Caught by Menace

by Lolita Lopez

  Eyes closed, she fought the urge to laugh at the irony of her situation. Just last night she’d been “interrogated” senseless. Now she shivered with fear at the very real prospect of her fantasy becoming a true nightmare.

  The door suddenly hissed and beeped as the locks disengaged. Her stomach lurched but she muscled down the urge to puke. She had to keep it together. Menace would find a way to save her. She may not have trusted him enough to tell all her secrets to him, but he had to know how much she loved him. He was going to be angry when he learned about what she’d done all those years ago, but he would find a way to protect her. He wasn’t her mother or her brother or any of the other people who had let her down. He was Menace—and he loved her. She believed that with every fiber of her being.

  With all the swagger of a man who was untouchable, Terror entered the interrogation cell. Another man flanked him, this one sporting a battered face and injured arm. He took up a position near the door. Terror strode toward her. He had a brown folder clamped under one arm and a tablet in the other hand. The folder she recognized. She’d seen the same ones down in The City and Connor’s Run when she’d been arrested.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Terror said and dropped into the chair across from her. He placed the folder and tablet on the table. “Interrogating Menace took longer than I’d anticipated.”

  His words hit her like a punch to the gut. She didn’t dare let her expression change. She pushed down the fear she felt for Menace and tried to keep a handle on her emotions. Menace and Terror were friends. He wouldn’t put his friend through an interrogation. He’s playing you.

  “That’s Pierce. He’s one of my agents.” Terror reached into his pocket and produced a small piece of candy. He took his time unwrapping and popping it into his mouth. Totally relaxed, he leaned back in his chair. “I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now but I’m not exactly a logistics clerk.”

  “No! Really? I’m shocked.” Past experience told her the smart-ass routine was a quick way to catch a boot to the face or worse but she couldn’t help herself. Sarcasm had always been her default setting in times of fear.

  “I’m sure you read me as easily as I read you. Pawnshop girl from Connor’s Run?” He snorted. “I hardly think so.”

  Terror’s remark sent a quiver of doubt through her. What, exactly, did Terror think her guilty of doing?

  “Your radar seems to have a glitch, Terror. I really am just a pawnshop girl from Connor’s Run.”

  He crunched the candy between his teeth. His unwavering stare unnerved her. “This doesn’t have to end badly, Naya. You can come clean right now and I can pull some strings at your sentencing. Cooperate and I’ll show my gratitude.”

  Sentencing? Naya’s heartbeat sped up but she tried to regain control of her body.

  “Tell me about the Grab.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Tell me about the Grab.”

  “It was cool that morning. I was wearing shorts. I had my hair in a ponytail. I ran with my friend Jennie. There were lots of birds. It was sort of overcast.” She rattled on at the mouth. “Have I told you enough?”

  Terror clicked his teeth and sat forward. She fought the urge to shrink back in her chair. Showing him weakness would give him an easy victory.

  “I know you weren’t on the original list. Your number wasn’t pulled in the lottery. You bought your way onto the list. Why?”

  Was that illegal? Had they hauled her in here because she’d broken some rule? “My best friend Jennie had her number pulled. We made promises when we were kids that we’d run together. We didn’t want to be separated.”

  Terror didn’t say anything. He just stared at her. Was he trying to read her face? Probably.

  “Why Menace?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Why did you choose Menace as your mark?”

  “My mark?” Naya glanced at Pierce. The roughed-up man still stood guard at the door. His intense gaze unsettled her. “Menace picked me. He Grabbed me.”

  “After you deliberately injured Flare and used your friend to lure Menace closer,” Terror countered.

  Dread settled in the pit of her stomach. “That is not what happened.”

  “Isn’t it?” Terror tapped his finger on the table. “Didn’t you see Menace buying flowers in the market that day and recognize his officer’s insignia? Didn’t you take that information back to your Splinter cell friends and concoct this plan to infiltrate the Valiant?”

  Panic saturated her veins. Splinter cell? Was this guy batshit crazy? “That is not— I am not a terrorist!”

  “No?” Terror flipped open the folder and started snatching out photographs. He smacked them down on the table. The old memories came flooding back as her gaze moved from one mug shot to the next. The constant hunger and cold. The fear. The depression. The anger. The desperation.

  “Tell me the girl who ran guns for the Sixer gang out of The City isn’t a terrorist.” He shoved a photograph of a weapons cache across the table. She recognized the bag and packing material cradling the weapons. She couldn’t be sure that exact shipment had been one she’d ferried on her back but it was possible.

  “I didn’t…I was just a stupid kid. I was hungry. I wanted a home. I needed money.”

  “Spare me.” Terror picked up his tablet. “We all have sob stories. I’m not particularly interested in yours. What I am interested in is this.” He spun around the tablet and showed her gruesome images of burned and mangled bodies.

  Naya recoiled. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Don’t you?” Terror pushed the tablet in front of her so she couldn’t look away from it. “You sent the information about last night’s weapons shipment to your Splinter cell contacts. We have the data burst record that emanated from the Valiant. You just happened to be spotted entering an engineering access point around the same time the burst was sent. How do you explain that?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Your transmission worked. They attacked our ship last night. All of the weapons were stolen. Men were killed and maimed.” He sat back and gestured to Pierce. “Men like him.”

  Feeling the situation spiral out of control, Naya said, “Look, I know I did some terrible things when I was a young, dumb kid. No one knows that more than me. But I am not a terrorist. I don’t know anyone involved with the Splinter movement.”

  Terror guffawed rudely. “You just can’t stop lying.”

  He slammed his hands onto the table so hard the tablet jumped. Startled, Naya inhaled a shaky breath. Was he going to hit her next?

  Shaking his head, Terror retrieved two photos from the folder. He pushed them closer. “You’re going to sit there and tell me you don’t know these two people?”

  Surprise rippled through her. Nattie? She touched the photo of her older brother. The years hadn’t been kind to him. He looked so thin and drawn. The pockmarks on his face and his brown, brittle teeth shocked her. What kind of trouble had he gotten into now?

  The other photo took her a moment to recognize. Her mother had aged considerably in the nearly eighteen years since she’d left. Like Nattie, her face was also scarred, but in a different way. Someone had slit her cheek from the corner of her mouth to her ear. It had been sewn back together crudely and left a thick, bumpy scar.

  Her voice husky with emotion, Naya said, “This is my brother, Nattie. That’s…that’s my mother.”

  “Two known Splinter cell members,” Terror added.

  Her gaze snapped to his face. “That’s not true.”

  “You know it is.”

  “I don’t. I haven’t seen them in years.”

  Terror glanced at Pierce and chortled with exasperation. “Again with the lies!”

  Irritation laced her voice. “I’m not lying. I haven’t seen my mother in nearly twenty years. It’s been six years for Nattie.”

  Terror’s mouth settled into a grim line. “Now I understand how Menace was so easily foo
led by you. I’d considered that maybe he was that gullible, but no. You’re a supremely talented actress. I almost believe that you’re telling the truth.”

  Frustrated, she shouted, “I am!”

  “You expect me to sit here and accept that your mother has been living in The City for ten years and you never once ran into her? I’m supposed to believe that you were running guns for her husband, Sandy Cragen, the leader of the Sixers, but you had no contact with your mother? Give me a fucking break, Naya!”

  Head spinning, Naya tried to get a grasp on reality. What Terror said couldn’t possibly be true. Her mother had left with a sky trader named Jaxon and escaped to the colonies. If she’d been in the City, Naya would have found out about it. She sure as hell would have known if she’d been running guns for her mother’s husband! Someone would have told her. Danny would have told her. He knew everything and everyone.

  “You’re lying,” Naya spat back angrily. “My mother is not in The City.”

  Terror waved his hands. “You know what, Naya? I’m done.” He leaned forward with an enraged expression twisting his features. “Tell me where the hell my gun shipment is and maybe I’ll let you walk off this ship alive.”

  Naya tried not to freak the fuck out. This man didn’t issue empty threats. “I don’t know where your guns are, Terror.”

  He jumped out of his seat and kicked the chair behind him. “If I have to come around this table, you are going to regret it.”

  Lip wobbling and tears threatening to spill, Naya tried to make him understand. “I don’t know! If I knew where the guns were, I would tell you.” She didn’t add that she was about ten seconds away from pissing her pants with fright.

  Terror’s nostrils flared as he inhaled long, deep breaths. Regaining some control, he said, “Then you’re going to find out where it is.”

  “And how the hell do you expect me to do that?”

  Terror gestured to the pages of her rap sheet. “Your history tells me you’ll find a way.”

  Naya leaned back in her chair as the awful truth swamped her. “You’re going to drop me on the surface.”

  “See, Pierce?” He glanced at his colleague. “I told you she wasn’t as dumb as she looks.”

  She gritted her teeth at his cruel remark. The man was clearly trying to bait her into exploding. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. “I don’t have the kind of contacts you think I have. If I start jamming my nose where it doesn’t belong, there’s a good chance I’m going to have my throat slit.”

  Terror straightened up and shrugged. “It’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

  His coldness stunned her. This man was totally devoid of feeling. His arrogance sickened her. Had he even considered the possibility that he was wrong and that she was actually innocent?

  And where the hell was Menace? He’d sworn to her that he would protect her. He’d promised to fight for her. Yes, she’d lied to him by omission and she had to answer for that, but to abandon her to this terrifying and dangerous man?

  “What about Menace? Is he willing to risk my life on your totally wrong intel?”

  Terror pinned her with his ice-cold glare. “My intel is never wrong.”

  “It’s wrong today.”

  “Pierce? Show her.”

  The wounded man walked to the one-way mirror and tapped the frame twice. She was able to see through the mirror into the adjacent and totally empty room.

  “Menace gave you up. He’s not coming to your rescue. Once I told him what a lying, thieving, terrorist-loving whore you are, he washed his hands of you.” Terror planted both hands on the table and leaned forward with his most frightening stare. “You’re all alone, Naya.”

  Unable to hold his gaze, Naya glanced away from him. Seeing the empty room on the other side of that mirror had shattered her last sliver of hope. When things had gotten tough, Menace had done what everyone else always did. He’d cut her loose.

  Feeling worthless, Naya gulped down the sob trying to escape her throat. She blinked rapidly and cleared the stinging tears. She had to get a fucking grip. The only way she had even the minutest chance of surviving was to cooperate.

  Voice cracking, she asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  Terror’s face relaxed as he pocketed his victory. “You’re going to meet with your contact and find the location of the weapons, the Sixer gang hideout or the headquarters of the Splinter cell. All three would be nice.”

  “My contact?”

  “Dankirk, the Red Feather fixer,” he clarified. “I know he has his dirty little fingers on the pulse of the Calyx underworld. You’ll be given an address where you’ll ask him to meet you.”

  She narrowed her gaze. “What makes you think I’m going to draw my friend into a setup?”

  “If you don’t, I’ll have him picked up by one of my strike teams. I can assure you the amenities will be nowhere near as comfortable as these.”

  Naya didn’t doubt him for a second. “Danny’s not stupid. He’s going to know something is wrong. He takes his oath to the Red Feather very seriously. He’s not going to compromise the chain for me.”

  “Then you had better turn on the charm and convince him,” Terror warned. “Or else it won’t be just your ass on the line.”

  Who else could he possibly rope into this?

  “I know all about Hallie’s involvement with the Red Feather. Forgery. Smuggling. Maybe I’ll haul her skinny little ass in here next. Wouldn’t that be humiliating for Vicious? He’d find out that the wife he worships has ties to known terrorists. I can’t imagine how quickly the government would jump in and sever their mate bond. With that useless, barren womb of hers, she’s easily disposable.”

  Awash in horror, Naya could only stare at Terror. Hallie considered this man her friend and he spoke about her in that awful way?

  “Let’s not forget about Menace. He’ll be stripped of his rank by the morning. Over two decades of honorable service gone like that!” He snapped his fingers. “He allowed a terrorist to infiltrate the armory and steal classified information. He’s responsible for the deaths of eleven men. It’s the firing squad for him if I don’t put in a good word. Even if I do, the Kovark—”

  “Stop,” she interrupted weakly. “Just stop. I’ll do it.”

  Terror’s mind was made up. The deck was stacked against her and she had no access to a lawyer or any kind of justice here. Her impending death had become a cold, hard fact. She refused to let anyone else be hurt because of the stupid things she’d done as a teenager.

  “Pierce, take her to the segregation unit.” Terror considered her for a moment. “Let her have a meal and unrestricted fluid access. We don’t want her fainting on us before she finishes her mission.”

  “Oh, you’re so kind.” Naya rolled her eyes as Pierce hauled her out of the chair and guided her to the door. She’d expected rough handling but he was surprisingly easy on her. Apparently not all of the Shadow Force operatives were dicks.

  Within a few minutes, she was locked in a tiny cell and uncuffed. There was a metal rack with no mattress or blanket and a silver toilet and sink in the corner. The door was solid metal with a food tray slot and observation window. Taking advantage of her moment of privacy, Naya used the restroom and washed her hands.

  Alone in the quiet cell, she refused to cry. This wasn’t the first time she’d been abandoned. She’d survive. She always did. The knowledge that Menace had turned his back on her hurt worse than anything she’d ever experienced. Part of her wished that Terror had put his hands on her, that he’d beaten her to a bloody pulp to extract the information he wrongly believed she possessed. At least then she’d have real physical pain to distract her from the gnawing, burning ache of ruined love.

  “It’s your own damn fault,” she whispered angrily. It was. There was no denying that. If she’d told Menace everything about her past, he wouldn’t have been blindsided and so easily convinced by Terror. After the way the Shadow Force agent had come after her, she c
ould only imagine what tricks he’d used to convince Menace that she was a lying, murderous terrorist.

  That Menace could believe her capable of something so sinister tore at her heart. She’d been certain he was going to tell her he loved her this morning. She’d been waiting with bated breath for him to say the words so she could return them to him without the fear of being rejected.

  She hoped that his friends would rally around him and protect him from the blowback. Her love for him didn’t end with this betrayal. She wanted him safe and alive, even if that meant she would never see him again. It wasn’t his fault that he’d chosen and Grabbed her. Her sky warrior had no idea what he was doing when he brought her and her murky past into his life.

  Metal hinges creaked. A food tray slid through the slot. She didn’t hesitate to snatch it free from the door. If this was going to be her only meal, she needed to eat all of it. A flattened prisoner cup in a plastic package came through the slot next. She ripped open the package and assembled the thin paper cup. It had a leak along the bottom so she could only drink over the sink. Not the most glamorous situation, but it quenched her thirst.

  After polishing off every last morsel of food, she placed the tray in the slot and pushed it through to the other side. She moved to the rack and tried to get comfortable on the cold metal slab. It reminded her of her early days of sleeping in alleys and on sidewalks. In those first days, she hadn’t learned the various tricks to make her nights more comfortable and warm like salvaging cardboard, newspapers and blankets.

  Sleep didn’t come easy, but she managed to quiet her mind finally. If she had any hope of surviving and finding a way to save herself, she needed to recharge her batteries before they dropped her back on Calyx. She wasn’t sure how long she slept, but it felt like hours.

  Two loud bangs on the door startled her. She bolted upright. The cover on the window opened and Pierce’s face came into view. “Five-minute warning. If you need to pee, you better do it now.”

  The window cover slammed closed and she jumped off the bed. Not wanting to have an audience, she used the bathroom in a hurry. She sat down on the rack again and clamped her shaking hands between her knees. The full weight of what these men expected her to accomplish crushed her. She didn’t even know if it could be done, but she had to try. She couldn’t let Hallie or Menace be hurt.