Profit & Peril

by Charissa Dufour

  Well, Reese is in good company now, she thought as she swayed on her feet. She was becoming light-headed from blood loss. She needed to get back to the ship as fast as possible, but she had no idea where she was.

  Bit reached the end of the disused compartment. She slapped the release panel and tucked her bloody hands into her coat pockets before slipping through the door. She wandered a bit before she found the main corridor that looped around the entire level. Weaving through the evening crowd, she finally reached the elevator that would take her down to the level where the ship waited. As she stepped into the elevator, she felt hot blood begin to dribble past her bandage and down the underside of her breast.

  This is bad. This is really bad.

  Slowly, the elevator traveled to her level. She stumbled out, blinking as her vision blurred. Bit glanced at the numbers over the nearest compartment, struggling to focus on the large sign. She turned, guessing as to the right direction.

  “Bit,” a voice called from behind her.

  She thought she recognized it, but in her haze she couldn’t be sure. Turning, she found Carter dodging past slower pedestrians to get to her.

  “I don’t give a shit what you think of me, Carter,” she said as he reached her side.

  “I came to apologize.”

  Bit sighed. She didn’t have time or blood for this. She was a small person. She didn’t have much blood to lose in the first place.

  “Apology accepted,” she said quickly, preparing to turn away.

  Carter reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling on the gash across her shoulder. Bit blanched, trying and failing to keep a neutral face, but the security guard was oblivious to her expression, instead focused on his own thoughts.

  “I realize now that what’s happened to you is not your fault. That you got into all this debt due to your upbringing as a poor person on Earth.”

  Bit narrowed her eyes up at him, giving him the best glare she could under the circumstance.

  “No doubt your parents just taught you to rely on the wealthy banks to support your lavish lifestyle. I’m sure they never told you the evils of debt and the banks.”

  “Carter…”

  “Hmm?”

  “Shove your apology up your ass.” Bit turned to limp away.

  “Wait. But I’m apologizing,” he said as he jogged to catch up with her, finally falling into step with her slow tread. “You obviously…”

  “Carter, shut up. You know nothing. It’s not my debt I’m working off. It’s my father’s. He sold me and my sister to the banks. You don’t know jack shit about indentured servants or the lifestyles of the poor. So stow your apology.”

  The security guard finally looked at her, taking in her slow, limping tread and the sweat running down her pale face. “Are you hurt?”

  Bit considered lying to him, but as her vision swam again, she nodded. “Get me back to the Lenore.”

  Carter didn’t hesitate, but slipped his arm around her waist and pulled upward to take some of her weight. She whimpered as the movement shifted the cuts. Carter picked up his pace, pushing Bit to her limits as she tried not to cry out. They reached the turn off and continued on at their half-run. Bit lost her footing and stumbled, Carter’s arm the only thing keeping her from face-planting on the metal floor. She reached up and pressed the soggy shirt against the cut, more blood dripping down her stomach.

  They reached the airlock for the ship and Bit pressed in the security code, her fingers shaking. They made it through the slow airlock process, and the door to the ship finally opened. Bit stumbled into the ship, falling out of Carter’s grasp.

  “Bit!” Jack and Randal exclaimed from the stairwell where they descended with Vidor and a handcuffed Gerrit.

  “What happened?” Randal asked, a dark look moving to Carter.

  “I just found her in the hallway,” the security guard said, raising his hands.

  “The man from Mars,” Bit said. “He tortured me. Orion…”

  “Orion Reactors?” Jack asked, reaching her side and preparing to unzip her jacket.

  “Not here, Jack,” she said, hoping he could hear her conviction.

  He shifted his hands to take over pressing down on the growing bloodstain, now soaking through her red jacket.

  “The guy works for Orion. Came to stop us. He knows everything. He’s tied up in… in an unused compartment on level three.”

  “There’s only one or two unused compartments on level three. I’ll find him,” Carter said as he turned to leave.

  “Carter?” Jack called. “We gonna have a problem… with her?”

  Carter paused. “No, sir. I was wrong. Very wrong.”

  “Go get him. Bring him here. Not a station security.”

  Carter nodded and left.

  “What’s gonna happen to purple face?” she asked.

  “I’m dealing with him,” Vidor said, malice coloring his voice. “The Grounders won’t be a problem again.”

  “Jack, get me to the infirmary,” Bit said as her lids began to droop.

  The captain scooped her up. “I’m assuming you can show yourself out.”

  Vidor nodded, yanking on Gerrit’s arm to propel him back into motion.

  “Where’s Kat?” Bit asked, thinking of her lack of shirt.

  “Out in the station looking for you with the rest of the crew.”

  “I’ll go call them back,” Randal said, turning to head back upstairs.

  Jack lowered her to an infirmary bed and carefully unzipped her jacket. Bit heard him curse while she kept her head turned away.

  “I did worse to him,” Bit whispered.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  He worked in silence for a few minutes, pressing gauze against the two cuts and draping a cloth across her bare breasts. Randal returned and added to the medical team.

  “We’re gonna have to do stitches on this one,” Jack said, nodding to the long cut traveling down her breast.

  “Dope her.”

  “No. Local will do,” she said, a fierce looking coming to her tired, bruised features.

  Randal shrugged as he started an I.V. Jack grabbed a syringe and jabbed her a few times around the cut. They switched sides and Randal went to work on the sutures.

  A long time later, Randal began bandaging the wound on her breast. The one on her shoulder hadn’t needed stitches, and Jack had quickly covered it in sterile bandaging. Just as they were helping her to sit up after their treatment, they heard the sound of the airlock opening.

  “Jack?” Oden’s voice called from above.

  “Infirmary,” Jack called back through the open door.

  They heard the steps of multiple feet descending the metal stairs before Oden appeared with Carter, Mriam, and a man Bit would never forget—Douglas Zandri, the owner who had impregnated her sister and sold the child off to some other bastard.

  “This man was waiting outside the airlock. Bit, damn, you okay?” Oden asked.

  Bit didn’t answer. Her gaze stayed fixed on Douglas.

  “Bit?” Oden repeated. “You know him?”

  “What is he doing here?” Bit whispered.

  “Douglas Zandri,” he said, reaching out for Jack’s hand. “I assume you’re Captain Macleef.”

  “Shit,” Jack said as he realized what was happening. “Mr. Zandri maybe we should take this talk up to our conference room.”

  “What is he doing here?” Bit repeated.

  Jack scratched the back of his head, smearing the blood that had stained his fingers. “He’s been our contact with Morgan Reactors from day one.”

  Bit didn’t waste a glare for Jack. He knew he was in trouble with her. Instead, she kept her stony features fixed on Zandri.

  “Where’s the child?”

  “Watch your tone, girl,” Zandri snapped at her in a voice she knew all too well.

  Oden stepped between Zandri and her infirmary bed. “You might want to watch your tone, sir.”

  Zandri turned to look at Jack. “So wh
at is going on here?”

  “This man here,” he waved at Mriam who Carter was dragging to an infirmary bed, “tortured Bit, uh, Larissa.”

  Zandri waved his hand. “I’m familiar with the nickname. Go on.”

  “He works for Orion Reactors and was sent to stop us.”

  “Who did all this to him?”

  “Bit did.”

  Zandri’s eyes shifted back to her. “My we’ve changed, Little Bit.”

  “Where’s the child?” Bit repeated, her voice sounding more feral than human.

  He ignored her. “Get him on his feet. I’ll take him back to earth with me, and let Morgan deal with him. How close is the reactor to being finished?”

  “Running tests now,” Jack replied.

  “Douglas, where is her child?” Bit snapped.

  Zandri’s eyes didn’t even land on her. “You, you’re station security? Help him walk. We leave immediately. Captain Macleef, finish the reactor and return to Mars. The final payment will be waiting for you at your mother’s apartment. Let’s go.”

  Carter dragged Mriam off the exam table, draping his arm over his shoulders. They followed Zandri out of the infirmary and up the stairs.

  “Zandri! Zandri, I want that child. Where is it?” Bit screamed, jumping off her exam table and collapsing under her own weight.

  Frantic hands grabbed her, keeping her from racing after him.

  “Zandri!” she cried out over the sound of the airlock shutting.

  He was gone, and Bit had no better idea where her only family might be.

  Bit shouldered the pack, ignoring the way it hurt her healing gashes. Though the crew kept offering to carry her bag, she rejected their offers. The crew took turns transferring from the Lenore to Ward Port, the transportation depot orbiting the bustling planet of Mars.

  After a long, exhausting mission they were finally home. The reactor was installed and working, and from the bits of news they received on the journey home, other stations were in talks with Morgan Reactors. They had made the company a mountain of money.

  Bit ground her teeth together as her mind trailed from Morgan to his employee, Douglas Zandri. The bastard knew where her only family might be, and yet he walked away, for whatever reason, unwilling to give up the information.

  Bit stepped off the Lenore into Ward with the rest of the crew. They all assumed she was going down to the surface with them. She had other plans. If all worked out, she would be on a long-range transport vessel.

  To her shame, she had stolen a payment card from Jack. Even in all her years of living with horrible, vicious owners, she had never stolen from them. Now, bonded to Jack, she had done the unthinkable.

  But this was bigger than her own freedom. She would pay the price for her crime, but not until she had found her niece or nephew and placed them in Jack’s safe keeping.

  Bit was a natural at getting disconnected from the crew when she didn’t want to. Surely she could do it when she did want to be lost. She slowed her tread, shifting to the back of the group.

  “Tired?” asked Nathyn from her side.

  “Hmm? Oh, mostly just thinking?”

  He nodded and scurried ahead as Blaine called for him. She slipped backwards, allowing a few strangers to saunter ahead of her. With a wall of bodies between her and the crew, Bit ducked to the side, down a different corridor. She weaved through the enormous port, careful to keep her direction away from the dock where their transport to Mars was waiting.

  Bit inhaled deeply of the scents of roasting meat and fresh fruit. The port sold a variety of refreshments to those stuck there waiting for their next flight. Bit avoided them and headed toward a currency station. She slipped the card into the slot, punched in her best guess for Jack’s pin number, and blinked when it worked.

  “Really, Jack? Not very original,” she murmured to herself as she punched in a large amount.

  Paper money poured out of the seldom-used machine. When she had it all, she stowed it away in the bottom of her pack, keeping some out for the ticket. While on the ship, she had researched the cost of a flight to earth and had a pretty good idea what it would cost. She had enough for the ticket and a little extra to keep herself fed. The rest was tucked safely in her pack, where no pick pocket could find it.

  “Sorry, Jack,” she whispered as she bent his plastic card back and forth until it broke in half.

  As she weaved through the port she found a seat with deep cushions. She tucked the bits of broken card in between the cushions and walked away. She guessed they would be less likely to find the cards in a formal search within the cushions than they would in a trash bin.

  With the card gone, she picked up her pace and hurried to the dock with her chosen ship. By now, the crew would have noticed her absence. She jogged up to the counter where a nice woman smiled at her.

  “One ticket to Earth, please.”

  Thank you for reading Bit’s story.

  Whether you enjoyed it or not, please consider writing an honest review to better

  help future readers make an informed choice. Thank you.

  Continue reading for a sneak peek of Torn,

  a gritty medieval fantasy trilogy with similar themes

  .

  Follow Charissa Dufour at

  https://www.facebook.com/Charissadufourauthor

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  Works by Charissa Dufour

  The Series that Just Plain Sucks

  Life Sucks (Prequel short story)

  Sucked In (Book 1)

  Sucked Away (Book 2)

  That Sucked (Book 3)

  Or purchase in a box set:

  The Series that Just Plain Sucks: The Complete Series (Books 1-3)

  Suck It Up (A little something extra. Can be read at any time in the series)

  The Dothan Chronicles

  Torn (Book 1)

  Lost (Book 2)

  Alone (Book 3)

  Or purchase in a box set:

  The Dothan Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy (Books 1-3)

  The Void Series

  Cornered Magic (Book 1)

  Misguided Allies (Book 2)

  Balanced Chaos (Book 3)

  The Echoes of Sol Series

  Trust and Treachery (Book 1)

  Broken and Hunted (Book 2)

  Profit and Peril (Book 3)

  Sneak Peek of Torn

  Chapter One

  Bethany squatted in the tiny cell. It wasn't anything more than a small, stone box with a tiny drain, and an access point in the ceiling, which was securely fastened from the outside. The cell was too short for her to stand up, and too narrow to lie down. She shifted to a new position, trying to stretch out her cold, aching body in small segments without causing any further pain to the throbbing mark on her thigh.

  Solitary confinement wasn't enough for a runaway slave. She had been branded—discreetly of course. The wealthy didn't like ugly slaves. Granted, she knew if she were caught running again, she would be branded on the neck. A third offense would mean her death.

  She leaned her head back against the wall and flinched away from the cold stones pressing against her bare flesh. Bethany had lost track of the hours since she'd been placed in the cell, though she suspected it had been about two days. Twice she had received a cup of water and a leftover scrap of food.

  The first had been maggot infested bread, which she refused to eat. The lump still sat in the far corner, as far away from her as she could place it. The second offering had been some charred meat, which she'd eaten mostly out of desperation.

  Bethany never said thank you when they dropped the food and lowered the cup of water. They didn't expect her to, and she hadn't been taught such manners. Then again, she hadn't been born a slave, either.

  No one was. Slaves were people who either had been unable to pay their debts or unable to protect themselves from the dreaded s
lavers. Bethany was the latter. She tried not to think about her life before slavery, but it was difficult, nigh impossible. The two lives were so very different.

  Bethany had been born the daughter of a king. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to remember the tall walls that surrounded her family's keep or the sprawling city encompassing it. The only thought that kept her calm was the knowledge that her home still existed, that her family continued to live. She knew because she'd often heard King Wolfric, the father of her new master, complaining about their continued defiance. Of course, he didn't know she was the youngest daughter of his enemy, Middin, King of Tokë.

  She had been returning from Garrul, near the border of her family's shrinking land, when they were attacked. Her large caravan was traveling through the winding mountain pass. Bethany squeezed her eyes tighter, but the memory invaded her senses unbidden.

  “Are you comfortable, my lady?” her lady-in-waiting, Nuala, had asked.

  Bethany nodded, keeping her thoughts to herself. She hated traveling through the steep mountains, even in spring, when the forest was alive with new growth and noisy birds. The jostle of the large wagon gave her a pounding headache and a rolling stomach. Those were more than ample reason to not want to visit Uncle Lord Elias in Garrul. The fact that the old man was completely inept at entertaining a young woman was just salt in an open wound. He was gouty and lazy in general, but he was family and her father had insisted she make the visit. There had been peace between him and Wolfric for nearly two years, so there seemed little chance of an attack. Well, a lack of fighting, if not actual peace. Besides, her uncle was sickly and in need of encouragement—what better occupation for the youngest daughter of a king than lightening the heart of a war-weary man?

  Finally, after a long and lonely month, Bethany was finally returning home.

  The first hint of trouble came when the cumbersome wagon came to a stop. Such an event only happened at high noon or at the end of the day's traveling; it took too much time and energy to get the six enormous horses moving again. The men often rode ahead to clear fallen branches from the road or lay gravel on muddier portions, and sometimes the forerunners would even turn aside other travelers, forcing them to wait until her caravan had passed. Of course, seeing the wagon of a princess was a form of entertainment to the lowly bystanders. Occasionally, Bethany would even condescend to waive at them from the small window.