m to crash two intergalactic ships against each other. It’s all sleight of hand, of course. A distraction to keep responders and personnel sufficiently preoccupied while he completes his still-cryptic second phase.
That’s right: the fucker wants me to engineer a fatal disaster. There is no conceivable way that I can prevent casualties. It’s a line I cannot bear to cross.
A line I won’t cross.
He’s insane if he thinks his power reaches that deep. Barking mad.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Ugh, just what I need: a cleansing ritual with a side of psychotic gaze.
Donner escorts me to the shower chamber, his face the epitome of lust-filled delusion. He reaches over to grab a robe, grazing my skin deliberately as he does so. I fight to keep from retching at the faint whisper of his touch.
“It’ll be just like old times.” The grin he’s wearing makes me shrink by three sizes, collapsing into myself. “Undress.”
The Cyborg Bounty Hunter: In the Stars Romance Page 9