by Dani Worth
Clay made an adjustment on his eraser and shot Lackey between the eyes. The big man went down hard and Juniper instantly turned his weapon on the man to his right.
“I can hit six of you without moving this weapon, so I suggest you all lower yours now,” Clay said.
Someone I couldn’t see snorted loudly. “Stupid pirate. There are four of you and at least twenty-five of us, so what makes you think—” He ended on a gurgling note and I leaned closer to the doorway to see Namito stepping over a body.
“There are five of us and now at least twenty-four of you,” Namito said.
“Anyone else care to see what our guns can do?” Clay stepped farther into the room and Anders quickly moved beside him. I stayed a little behind but held my tranque gun on a table with two men and two women. One of the women narrowed her eyes at me and I had this vague memory of one of the times Lashin had drugged me so I’d be pliant for whatever hell he’d planned. All I could remember about that particular time was laughter, many bodies, waking up to pain that didn’t go away for a week, and strange yellow eyes that haunted my nightmares for months. Her eyes.
I kept the gun on her and turned up the power, wishing there was a kill level on this thing. She smiled and leaned back in her seat to drape her arm around the man next to her. She whispered something to him and he nodded, looked me up and down like he remembered me.
I looked around the room and realized there were others I held vague memories of as well.
I opened my mouth to warn Clay and had to clear my throat over the lump of terror that lodged there. Taking a deep breath, I worked past the fear and moved close to him. “This room is full of government people who visited Lashin over the years. Some who are also partners in Saturna.
Clay nodded. “This planet would be the perfect place to hide. People don’t usually come here willingly.”
Anders was busy watching the room and the walkway behind us, but he pulled me closer to his side when Clay walked a little farther into the bar. I didn’t mind his protective gestures at all because my memories were crowding into my head with a roiling need for vengeance that made me nauseous. I knew these people. I had been used by a bunch of them. Almost every pair of eyes I met held recognition and a sleazy familiarity that had my skin crawling and panic clawing up my spine.
“If you want,” Anders said under his breath, “I will kill every person in this room who touched you. I might even if you don’t want that.”
I wanted to step to the front of his body so he could hold me but I was terrified that moving would stop the utter stillness in the room as all waited for Clay to do whatever it was he was he planned. I looked at him to find him watching me, his eyes narrow. I tried to give him a reassuring smile, I really did, but the memories were coming hard and fast. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one man smirk and recognized the spitter. I shuddered, tried to keep my eyes on Clay and watched compassion then fury fill his face. He glanced at Anders and they seemed to share the same thought.
“Tell me where Lashin is hiding and some of you can walk out of here.” Clay’s loud voice made more than one person flinch.
“Some?” someone asked.
Clay turned his fierce gaze on to the speaker. The spitter, I realized. I hurriedly looked away from him as images of the many nights I’d spent with him replayed in my head. The awful smells, his anger when I vomited on him. His fury when Lashin didn’t allow him to cut me, making him use his fists anywhere but my face, over and over. I gagged again, my eyes filling with hot tears, and before Clay or Anders could make a move, I shot the spitter with my tranque gun. It was set on such a high level; his face went slack with terror as his body fell to the floor and continued to twitch there.
“Feel better?” Anders murmured.
I shook my head. “It’s not enough. Not for him.”
Clay’s hand tightened on his gun until his knuckles turned white. “I’m guessing from my lady’s reaction that a lot of you are familiar with her, so I’m assuming you will all understand why only some of you may walk out of here. Tell me where Lashin is and maybe we’ll go easy. Kill you quickly.”
“How do we know you will let any of us go?” a woman asked.
Clay aimed his gun at her head. “I don’t give a shit whether you believe me or not. Neither do any of the men with me in this room because they’ve all grown to know what a sweet woman she is. They all love her and if any of what you people have done to her was to come to light, well, I can assure you that Juniper here will pop your heads like fruit. Right, Juni?”
The big man nodded.
Namito didn’t seem to think moving would set the room off. He walked toward us, confident that Juniper and the others had his back. He got close and stared down at me. The Replicant was as tall as Anders. “Do you really know the people in this room, Siri?”
I opened my mouth, struggling to get words past the burning of my throat, then angry that I was letting these…things—they didn’t deserve to be called people or whatever other kind of beings they were—intimidate me. I cleared my throat. “I was a slave for fourteen years. I know most of the people in this room more than I wanted to.”
Namito continued to stare at me, then he turned to the captain. “I’m thinking none will walk out of here.”
“Now just a damned minute.” A man stepped from behind the long, filthy bar in the back of the room. His hands were over his head. “Not all of us know what’s going on here. I’ve never seen that woman in my life. Are you looking for Para Lashin?”
“You know where he is?” Clay asked, turning his gun toward someone who sneered at the bartender. He shook his head and the man stopped.
“There’s another room through a tunnel in the back. He’s in there with some very important people and a lot of them. I’m surprised they haven’t come to see why we’ve gone silent in here already.”
“Something’s wrong then,” Anders said, voice pitched low so only Clay, Namito and I could hear him.
“I agree,” Clay said out of the corner of his mouth. “I’m thinking we aren’t getting out of here without a blood bath. I don’t want Siri hurt. You take her and run when I give you the signal.”
“Hell no, Captain. I’m not leaving you either.”
“Sullivan.” Clay turned to him, his alpha leader qualities stamped all over his dark features, turning his blue eyes into chips of ice.
“No.” Anders returned the stare. “Not happening even if you go all hot caveman on me.”
Clay suddenly smirked. So did Anders.
I rolled my eyes, having worked past that damned lump in my throat. “While you two are posturing over who has the biggest cock, my former owner could be getting away.”
Even Namito looked surprised at my words. Surprised right before he grinned. “I have an idea. Watch my back.” He walked over to the man Clay had shot, Lashin’s handler, and ripped out a handful of his hair. He crushed it in his fist and my mouth fell open because I’d heard about what Replicants could do but I’d never seen it. I guessed he was absorbing the DNA from the hair into his skin because the transformation started in the hand that held the hair. It moved up his arm, making his muscles ripple and twist, making these horrific cracking noises. His long ropes of black hair shrank until his head was shiny and bald and his jaw stretched out with an audible click. It didn’t seem to hurt him because he either was good at hiding pain or he had none. It only took a few minutes before he stood in front of us looking exactly as Lackey Hinton had. He bent to grab the dead man’s jacket.
There were a few gasps in the room. Guess I wasn’t the only one to have never seen a Replicant change.
Namito spoke and his voice was still his own. It was so strange coming from that other body, I blinked and shuddered again. Scary—what his race could do was just plain scary. No wonder they couldn’t be kept as slaves. All it had taken was a touch to his skin.
“That never gets old,” Anders muttered.
Clay chuckled, nodded to Namito, who turned
to the bartender.
“Take me to that room. And trust me, you don’t want to double-cross me.”
“No, no, of course not,” the man said as he hurriedly opened a door next to the bar. The two slipped out.
I stepped close to Anders and stood on my toes to whisper in his ear. “What can he do all by himself?”
Anders kissed my forehead. “Never worry about Namito. He may seem like a nice guy, but he isn’t. Not when he’s required not to be.”
“This is ridiculous.” The woman with the yellow eyes stood, her narrowed gaze on Clay. “You’re a pirate who’s been robbing our company for years. We understand what you’re after so I’m sure we can come to some mutually agreeable terms here. I don’t care that you want Lashin. You can have him. But anything done by the people in this room was done on an entertainment ship, where such things are expected. If it’s money you want, I have it.”
“So do I,” another said before there were several more offers of agreement. A few more men stood.
“I suggest you all park your asses back in your seats fast.” It was all Clay said. He neither answered nor even looked at the woman who’d spoken.
Her expression changed, her features tightened and I could have sworn I saw fangs lengthening in her mouth. I had no idea what sort of creature she was but everything in me went on high alert.
Anders turned his gun on her but she suddenly crouched and jumped high into the air to flip back behind a group of people. That was all the rest of them needed. Someone hit Juniper in the face with a bottle and the big man roared and picked the person up by the head. I aimed my tranque gun at the crowd in front of the yellow-eyed woman, my heart suddenly racing as I scanned the room for her. She moved fast so I had a feeling she could reach me anytime, but Anders grabbed me, shoved me behind him and backed us into a corner. He started firing his eraser.
Clay shot three men before a group rushed him. Fists flew and I watched as his head snapped back when someone got a punch in.
“Shit,” Anders said, firing into the group. “Be still, Claybourne, so I can just shoot them all.”
But Clay merely grinned and jabbed his fist into some guy’s chin. Blood spewed from his mouth as his eyes rolled back in his head. Clay whooped and began pounding anyone who got in his way.
“Fuck.” Anders opened his jacket and pulled out a tranque gun. “He’s boppin’ around so fast, I’ll end up shooting the idiot.” He started aiming the tranque at the group, knocking people into a sleep.
I winced when they hit the floor and got stomped on. Then I realized I wanted to be the one stomping on quite a few of them. I started to move around Anders and he grabbed me.
“Yeah, not happening.”
“I’m just going to hurt a few of them.”
He laughed then. “Go on. I’ll cover you and the asshole living it up with his fists.” He shook his head. “Always did love a good barroom brawl.”
Clay had waded into a swarm of men and women and seemed to be doing a pretty good job with his fists and his feet. I made it a few steps before I heard a hissing to my right. I turned to find yellow eyes coming at me fast. I didn’t even hesitate. I shot her with my tranque gun, watched her slam into the wall.
“Oops, I forgot to turn it down.”
She didn’t pass out, though. She lay there, glaring at me, her chest moving fast as she breathed hard and struggled to fight the oncoming numbness. I walked to stand over her, knowing Anders was at my back. I aimed the gun at her face.
“That’ll kill her. Hittin’ her again at that level.” His drawl seemed more pronounced as he kept one eye on me and one on Clay. “She’s stronger than a bull to be awake after that first hit, but she won’t survive another.”
“She doesn’t deserve to.” But I found I couldn’t shoot her while she was helpless. I crouched over her and stuck my gun into her cheek hard enough to make a cracking noise. “I’m not a rotten bottom feeder like you and don’t get off hurting someone who can’t fight back. Guess it’s your lucky day.”
I hit her in the side of the head with my gun to knock her out, then made sure she still breathed. I didn’t want to kill her but I didn’t want her coming out of the tranquilizer and attacking me either.
“Claybourne!” Anders yelled.
I hastily stood and searched the throng of bodies to see that the captain had fought his way to the bar. Fear froze my lungs solid as the door behind him opened and another handler I recognized stood at the threshold with a laser aimed at Clay’s back.
Anders zapped him with the tranque then switched that gun out for the eraser. He fired it into the air and yelled at the top of his lungs. A hush started in the crowd and I saw another fist fly out of the mass and clock Clay right in the cheekbone. His head flew back and he staggered a couple of feet, his back hitting the bar. Apparently others had gotten in a few punches. Blood streaked his face and clothes.
I shot the next person who moved toward him, then aimed at the doorway when someone else stepped through. It was Namito, still in the handler’s body. He turned and yanked Lashin into the room.
Everything narrowed around me, my ears rang and in that instant, I could only hear my own heartbeat, my own rush of blood in my ears. Lashin frowned at Namito in confusion before his eyes widened as he took in the fight. Then it was like I was a magnet because his gaze snapped on me and stayed. He grinned, and every feeling I’d ever had during every nasty, horrifying second I spent in his company coalesced into this solid block of hate that locked my legs into place. I clutched Anders’s arm, digging in my fingers until he looked down at me then followed my gaze.
He stepped behind me, brought up the eraser in front of me and showed me where to put my hands. His breath was warm and comforting on my neck as he bent to whisper, “You want to use the holy shit setting, sweetheart?”
I thought of all the slaves I’d watched Lashin torture over the years, thought of the nasty creatures he’d handed me to over and over…thought of Bastian. The things he had done to Bastian were still a part of my nightmares. I nodded.
Lashin, having obviously figured out what was going on, tried to jump behind Namito, but the Replicant was having none of that. He punched that fat face so hard, Lashin flew back into the wall next to the door. He shook his head, obviously dizzy and tried to hang on to the doorjamb to pull himself into the hallway.
Anders switched the setting on the gun and Lashin twisted to look at me. He dove, scrabbled across the floor like a pudgy animal and snatched a gun from the dead handler’s body. He lifted it, aimed it at me.
I didn’t hesitate. I pulled the trigger.
Chapter Eleven
The blast roared through the room like one of Kithra’s windstorms as a bolt of pure energy hit Lashin and turned his upper body to a crisp and took off part of his head. A hush fell over the room as he hit the floor. I aimed the still-warm gun at the crowd where I’d seen Clay go down and hands instantly went into the air. Inside, I was trembling—and gagging—like crazy. But I refused to let it show. Not to the filth in this bar.
“I’d move away slowly if I were you,” Anders said, still standing behind me, his chest plastered to my back. “It’s the first time she’s used this weapon and she’s feeling a bit shaky.”
“I won’t hesitate to shoot anyone else who lays a hand on the captain,” I said, barely holding back a smile at the fierce tone I’d managed to pull out of my ass. I liked the sound of Anders’s term for backside better.
Looking at what was left of Lashin’s body, I realized I didn’t even have a regret, not one, for shooting him. He’d been scum of the galaxies.
Guess the other scum in the room believed me because everyone slowly moved away from Clay. My heart let up a little when I saw he was still standing, but he leaned heavily on the bar and held one hand to his ribs. His cheek was already swelling and there were more smears of blood on his face, neck and hands as well as all over his clothes.
“Anders?” I said.
“Yes,
dear?”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “Would you please go get our man so we can go back to our room?” I wanted to go back to the ship and leave the planet altogether, but we still had to get Crichton from one of the mining camps. Staring at what remained of Para Lashin, I frowned, then looked around for the third handler I’d seen crouching in a corner. I slowly turned the gun his way.
“Wait,” he cried out. “I never did anything to you.” He scrambled to his feet, held up his hands.
“What happened to the other one? The one Lashin called Spaulding?”
He frowned and I had to keep myself from pulling the trigger because while he hadn’t touched me, he had others. But I didn’t want to see anyone else torched. I hated Lashin with everything in me, but I felt queasy over the way this gun fried people.
I wouldn’t be using that setting again.
But he didn’t know that.
“Spaulding?” I repeated. “Where is he?”
“You going to shoot me if you don’t like the answer?”
“Maybe.”
Anders returned to my side. Clay’s arm was tight around Anders’s neck, so his feet weren’t entirely on the floor anyway.
I sighed, getting annoyed enough to change the setting on the gun.
“Wait!” the handler cried out again. “Okay, okay. He’s dead. Spaulding tricked Lashin and took that other Gwinarian man off the ship. He came back to get you, but Lashin figured out what he’d done and killed him.”
My heart ached at the answer. I jumped when Anders’s pocket vidscreen went off. He pulled it out as Juniper and Namito joined us. The Replicant was back in his normal dark skin.
“Sweetheart, we have to go,” Anders said. “In fact, we have to go back to the ship.”
“What about—” I broke off, not sure what I should be sharing.
“Got him. Guess the enforcers here wanted him off the planet. Speero has him locked into a cell.”
“We have cells?” I handed him his gun.
Clay’s slow grin on his bloody, tired face made me realize what I’d said. “I heard you say ‘our’ man too,” he said, exhaustion giving him that gravelly tone I’d only heard him use in bed.