She nodded, gaze dropping back to the body for a fraction of a second then returning to him. “He shot me with his modified pulse and it hurt like a frecking mother, but he didn’t get a chance to do anything else before I— Well, I stabbed him.”
Her tone over the last few words went up a notch, as though she was actually surprised by the fact that the scumbag had ended up on the pointy end of her knife. Truthfully, the guy had deserved that and more, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate him telling her so.
“Come on,” he repeated, sidestepping around the dead officer. “We should get out of here.”
She started to nod, but then looked down at the weapon in her hand. “Maybe I should just—”
Instead of finishing the sentence, she turned to the small sink and tabbed the faucet on, washing the knife and blood streaked on her hands. Though she seemed dazed, her movements were still efficient and easy. Maybe this wasn’t the first time she’d killed someone. She didn’t look old enough to have fought in the Assimilation Wars, but in some regions of space, killing was the only way to get by. Or so he’d heard.
When the knife and her hands were spotless, she slipped the blade in a sheath on her belt, took a deep breath, then stepped around the body and walked out of the room. Tannin paused to shake his head before following after her.
Out in the corridor, she waited for him while he swung the door closed. He used the same program that unlocked the doors to totally screw the security protocol, so that if someone tried to get in, it should delay them for a decent amount of time.
“You’re an inmate.” The words somehow manage to hold equal amounts of surprise and suspicion.
He nodded. “Twelve years now.”
“How did you get into this building?” They started making their way back along the corridor, and he tried not to take it personally that she kept an obvious few feet between them.
When they reached the outer door, he held up his commpad to get them through.
“I hacked my way through the security system.”
“And you can do that without setting off any kind of alarm?” she asked as the door clicked open.
“Most people couldn’t. I can.” He motioned for her to wait and ducked out to make sure the coast was clear. He stepped out and held the door for her.
“So you’re some kind of hacking genius. Is that how you ended up on Erebus?”
He shook his head, though it would have been easier to claim a more minor, less brutal crime. “No, I learned all of my hacking skills after I got here.” He pointed. “The marketplace is that way. You’ll find signs to guide you back to the docking bays from there.”
For a long moment she stared at him, something going on behind those dark blue eyes. But then she simply nodded and turned away, hurrying along the building before disappearing around the far corner.
Tannin shoved a hand through his hair, took a deep breath, then walked off in the opposite direction. As if he needed any more excitement before he set out on what probably amounted to a suicide mission. About the best thing he could do now was bunk down in his apartment for a few hours until the time came and hope no one found the body he’d just helped to hide.
Zahli sat in the middle of her bed shivering, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her eyes heavy and aching. But she couldn’t close them. Tonight, sleep wouldn’t be her refuge.
After escaping that building with the help of that prisoner, whose name she hadn’t even thought to ask, she’d intended to run straight back to the ship, but found Lianna stepping out of the marketplace, hovercart full of the items she’d earlier discarded. Of course, Lianna had wanted to know where she’d gone and why, and she’d rattled off some excuse about needing to check something with Rian, because she’d left her comm on the ship. It wasn’t a stretch, Rian was always complaining about how she forgot to take her comm with her at the most annoying times.
Lianna had eyed her with just a hint of suspicion, maybe because she was out of breath and definitely on the jittery side, but if the nav-engineer thought anything of it, she hadn’t said so.
The rest of the day had become a pantomime of pretending she was fine and that absolutely nothing had happened to her. That she hadn’t been attacked and shot with a pulse pistol. That she hadn’t sunk her knife into the middle of an officer’s chest and then walked away. That there wasn’t an Erebus inmate out there with knowledge that could destroy her life. If the truth came out, maybe the authorities would believe it was self-defense. Or maybe they’d simply throw her out into the violent streets of Erebus, where mob justice would decide her fate.
She shuddered, tightening the blanket around her shoulders. No matter that she’d showered, had two stinging hot coffees, and tabbed up the environs in her room, she couldn’t get warm, but she was beginning to sweat, making the cold chills deeper.
The officer’s shocked face kept popping into her mind; she’d force the image away, but it would creep back when her tired mind let her guard down. She didn’t feel bad about killing the bastard, not when his intentions had been clear.
Sure, she’d seen dead bodies before—she had Rian Sherron for a brother—and more than a few of those bodies she’d either helped hide or tidied up the evidence after her brother had snapped. But she’d been able to disconnect from those deaths because they weren’t her responsibility. This one was all on her
While she refused to feel one moment of guilt for a man who’d preyed on women already in a vulnerable position, she did feel queasy and deeply unsettled by what she’d been forced to do.
Another shiver rocked her, sweat dampening her entire body. Dropping the blanket, she went into the privy, tabbing on the shower for the second time in a few short hours, hoping she could wash the ice from her veins.
She did feel remorse, however, for that inmate who’d helped her. When he’d burst into the doorway, she’d been sure he’d come to join the bastard she’d just knifed. It had taken a wild few moments for her adrenaline-dazed mind to comprehend he didn’t intend to hurt her, but had been there to help. Then, she’d seen him in a whole different light.
She hadn’t really thanked him. Okay, she’d blurted out an automatic platitude, but it hadn’t occurred to her until well after she’d returned to the ship that he’d taken a huge risk in coming after her, especially considering she was a total stranger.
As the image of the dead officer tried to resurface in her mind, she forced herself to picture the inmate instead when she stepped under the heated water and washed away the cold sweat.
Though he’d worn the colors of an inmate, his black pants and green-and-black shirt had been neat. His intelligent green-gray eyes had been almost the exact same color as Erebus’s atmosphere, his short hair a pure black. Her erratic heartbeat settled as she concentrated on keeping his likeness in her mind. She should have asked his name, and wished she had a way to make sure he knew she appreciated his help. Though it wasn’t like she could send him a thank you card.
He hadn’t been anything like she expected of an Erebus inmate. What could he have possibly done to earn himself a life sentence on this hellpit of a world? And what would happen to him now? When the authorities discovered the body, what if they connected the crime to him because of how he hacked through the security screens? He’d take the fall for her, and she’d never know. Since he was already serving a life sentence on Erebus, she hated to think what punishment awaited prisoners who got caught killing officers.
The guilt pushed more heavily on her conscience, making her want to help the mystery inmate. But without a name, she had no way to—well, what would she even do? Send him care packages? She shook her head and then splashed warm water over her face. It was better if she pretended the whole thing had never happened, that they’d never met, and didn’t have this deadly secret hanging between them.
Which would be easy to do, because it wasn’t like she was ever going to see him again.
Chapter Four
Tannin stepped out of t
he stairwell into the docking bay and paused behind a tall locker. Under dim lights, the Imojenna perched in silence, the crew no doubt still sleeping.
Sunrise wouldn’t be for two hours, and he wasn’t due to start work at the administration center until three hours after that. Hopefully it’d take at least another hour or two for anyone to notice he hadn’t come into work and, with any luck, they might not come looking for him until later in the day. By then, the Imojenna would be well away from Erebus.
In the marketplace last night, he’d overheard that the tech-mechs would be working through the night to get the ship ready for launch early the next morning.
He hadn’t slept, he’d been too worked up. Instead he’d sat on his bed, counting down to the hour he thought would be the optimal time to sneak aboard and wait for departure.
And in the few moments he hadn’t been thinking about his imminent escape, his mind had been otherwise occupied by her. The way she’d looked when she’d glanced up at him in that holding cell, her dark blue eyes hard, grip on the knife like she was ready to fight her way out of there. Her hair, which he’d first thought was simply honey blonde, had deep gold highlights in it, falling thick and soft past her shoulders. Around her neck she’d worn a thin, twined piece of leather and resting against her skin just below the line of her collarbone was a six pointed star like the one painted on the side of the Imojenna.
He’d gone into that room with the full intention of fighting for her, even if it meant the end of his plans, but he’d been stunned, and more than a little impressed, to find she’d readily handled herself. He’d met a lot of tough women on Erebus, most of whom were willing to kill to protect themselves, but the woman from Sherron’s crew didn’t seem to have that same kind of ruthless, jaded grit. Hers had been more subtle, and somehow still…not vulnerable, but maybe unguarded. Whatever the case, she’d intrigued him on a deeper level than he wanted to consider, since he was about to use her and that ship as a means of escape.
Taking a deep breath, he scrubbed a hand over his face, fatigue making his limbs heavy as the lack of sleep and stress started to catch up with him. Until he got on that ship and secured himself somewhere, he had to stop letting thoughts of the woman distract him, no matter how captivating she might be.
His fingers closed tightly around the commpad in his pocket, that small, ordinary unit which held the key to his freedom. He moved farther around the locker, reaching in to tug out a pair of grey overalls and pull them over his clothes. With one more long breath, which didn’t alleviate the hard pound of adrenaline through his veins, he took the commpad out of his pocket and crossed the open floor.
There were two guards sitting on a raised platform, right where he’d expected them be. One of them glanced at him, away from the program they were watching on the viewer—some sort of sports from the sound of it. But, Tannin didn’t react or hesitate at the guard’s gaze. He reached the Imojenna’s cargo hatch, waiting for one of the guards to ask him what he was doing, but one quick glimpse revealed they’d turned their attention back to the game. Not quite able to believe he’d gotten away with the brazen bluff so far, he spliced his commpad into the hatch’s control panel and ran the security code sequence. Three short beeps told him the cipher had been accepted.
He instructed the smaller, person-sized door to open, and disengaged his commpad as the panel slid away, revealing the dark interior of the cargo bay. Two steps took him inside and one swipe of his hand over the inner access board shut out the docking bay. Standing for a moment in the darkness, he listened to his breathing, coming harsh and ragged in the silence. Leaning forward, he rested his forehead against the cool, hard surface of the bulkhead and waited for a shot of disorienting dizziness to pass.
Made it.
Opening his eyes, his vision gradually adjusted to the shadows and he turned to survey the cargo hold. In the middle of the large space, a stack of creates were strapped down to the floor. Beyond that, dim light shone down from stairs disappearing up into the next level. With measured steps, he crossed the metal-grate floor, the hard soles of his boots ringing softly against the steel mesh.
At the bottom of the steps he paused and looked upwards, the pungent scent of coffee reaching him. Real coffee, not the repli-coffee the officers on Erebus drank. A long forgotten swell of sensory memory flooded him and the burning, loathing recollections of a different time suffused his very cells. His lungs stalled and for a long moment, he couldn’t find any air. But the fresh blaze of old pain rallied his determination. He wrapped a hand around the stair rail, anchoring himself in reality, to now and what he needed to do.
The scent indicated someone was awake and moving around up there. He needed somewhere to hide, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere in the open space of the cargo hold. He carefully climbed up the stairs, opening into a long passageway with doors running the length of it. Crew’s lodgings, if he had to guess. Just as he started moving deeper into the ship, the lights along the ceiling flickered to life with eye-aching intensity.
Tannin edged closer to the nearest bulkhead with a sharp movement. To his left, a door slid open with the slight tinkle of bells. His pulse thrummed harder through his body. Damn it. He had nowhere to go, leaving him exposed in the passageway. If he didn’t deal with this, his escape attempt would be over before it’d even begun.
A few short steps took him into the hatchway. He recognized her as he dropped a hand over her mouth and wrapped an arm around her middle, forcing her backward and then spinning them to shove her up against the wall next to the door. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist and tugged against his hold. Indigo eyes went wide, her terrified cry muffled by his hand.
Her fear lanced his chest, guilt over doing this to her after what she’d endured last evening scraping his insides like rusted nails. He couldn’t stand her looking at him like that, gaze filled with horror as if he were the devil incarnate. Keeping his eyes locked on hers and the hand tight over her mouth, he reached over and palmed the door shut, blocking out the bright light shining in from the passage.
In the diffused glow of her cabin, her eyes looked almost black and her tousled hair a rich deep gold. She smelled like summer-storm-rain on a hot day back home on Barasa, bringing another sting of innocent days past. He could feel her lush curves yielding against him, though tension ran through every line of her body.
She knew he was onboard now. The only way he’d be getting off this hellhole of a planet was with her cooperation. If she would agree to hide him. His heart tripped over itself. It’d been a long time since he’d trusted anyone besides himself, and she almost literally held his life in her hands.
“I need your help.” His voice came out uneven and he swallowed against the tightness in the back of his throat.
She shook her head, pressing herself harder against the wall, her nails digging into the skin on his forearm.
“Please, just listen. I need to get off Erebus. I know you have no reason to trust me, especially now. It’s asking a lot, I know that, too.” Helpless emotion he’d long thought dead and buried tightened his chest. For once, he needed something in the universe to go his way, for this stranger to give him the chance the IPC justice system hadn’t. “I just need a little faith here. So I’m going to take my hand off your mouth, because I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
With a short breath, knowing with almost total certainty that his one chance of freedom was about to be blown, he dropped his hands away from her and stepped back.
She didn’t shift, didn’t run, and didn’t scream for help, just stood there with fingers locked on her necklace, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Tannin Everette.”
Fatigue started catching up with him as his body finally hit the adrenaline wall and splattered into a jelly-like mess. His limbs heavy, he walked to her unmade bed and dropped onto the edge. He scrubbed both hands over his face, swallowing again around
the tautness in his throat and stared unseeing at the floor. Would he really allow himself to be killed rather than return to a life on Erebus? Panic blended with grief in a sickening whirlpool of misery. He wasn’t brave enough to die, rather than stay on Erebus. Survival instincts reared within him, despite the depravity he’d be facing out in the general population upon his return.
“You’re the guy who came in after that officer attacked me.”
Her bare feet appeared in his line of vision, toenails painted gold and a petite, graphite-colored ring on the little toe of her left foot. She crouched down and touched his chin, bringing his head up.
“What happened to you?”
No one had ever asked him what happened. As far as everyone had been concerned, the case had been cut and dry, no need to ask any questions when the apparent evidence was so overwhelming.
Every bad, hateful, vile, smoldering feeling he’d experienced since arriving on Erebus erupted into a devastating torrent. He struggled to breathe through it as she stared at him, curiosity and maybe just a touch of concern in her gaze. With a tenacity borne from years of keeping himself locked down and guarded—because on Erebus there was no other way to survive—he cut off the searing sensations, as effectively as snapping a rope holding an anchor, and the emotions sunk into his mind’s deepest, black abyss.
“My name is Zahli. Figure you should know that much, since apparently we’re now partners-in-crime for two separate felonies.” Her words took some of the tension from him, mostly because he was amazed she could make even a light, half-hearted joke about what had happened to her yesterday afternoon. “If I did agree to help you in return for you helping me yesterday, what would you want me to do?”
She hadn’t exactly agreed, but neither had she run screaming from the room.
He inhaled over the last echo of the harsh emotions tightening his chest. “Hide me until we get to wherever this ship is headed.”
“We’re bound for the Rim. We’ve got a delivery to make.”
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