by Celeste Raye
Blade hauled Jack across the threshold, and she followed him inside. She stared about herself with true confusion. The room they stood in was dusty and in need of a good cleaning. It was a small back room that would be pleasant in warmer months. Its long walls full of windows overlooked the nicer section of the yard and the floor, while roughly planked, was covered by several nice rugs. Slightly ragged but decent furniture obviously intended for use in this room sat about in pleasant little groupings.
Blade walked forward, his booted foot coming up again to kick the next door open. Again she followed. Jack protested and moaned and whimpered as the knife that Blade held to his neck went deeper still, releasing more blood that ran down Jack’s neck in a slim scarlet runner.
That room was the kitchen. It was perfectly ordered and not at all dusty. She stared around at it, remembering how often Jack would come into the house and leave her outside in that building. He would say that his parents wished to speak with him and that it was important. That they would not approve too awfully much of her being in their home because of her station in life. That one day they would accept her, but that day was not now.
How had she ever allowed him to make her feel so less than? Why had she put up with that? Why had she not questioned why he was allowed in the house, but she was not?
It was obvious that the kitchen had been used recently. Standing there in that kitchen, she understood something else, something that she did not want to know.
Jack’s parents were not there. They had not been there in a very long time. There was a very good reason why Jack did not want her in that house.
Blade dragged Jack through room after room after room. All the walls were blank but for a few family portraits of a smiling, younger Jack and his parents. But if his parents were there was no sign of them. She knew they weren’t there. He had even lied about that!
She was confused as to why they were in that house, and her bafflement grew when Blade kicked a rug to one side in the hallway to reveal a pull-up door.
Jack immediately flinched backward. As he did so, the knife went slightly deeper, and that time the blood that spilled was a thick and long stream. He shrieked, but Blade slapped a hand across Jack’s mouth to stifle it. Tara began to shake all over.
“Don’t kill him,” she whispered miserably. “Please don’t. I can’t…” Murder. She had no intention of being a witness to murder if she could help it.
Jack whimpered out, “You cannot do this to me!”
Blade said, “Oh, but I can. Open it.”
Tara shook her head. “No. Whatever’s down there, just leave it. Please. For pity’s sake, I cannot bear this.”
Jack seized the handle of the knife and twisted it away from his neck. He ran for his life, his feet pelting along the hall floor. He didn’t get very far. Blade tossed the knife as easily as if he had been blowing a feather off his palm. It found its mark, hitting Jack directly in the back of his neck. He went down. Tara’s feet took her backward and she crashed into a wall then slid down it, whimpering and with her feet kicking out in front of her like a puppet loosened from all of its strings.
Blade looked at her. His eyes were unreadable, and his face held an intractable expression. “He is not dead. Only paralyzed. It severed the cord between his neck and his body. He’s a murderer, and I am sure you are not the only woman that he has sold. Don’t pity him. He does not deserve your pity.”
She sat there, her bottom stinging from its sudden meeting of the floor and with her eyes both dry and itchy from tears that wanted to come but wouldn’t. She said, “Can we just leave him here and go?”
Blade shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We have to go down there. He may have another woman hidden down there. Or his parents may be chained to a wall or something. Tara, he’s clearly taken the house, which is illegal. This is a Federation home, and if his folks are dead, then he has to leave it. We need to find out if they’re alive, and if they are, we need to help them.”
Could he possibly be holding his folks prisoner? Tara managed to hook her elbows up against the surface of the wall behind her and lever herself into a standing position. Queasiness rolled through her stomach, and she said, “Why are you doing this? You said yourself that you had far too much to do and it’s far too dangerous for you to help me. Why are you doing this?”
Blade regarded her steadily. “I’m a bad man. I’m the worst. I’m an assassin, and I will do a lot of things for money. But I have never agreed with slavery, and I most certainly have never agreed with women being kidnapped and sold simply to fill the coffers of some man who has ambitions to be someone better than he is but not the willpower or the way to get those things on his own. Slavers make me want to murder them.”
Her eyes went to Jack. Piteous little cries were coming from his mouth, but he was not moving, and she had a feeling that he would never move again. “If that is what he was, then he is helpless now.”
Blade’s eyebrows rose. “If that is what he was?”
She cleared her throat. “It is what he was. You are right, and I should’ve believed you. I should have never come back here to him. I had to know for myself, I guess. But he is harmless now, isn’t he?”
Blade said, “It does not take a body to sell a woman, only the ability to talk. And there is the matter of his parents.”
How could Blade be so dark, so willing to murder and everything else that he did, but yet be so worried about the welfare of two people he had never met? And how did he know so much about the Federation’s rules and regs for its servants? She said, “Okay. We’ll go look.”
He reached over and hauled Jack up off the floor, cradling him like an oversized child. The trap door opened and they descended into the darkness below.
Chapter 7:
The scent of the cellar: dried herbs and fruits, some strong chemical, and damp earth, met Blade’s nose. He tossed Jack onto the floor and then began a cursory examination of the place while Tara stood on the steps shaking like a leaf. He didn’t blame her. She’d been kidnapped by a man she thought she loved and sold by that same man. She had thought his parents were alive, but it was very clear from the empty house above them that they either were not alive or not residents and he intended to find out which one it was.
He got his answer when his feet struck a heavy metal box laid below the staircase. He dragged it out. Jack let out a sharp little scream and Blade gave him a solid kick in the face to shut him up. He had to break the box open and when he did the smell that came out was dry dust and flesh long since decomposed. Tara stared with huge and rounded eyes down at the skeletons wrapped around each other. She sat down heavily again. Her hands went to her face and her shoulders hunched as she leaned forward to place her head upon her knees.
Blade looked at Jack. His eyes went to Tara, then back to Jack, and then to the metal box. If there was anything that he believed in, it was justice, and there was some justice that needed to be served here, but she could not be there to see it. He spoke softly, “Go upstairs but do not close the door.”
Her hands flew away from her face and she stared at him, her tears glistening in the dimness. “You cannot kill him. I cannot tolerate that. I cannot allow you permission to murder him.”
Blade said, “When I leave this basement, he will be alive. I swear that to you. You can check for yourself. I’m sure you’ll actually probably hear him screaming. I intend to leave him here so that we can get away. Is there anything you want from the place where he kept you?”
No way was he going to call that place her home. It hadn’t been a home. Jack had kept her back there in the back building so that none of his neighbors would see her. So that any Federation underling who had to come around to inspect the premises would not see her face and remember it later, or connect the two of them together.
Rage rolled through him as he realized how clever and diabolical this man on the floor, who was now paralyzed but still dangerous, actually was. Blade shunted that rage aside because it would d
o him no good.
Tara whispered, “Then why do you need me to leave?”
Blade said, “I need to question him. I need to know if he has another woman here. And if he does, where she is.”
He was lying. He already knew damn well that was no other woman there. Jack’s style was to love them and sell them. Woo them and lose them. Whatever was wrong with that man’s brain to make him do those things was something that Blade did not want to try to figure out. There was no way he was going to let him live either.
Tara went up the stairs. Blade went to where Jack was and picked him up. Jack was not a large man, but at that moment he was dead weight. He couldn’t fight, but his head thrashed back and forth as much as Jack could thrash it.
His voice, slurred and broken, came from one side of his mouth, which had twisted downward when the knife had struck those vital nerves and severed that cord. Blade opened the metal box where Jack’s parents lay. He tossed Jack’s body inside. Immediately, Jack began to scream.
Blade stared down at him. “Your screams will be able to be heard through the floor and into the house, but not beyond it. The thing about Federation gifted houses is that they are all made of the finest materials. They can withstand a bomb blast; did you know that? They are also soundproof. Nobody will hear you scream. People will miss you, but by the time they come to look for you, you will already be dead. Your oxygen will run out in less than an hour, but I hope during that hour you suffer as much as the women that you sold suffered.”
He closed the box and locked it. Jack did scream. As he went up the stairs, he saw Tara standing beside the doorway with her hand back to her mouth again. Her face was a solid sheet of white, and she stared at him. “He’s screaming.”
Blade said, “This is the Federation’s house. The Federation does checks on all of their homes whether they are gifted as property or not. They will find him.”
It was true. They would, but it might not be for years.
He asked, “Is there anything you need to take from here?”
She shook her head. “I had only a few clothes and the things that I used for work but… But…”
He took her cold hands in his. He cursed himself for his foolishness even as he said, “Come with me.”
Chapter 8:
Tara stared at him. “Where? You’re a Federation outlaw. You’re on the run. You’re going to be caught and…”
He stepped into her field of being. His arms went around her. His mouth came down on hers, and she shivered as his kiss stole her senses and his arms held her close to every single inch of his body.
His very hard and toned body. That masculine hardness at his crotch bumped against her belly, sending chills and thrills spiking along her central nervous system and making her whimper as his tongue plunged deep into her mouth. That kiss was hot and wet, deep and long and she wanted more. More than she had ever wanted before in her life.
He broke that kiss off, and she gaped at him. “How do I know you won’t sell me too?”
His hands caught at her face. “If I wanted to sell you, I would have. And I told you: I don’t believe in slavery.”
“What do you believe in?” The words were punctuated by another thin scream from below, and her tongue wet her lips as her breath caught and her eyes latched onto his face as she tried to find something in his expression that would answer that question.
Blade said, “I will tell you, but not here. Not here, okay?”
“Okay.” Her word was an answer and an agreement, and she knew it. His hand took hers, and they went out the back, closing doors tightly after shutting the trap door and replacing the rug.
Tara knew then and at that moment that Jack would die before he was found and she knew that she was helping Blade kill Jack. She wanted to feel bad about that fact but she didn’t, and that frightened her more than anything else.
They made their way around the house and to the hovercraft. They got in, and Blade lifted it off the ground, heading back to the airstrip at a sedate speed that would not get them noticed by any officers.
He said, “We’ll talk later.”
She looked out the windows, watching the city fall away behind them. Everything she felt seemed to have been put on hold except for a sense of adventure, so bizarre under the circumstances that she could not even process it.
It felt like she had died and been reborn in some fundamental way and she did not want to think about what she might have been reborn as: not at all.
She sat in a chair on the bridge of the small ship as it careened away from the planets below with her mouth hanging open and her hands up in a silent plea for the words she had just heard to be not true.
She got out, “War on the Federation?”
He said, “I will understand if you want me to turn this ship around and take you back right now.”
Her eyes blinked open and shut. Her mouth worked. Her throat went tight then loose. She muttered, “That is insane. No one can fight the Federation.”
“You did not say there was no reason to.”
She stood, her legs taking her across the short bridge and back again. She gaped at him, and then turned and paced the bridge yet again. She spoke slowly. “No, I did not.”
He said, “It is not too late for you to go back.”
“I don’t want to go back.”
He said, “Are you sure?’
She turned to him. “Would you let me, knowing now what I know and that I could go to the first Fed officer I saw and tell him of your plans?”
“Yes.”
The word surprised her. She studied him. “Why?”
“Because even if you did, it would be too late. It is already in motion, all of it. The ships are gathering and on planets where huge arsenals have been gathered, the war machine is oiled and on the move. The Federation will not fall easily, but they will not fall if we do not fight.”
She sat down and leaned toward him. “Why do you care? You live outside their rules anyway.”
“Only because of what they did to me.” He studied her for long moments. “They took everything from me.”
She wondered what it was that they had taken. She decided to take that statement at face value instead of asking. “I see.”
“You don’t. I’ve been waging war against the Federation for decades because of that, but before that, I was a general’s son. A Federation ensign in training, and I believed in that alliance. But after I saw what they were capable of, I knew I had to go my own way.”
“So you became a criminal and a rebel.”
His grin melted her heart to pieces. “They’re the same thing, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” she said dryly.
He leaned closer still. His hand found hers. His touch aroused her, and her legs pressed together as that arousal hit and stayed, sending heat along her inner walls and making her juices start up and slowly spill.
How he could manage to do that to her? How he could make her body react in such a way was beyond her, but it excited her, a lot.
She said, “I guess I’m a criminal now too. Or will be when Jack dies. He will die in that box.”
Blade didn’t flinch away from the bald statement. “He will.”
“I killed that thing on that planet too. Even if it was in self-defense, I suppose there may be a law or two about that.”
His face lit again. A small grin lifted his lips again. “Maybe not. You killing a Shambler would likely be looked upon as a good deed.”
She asked, “How many have you killed?”
He sat back. The motion made his armor rest against his skin, outlining the powerful flex of it. “Too many, but there will be many more before I am done. And yes, I feel guilt. I have waged my own war against the Federation, as I said, for too long to have clean hands. I have tried to balance that out by—”
She cut him off. “By saving people you think are innocent?’
His shoulder lifted and dropped. “You could say that.”
She had to
ask. “How many have you saved?”
His smile faded totally away. “Not nearly enough.”
She took that in and then sighed. “So where are we going?”
“To Revant Two.”
Her brow creased into a heavy frown. “I have never heard of it.”
“Most haven’t. It is a private planet held by four brothers. They are Revants, by the way. You probably think them extinct. Most of the universe thinks that, but there are some left. Too few, that is true, but they are still a race.”
She looked down at her hands. She said, “I have never heard of the race either. I told you I never lived beyond the city. Well, I lived on the outskirts of course because of my family’s station, but until I went to Orbital, I had never seen anything else.”
His voice was loaded with laughter. “So, other than being sold off to a slaver, what did you think of the place?”
Their shared laughter echoed around the bridge. The entire time between her waking in that house of horrors and that moment had been filled with things she had never been able to imagine because she had had no experience with anything like them.
She would never have believed, had he told her just a minute before, that she would ever see the humor in things ever again, but there she was, howling with laughter and unable to stop.
Between guffaws, she said, “Oh, it was nice. I mean, it was beautiful, and the grounds—have you been?”
He nodded and chuckled out, “A time or two. One of the brothers we are going to meet had a gambling and gurley hall there.”
“I see.” Her laughter tapered off. She sat back, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes as she sobered. “I didn’t get to go to one, though I wanted to. Jack—he said we could not afford that and honestly every time we turned around, some machine was chirping and spitting out a new credit demand for something we had done. Once it was for air. He said that…”
Remorse at what she had done, leaving him to die in that box, came up, but it was blotted out by the memory of the Wallen that had nearly caught her and the thing she had killed, and the knowledge of what it had been trying to give her in that cup.