by Christy,Dena
“Synn, he’s coming.”
He ran.
Miranda’s mouth went dry when she realized what he intended to do. He was going to jump from the roof of this building to the one next door. She squeezed her eyes tight, buried her face in his neck and held on. He’d told her to trust him to keep her safe, and she intended to do just that. He’s strong and fit. He’ll make the jump.
She couldn’t hold back the keening scream that burst from her when his muscles bunched, and she felt the air rushing around her as they became airborne.
Chapter Fourteen
Synn grunted when he landed on the roof on the building next to Collette's. The roof was hot under his bare feet and the rough surface dug into his flesh as the impact jolted through his body. He ignored the discomfort. Miranda mattered more than any pain he might feel. When he’d taken them up, he hadn’t thought any further than getting them away from the soldier. As soon as they’d left the stairwell, and he’d seen the building next door, and what was on top of the roof, a plan had formed fully in his head. He was grateful that it was working so far.
He sprinted across the roof, to the small square shelter that held the door into the building. He skirted around it and set her down on her feet. She reached out and braced her hand on the wall beside them.
“Are you okay?” He put his hand on her arm to steady her. Her face was bone white, and the scream she’d let out when he’d jumped told him how terrified she’d been.
“I have a bad case of jelly legs, and I’m sure that jump added grey to my hair, but I’m in one piece and alive thanks to you. Do you think he’ll try the same jump?”
“I don’t know.” If the soldier was anything like him, he’d make the jump. He wouldn't be able to resist testing himself. “I hope he does.”
“Why?” She looked at him as if he’d said something unbelievable and her mouth opened slightly.
“I have a plan,” He put his finger under her chin and gently closed her mouth. He took a second to lean forward and swiftly kiss her lips. She had trusted him wholeheartedly, and he wanted to make sure that nothing happened to her.
He stood very still and listened. He made sure that soldier was on his way out the door when he’d charged to the edge of the roof. Like most hunters, the soldier would feel the thrill of the chase and would follow over to this roof. The distance hadn’t been that great, and if the soldier was as fit as Synn thought he was, he would make the leap.
Sure enough, he heard the heavy beat of boots running on the other roof, a pause and then the heavy thud as the soldier landed.
Synn looked at Miranda and put his finger to his lips. He gently eased her around the corner and indicated that she should crouch down. The angle was such that the soldier shouldn’t be able to see her from his vantage point. Synn listened as the soldier approached, and once Synn judged his distance to be at the side of the shelter, he hoisted himself on top of it and jumped the soldier from above.
He landed on him, forcing the soldier to crash to the ground. The soldier was not carrying any weapon, and Synn jammed his knee in his back, pressing him into the roof. The soldier struggled, but couldn't get out from under Synn’s weight.
“You can kill me,” the soldier snarled as he maintained his struggles. “But you won’t be able to get away. I have a man outside the building, and a man inside. You won’t be able to get past both of them.”
Synn placed his fingers in the crook of the soldier’s neck and applied pressure.
“I have no desire to kill you. And I have no intention of sneaking by your friends. I’m going to meet them and they will let us go.” Synn waited for the soldier to go limp under his hand, and it took only a moment for the hold he’d placed on the soldier’s neck to do its job.
Once the man was unconscious, Synn flipped him over and dragged him by the ankles around the side of the shelter. He thought no one else had followed them up to the roof, but didn’t want to risk being seen.
“What are we going to do now?” Miranda came around the corner and looked down at the unconscious soldier. Synn looked up at her as he squatted down and unlaced the man’s boots.
“Help me undress him. We will walk right by his friends.” Now that he’d had contact with the soldier, his brief skim of his mind told him that he was the leader of the three, and that the others should obey him without question. He also knew that they had orders to kill Synn, but that Miranda was to be unharmed. She was to be taken back to the lab, and Synn was grateful that the plan he’d had hatched as soon as they’d stepped onto the roof had worked.
They moved quickly to strip the soldier and once his clothes were off him, Synn closed his eyes. He pictured the soldier in his mind and he could feel his cells rearranging themselves so he was a replica of the man laying on the ground.
“I don’t know if I will ever get used to seeing you do that.” Miranda handed him the soldier’s pants. Synn pulled them on and did them up.
“Does it bother you?” He pulled on the soldier’s shirt and tucked it into the pants. There was an earpiece dangling from the collar of the shirt on a curly cord, and Synn tucked it in his ear. The socks and boots followed, and he was ready.
“I can see how it’s a handy skill to have in a situation like this. What do we do now?”
“Now I get us out of here.” He took her hand and led her to the door to the interior of the building. Fortunately it wasn’t locked, and they went inside.
“Squad leader, come in,” a voice said in the ear piece.
“Someone is talking to me on this.” He pointed to the device in his ear. Since it was obvious to the soldier how it worked that bit of information hadn’t been readily available to Synn when he’d skimmed his mind.
“Press your finger against it and they will be able to hear you talk back.” She squeezed his fingers, and he could see tension tightening her shoulders. He understood her reticence about what they were going to do, but at least she trusted him to get her out of this. Synn reached up and pressed his finger against the ear piece.
“This is squad leader.”
“Are you still in pursuit of the targets sir?”
“I have the woman in custody. The other target has gotten away, he’s jumped across several roofs and disappeared into the third building south of here. I want you to search that building while I take the woman to the scientist.”
There was a pause on the other end, and for a second Synn thought they wouldn’t take the bait.
“Very good sir, we will pursue the other target and regroup at Ares Industries.”
Synn breathed out the breath he’d been holding. All he had to do was escort Miranda out of the building and into one of two military vehicles waiting for them outside. Then they’d be in the clear and could come up with what to do next.
“They shouldn’t cause us any trouble.” He kept his hand in hers as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “We should be able to walk out of here and disappear.”
Synn let go of her hand and wrapped his hand around the meaty part of her upper arm. He needed to make this look as authentic as possible, in the event that the other soldiers or anyone else witnessed their departure. He did his best to make his hold look punishing while being as gentle with her as possible.
“When we walk out the door, do your best to look like you don’t want to come with me, without trying to run away.” He pushed open the door to the lobby of the building.
Miranda pulled against him, and as they walked into the lobby she struggled against his hold, not enough to break free, but enough to fool anyone who watched them. He escorted her past the open mouthed gape of the security guard, and Synn gave him a hard look. The guard looked down and did not interfere in their progress toward the door. They walked out of the building, and down the street as the few people out and about stepped out of their way.
“My car.” Miranda made to go toward the back parking lot.
“It’s too risky, they will be suspicious if they see me taking your
car back to the lab. We must take one of theirs.” Synn steered her toward the military car and van that stood in front of Collette’s building.
He and Miranda headed toward the car, and he put his thumb on the panel beside the handle on the passenger side. The doors unlocked, and he opened the door and helped Miranda into the car, with his hand resting on her head to prevent her from hitting it.
He went around to the driver’s side and got in. He looked at the controls. He’d never driven a car before, but he could fly a space ship. It shouldn’t be that much different. He put his thumb on sensor beside the steering wheel that he’d seen Miranda use before. The car roared to life.
“Destination,” the on board computer said.
“Tell it to override.” Miranda strapped on her seatbelt and Synn did the same.
“Override.”
“Invalid Command. Destination.”
“Override.” Perhaps the car hadn’t heard him correctly the first time.
“Invalid Command. Destination.”
“It won't let you override.” Miranda’s brows pulled together and Synn resisted the urge to smooth the worry wrinkling her forehead. “We can’t tell it where we want to go, because when they find the soldier on the roof, they will download the travel logs from the car and will know where we’ve gone.”
“We can’t sit here Miranda. They could go on that roof and find him. I’d rather be away from here when they do it.”
“Okay, give me a second to think.” She held up her hand as she looked out the window and chewed on her bottom lip.
“Destination.”
“Oh shut up.” Miranda turned her head back to face forward and glared at the car’s control panel. “We’ll go to the north end, it’s the worst part of the city and we can walk to the pawn brokers from there. It’s an easy place to get lost in.”
“Will it be dangerous for you?” He’d insist they go somewhere else if it would put her in more danger. He’d already risked her life with the jump to the other roof. It was only now that they were almost away from their pursuers that his mind played over what could have happened.
“It’s not a neighbourhood I would go to by myself, but we should be okay together. You look intimidating in that form and appear authoritative enough that we should be left alone.”
He noticed the she said should be left alone, and while it wasn’t the total assurance he was looking for it would have to do. They’d sat in the car long enough and didn’t need for the other two soldiers to return to the other vehicle and find them still there.
“Give me an address.”
“Tell it to go to the corner of White and William’s Street.”
Synn gave the command to the computer, and fortunately the car accepted it. It moved forward into the flow of traffic and Synn sat back in his seat and let the car do the driving. Something occurred to him, and he looked over to Miranda.
“You can’t go back to your normal life, can you?” She’d hinted about that last night, but he’d hoped this morning that if he was out of her life, that maybe things would go back to normal for her.
“I’m afraid not.” She gave him a ghost of a smile. “I blew that bridge up when I helped you leave the lab.”
“Did you know that helping me would put you at such a risk?”
“I knew that I was taking a risk if I was caught, but at first I thought that I could get you out of the lab without being found out. I was lucky at first when I came in and found Carl in gross dereliction of duty, and we both knew that if it was found out a firing would be the least he could expect. I didn’t count on Dr. Avery coming back into the lab. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters.” Synn reached over and took her hand. “You took a great risk to free me, and you are paying a heavy price for helping me. I promise that I will find somewhere safe for you to go, and won’t leave you until I know you are out of danger.”
“So the plan is still to separate?” The smile fell from her face and she turned her face to the window.
He wanted to tell her that he wanted to keep her with him, but that wasn’t possible. He was on a strange planet, friendless, resourceless and hunted. He would not drag her down further, and while he had no intention of getting captured, it was always a possibility. He wanted to be well away from her if that happened. If he died, he would face it easier knowing she was out of the line of fire.
“I think it’s for the best Miranda. You’ve sacrificed so much for my sake already, I can’t ask you to risk any more. I need to know your safe.” He gave her hand a squeeze.
She glanced at him, her mouth stretched into that bright smile that looked brittle in the sunlight coming into the car. She pulled her hand out of his and turned back to the window.
Synn sighed. He wanted to pull her to him, to tell her that if there wasn’t a danger that she’d be killed, he would be with her. He suspected that she was his true mate, but until the mark came up on his skin he wouldn't know for sure. Mate or not, he intended to let her go. At this point he didn’t know if he would ever return to his planet, and a life on the run was not what she deserved after doing so much to save him.
The sun glinted on the copper strands in her hair, and his breath caught at how beautiful she was. She kept her face turned away, and he wished he knew what she was thinking. She was the one being whose mind he couldn’t read.
* * *
The scenery flashing by the car got dirtier and more rundown the further north they went. Leemore Station was meant to be the jewel in Nova Earth’s crown, but this was the portion that no one from outside the city saw. Miranda had lived here her entire life, and not once had she ever seen how the poorer residents lived. Leemore Station was planned from the moment Nova Earth was settled four hundred years ago, and it turned her stomach to think that the founders of the city planned this.
The sun seemed dimmer the closer to the heart of the slum they got, and the buildings looked like rotting teeth in a mouth full of despair. The car pulled over to the side walk and stopped.
“Okay, we’ll leave the car here and walk to the pawnbroker.” Miranda undid her seatbelt and looped the strap of her purse over her head so it lay crosswise across her body.
A knot formed in the pit of her stomach when the weight of her purse settled against her. There was a fortune in jewelry inside her bag, and it was enough to take care of several families in this neighborhood for heir entire lives.
She blew out a breath and forced her shoulders to relax. If she acted nervous or like she was carrying something of value, they would be targets for the criminal and the desperate alike.
“Are we not going to attempt to hide the car?” Synn looked over at her as he undid his belt.
“Nope.” Miranda pulled the burner tablet from her purse and opened to GPS function on the home screen. It took a while to find their current location, much longer than it would have on her regulation tablet. Maybe it was because it had to mask it’s signal somehow so it was untraceable.
Once it pinpointed them on the map, she looked at the card with the pawnbrokers address, and put it in as their intended destination. A spinning wheel appeared as it calculated the route they would need to take, and once complete she knew how long it would take them to get to the pawn brokers. It would be close to two hours of backtracking on foot. Public transit would be much faster, but they didn’t have transit tokens, and no chips available to buy them. She didn’t want to risk using the money she had in her bank account, since she would need to use her citizenship card, and that would be like sending up a homing beacon announcing their location. They’d have to walk.
“Miranda.” She looked up as she heard uneasiness in his voice. A glance around told her that they had drawn attention to themselves, or at least the car had.
Several men had skittered out of the shadows and were watching the car intently. Miranda noticed that there wasn’t a single vehicle other than the one they sat in anywhere around them. While the men seemed content to watch for now, sh
e didn’t want to sit in the car to see how long it would take them to grow bold.
“Time to go.” She pulled her purse close to her body and opened the car door.
“Don’t get out until I come around the car.” There was a note of command in his voice that she’d never heard before. She waited for him to come around, and the men watching them followed his every move with their eyes. He looked tough and intimidating in the soldier’s uniform. She hoped anyone who saw them would give them a wide berth because of it.
He opened her door, and reached his hand in, and she grasped it. He gently pulled her up out of the car, and her hand remained firmly tucked in his as she shut the car door and they turned away from it. He stood straight and tall, and carried himself with the confidence of someone who knew how to handle himself in a fight, and she breathed a little easier knowing that he was with her.
Behind her, she could hear the shuffle of feet and she risked a discreet glance behind her. The men approached the car their eyes darting to her and Synn before focusing on the car.
“What are they doing?” Synn kept his gaze straight ahead.
“They will strip the car.”
“What does that mean?” His brows drew together as if he was searching his mind for the meaning of what she’d said.
“I’m guessing in about ten minutes there will be no evidence of that car left for Dr. Avery and company to find. You’ll notice that there aren’t any other vehicles around here? That’s because the residents of this neighborhood can barely afford to feed and shelter themselves, and a vehicle in their midst is like a winning lottery ticket. They will take everything from that car and sell off all the components. The car is enough of a distraction that they will be focused on it, but we should get out of here before they turn their focus on us.”
Synn stood up straighter, and his body seemed to grow and swell in his clothes. He returned to his natural form, which was taller and larger than the soldier he’d been impersonating. The clothes he was wearing looked a little tight, but the fit was such that he didn’t look uncomfortable.