by test
“They aren’t trying to blow us up. They are simply trying to get me to land. And I’m not landing until we reach The Excalibur. Then we can get off of this godforsaken planet!” Johanna made a sharp turn and headed for the entranceway to a land formed tunnel. Swerving low, Johanna barely missed scraping the top of the car. She struggled to control Aggie, as they flew into the shallow tunnel.
“Oh, shit! I really don’t think this is a good idea, Jo,” Samantha warned, pressing back against her seat, and briefly closing her eyes.
They entered the tight passageway and her belly flip-flopped. It was eerily dark inside of the tunnel and Johanna lit it up as she turned the new specially designed headlight on that Dylan had installed only days before. The blinding light blasted through the tunnel. It took a moment for Samantha’s eyes to adjust. She looked back and swallowed the lump in her throat when she saw what their enemies had just shot at them.
“You know your theory about how they weren’t going to blow us up? Well, Dearest Jo, I think that’s just been shot to hell. I don’t think Clayton has as many friends as we originally thought. Either that or we have more enemies than we thought. That’s a mat grenade. And it’s RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 8
stuck to our roof!”
“Oh, God! Just what we need,” Johanna gasped lifting them out of the tunnel. “What do you plan to do?” And then Johanna’s eyes widened to grand proportions. She looked out of the corner of her eye and caught the determined expression that had crossed her sister’s features.
“Oh, no, no, no! You can’t be serious, Sam. Even I think what you have in mind is too big of a risk. Samantha, don’t you dare! Oh, Lord, how do we get ourselves into these horrendous situations? There must be another way.” She whistled. “I’ve got it! We could always bail out.”
“Bail out? On our one and only Aggie? I don’t think so. If we do, we’ll be without Aggie, and we’ll be sitting ducks,” Samantha answered. “I don’t fancy being sold to the highest bidder, how about you?” When her sister remained silent, she gritted her teeth and opened her window. “Keep the communication channel open. I might need your help. Get ready to do some fancy flying!”
“Aren’t I always ready? Just get your butt back in here in one piece!” Johanna screamed, the frustration seeping through her soft voice.
“Love you, too,” Samantha whispered. “Don’t worry about me, I’m charmed…I’ll just tap into the power inside of me.” She winked at her sister and climbed cautiously out the window.
Pulling herself up onto the roof she thought about her sister’s touching concern. On a whim, she fastened herself to the top of the car.
Samantha edged her way over to the grenade and fought her way through the strong current of air. She fell onto her ass when a particularly strong gust assaulted her. Reacting instantly, she rolled onto her stomach when she heard Johanna’s half-screamed warning.
A long thin line of green laser bolts flashed past her and the car shook as it hit the side of Johanna’s door.
“Jo!” she whispered frantically. Fear leapt through her.
“I’m fine,” her sister automatically replied. Then Samantha heard her mutter under her breath, “But there goes another few years of my life!”
She crawled over to the grenade and rolled her eyes when she saw the time display.
“This night just keeps getting better and better,” she growled, pursing her lips. She quickly pulled out her laser pen and tried to unfasten the grenade from the roof of the car.
Samantha had three minutes to get the grenade off and away from Aggie or they’d all be walking through the pearly gates before their time.
“Jo, I need you to ease up on our speed when I say GO. I have a little gift for our generous friends. I think that they’re going to get an early Christmas present this year.”
“You’re just a regular Santa Claus,” Johanna replied. “I always knew that your initials stood for something.”
Samantha yanked the grenade off and felt it thrumming beneath her fingertips.
“GO!!! ” she yelled. The vehicle slowed to almost a standstill. “Now get me close and then burn like lightning.”
“Aye,
Aye,
mon capitan.”
Johanna skillfully guided Aggie as close as she could to the pursuing vehicles.
Samantha threw the grenade onto one of their cars and then saluted them with thirty seconds to spare. She bolted into action. Jumping back down into the passenger seat, she released her security rope.
Johanna checked to make sure she was back inside safe and sound. Then she floored the engines. They went to maximum speed. And the night sky lit up as if a thousand firecrackers RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 9
had detonated.
“I’m beat. Take me home.” Samantha slumped back in her seat.
“My pleasure,” Johanna said, smiling brilliantly.
RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 10
Chapter Two
“Are they both locked up and settled for the night?” Samantha asked, pulling the white sheet up to rest beneath her arms.
Johanna entered the sickbay and walked over to stand beside her sister’s med bed.
“Everything is fine. Close your eyes and get some rest,” Johanna assured her.
She leaned over and inspected Samantha’s wound. “You know, maybe mother was right.
Perhaps I should have done my internship at Jupiter Medical instead of going into the family business. That’s a great job done on your arm if I do say so myself,” Johanna bragged, patting herself on her back.
“Thanks, Johanna. I don’t know what we would do without our resident Doctor. It certainly saves us the hassle of finding an Earth Authorized Hospital. You never know what kind of nutty doctors you’re going to find out on The Rim.”
“With the way that you beat up that beautiful body of yours. You need a doctor at your disposal twenty-four, seven. That’s where I come in. You’re so lucky to have me. Oh, incidentally, it seems that Clayton’s little friend is a hardened criminal and he’s wanted in four systems. I was chatting to one of our contacts online and he told me that his bounty would be even heftier than Clayton’s. So, that’s really good news. It should give us enough money to take some time off. Right now, we’re just barely scraping by. It’s a good thing you did have Clayton’s buddy fall in your lap. Because if he hadn’t, we would have had to take on cargo or passengers to make enough money to keep us going,” Johanna muttered.
“Take on passengers? Over my dead body! There’s no way that’s going to happen.
What do we tell them when the shit hits the fan? Offer them insurance?”
“Samantha, get serious. This life on the edge thing really doesn’t make us that much money. I could have made more as a doctor.”
“Well, maybe you should have stayed back on Jupiter Prime.”
Dead silence fell between them.
“I’m going to ignore that comment. You’re in pain. You don’t know what you’re saying.
Anyway, I think that once we deliver Clayton and Gus that we should return to Earth and visit Mom, Charlotte and Jessica. I need a vacation and so do you. Dylan wants to take me to Hawaii and since we can’t fly Excalibur within Earth’s atmosphere, we’ll have to pay to get there. I don’t know how to tell him that we’re almost broke. You know Dylan and money. He sort of thinks it’s a renewable source.”
“That’s because he’s not used to doing without it. His family always has had loads of money. They are like new age Royalty. If Tyler hadn’t had a falling out with them, then they both wouldn’t be here. But you know Dylan, wherever Tyler goes, he follows.” Samantha rolled her eyes. Suffocating pain wound its way around her heart. Tyler. God, how she missed him! If he were still here, he would have been waiting for her when she came back with Clayton.
“Oh, sweetie. Are you thinking about Tyler again? We could ask Dylan where Tyler is, you know. I’m sure he knows. He must. I know he’s always getting messages f
rom him, even though he tries to be secretive about them.”
“It’s okay. Don’t get him mixed up in this. That isn’t fair.”
RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 11
“Fine. Why don’t you just try to put Tyler out of your head for a bit? That shoulder is still tender. Since I’ve given you a sleeping tonic, you’ll be getting drowsy soon. So, I’m going to leave you. We’ll be at Notting Prime by early morning at the latest, and that’s where we’ll collect the bounties on Gus and Clayton. Believe me, you earned every bit of it. By the way, I saved the bullet that was lodged in your shoulder. I thought maybe you’d want it for a memento.”
“Thanks. I’ll add it to my growing collection. I’ll put it in the anything that doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger box.”
Johanna leaned down and kissed her softly on the forehead.
“Sleep
well.”
Johanna gently pushed a stray lock of light-blond hair off of Samantha’s forehead. Her deep violet eyes fluttered closed. The sleeping tonic and painkillers finally overwhelmed her.
* * * *
Samantha’s
sleep
was
frantic and tortured.
She jumped when she heard the sound of a bullet ripping through the stillness of the night. She was there in the room. There was a man standing over her father’s lifeless body.
Blood was spilling everywhere. The strong cloying scent of jasmine lingered in the air.
She had never been fond of it, and now the smell of it made her feel as if she were suffocating.
She turned when a soft breeze fluttered through the open window.
The man was tall and cast a long shadow across the marble tile. His shoulder length white hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail. He wore a long silver coat that was inches off of the floor. His black boots were splattered with blood. He whistled an odd tune as he calmly placed the gun back into the folds of his coat.
Turn around. Turn around, she willed. Just one glimpse of his face, that’s all she needed.
But he remained impervious to her mental commands, and then stepped away, cloaking himself in the shadows and disappeared into the night, leaving no psychic imprint for the trackers to hunt. The trauma of seeing her father murdered, caused her astral form to be sucked back into her human body. She sat upright in bed, shaking and screaming out for her father… but she knew he would not answer, he never did. She had failed her family—her powers should have been able to save him but they had been no match for the psychic assassin sent to take out her father.
Samantha struggled to let go of the horrific memory that tortured her dreams when from out of the mists of time and space someone else reached out to her and her sixth sense picked up on the message.
She heard another familiar male voice call out her name with heightened urgency.
“Samantha, help me!”
“TYLER! ” Samantha screamed. Her psychic abilities rattled and went on edge. Her eyes popped open and she sat up. For one brief second, she caught the wispy tendrils of a purple mist swirling around her. When she blinked and opened her eyes again, the mist was gone. Reigning in her shattered emotions, she attempted to harness her volatile powers. She wasn’t as strong as her twin Charlotte, but when her powers surfaced they could have startling effects on the world around her. The problem was, they always seemed to surface when she didn’t want them to.
She threw her legs over the side of the bed. Gasping, she felt a painful throb in her shoulder. Groaning, she remembered where she was and what had happened to her. Samantha struggled to control her ragged breathing. Her chest heaved, and she put her hand over her heart, only to feel it pulsing in a staccato rhythm. She had to snap out of it. The psychic echo that RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 12
remained from her nightmare and Tyler’s call for help deeply affected her. Where was Tyler right now? How would she know if he was in trouble? He never sent her any sort of correspondence any more… the only person he talked to was his brother, Dylan.
Johanna came rushing into the room followed closely by her husband Dylan. She hurried to Samantha’s bedside.
“It’s alright dearest. Tyler isn’t here. You’re on The Excalibur, and we are just now entering Notting Prime’s atmosphere. We’ll be at the delivery point soon.” Johanna placed her arms snugly around her and pulled her against her chest.
Dylan stood right behind his wife with his hands shoved into his pockets.
Samantha blinked her eyes. For an instant, she saw Tyler’s face instead of Dylan’s. The two brothers looked remarkably alike and it almost pained her to look at Dylan’s features and know how much they mirrored Tyler’s.
“Tyler…. Have you spoken to him recently, Dylan?”
His curly auburn hair was messed up and his striking blue-green eyes held an honest concern that pained her to her very core.
“Not for ten days, Samantha, though is last message was a bit off. He sounded sad as he always does and yet, I got the sneaky suspicion that he was up to something. I should go and see if I can get a subspace message to him tonight.”
“Do that,” she muttered, turning in Johanna’s arms, and wrapped her arms around her middle. Bringing Johanna close, she tried to block the image of her estranged husband completely from her mind. It wasn’t easy when Dylan was always there, a constant reminder of what could have been. Should have been.
Six months ago, Tyler had packed and moved out after a heated argument. They’d hardly ever argued, and when they did, it was always about the same thing. She’d automatically regretted, her harsh words. But by the time she’d realized the error of her ways, it was too late to stop him. He had hated her dangerous lifestyle. Said he couldn’t understand it. And after one extremely close call in which she had narrowly escaped with her life, he’d blown up and had given her an ultimatum. Give it all up. The job or him, he couldn’t stand by while she continually put herself in harm’s way. Before she really thought out her reply, how it would affect them, she’d refused and he’d left. She could still remember their angry words, hurtful lashes that cut deep, and wished that she had handled it differently.
The hurt in his eyes still haunted her and made her feel sick inside. Living with the regret ate at her every waking hour.
“You are going to get yourself killed! I can’t stand thinking of that happening. I don’t know what I would do. I can’t take your lifestyle anymore. Dylan might be able to live with the thought of losing Johanna, but I can’t live with the thought of losing you. I love you more than anything in the universe. Can’t you see? Take a risk on us. Bet on us. I do. There isn’t a bounty in the known worlds that is worth risking your life. It’s your damnable bounty hunting or me! Make your choice, so that I know where I stand!” He had said it in that damnably calm voice of his. Tyler had rarely gotten angry and when he blew it was definitely no laughing matter.
“I can’t. I can’t! ” she had sobbed. “I can’t leave the hunt. I need the hunt. Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps the nightmares at bay. Keeps me from losing my grip on reality!”
“I
can keep the nightmares at bay. Our love can overcome anything, if you only give it a chance. Please, Samantha,” he’d said, moving to grasp her much smaller hands beneath his strong and capable ones.
RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 13
“I
can’t.”
“You won’t.” he had whispered with a catch in his voice.
“All right, I won’t. There is still a bounty out there that I need to find. My father won’t rest in peace until I bring his killer to justice. It’s a family affair and I won’t bail out on family.”
She’d nearly shouted.
“I’m a part of your family. We’re in this crazy world as a united force. Yet, you’d bail out on me? On us?” Tyler asked, searching her face. With a faint nod, he released her hands, turned on his heels and headed toward the exit doorway of The Excalibur.
“I ha
ve to finish the job! ” she’d cried.
“And that is more important than me...than what we share?” he paused, glancing back at her. It had hit her then. Though it had taken her a moment to fully register the look in his eyes.
Hope had glimmered in his green orbs. Tyler had still had faith in them. He’d still believed in her. He had believed she would run after him. But she’d been in shock. She’d remained rooted to the spot. With a shake of his head, he’d opened the door and quietly walked out of her life. By the time she’d moved into action, he had disappeared. He had a weird way of doing that. She should have pursued him. But she hadn’t, either out of fear or pride.
There was nothing Samantha hated more than quiet. Quiet only reminded her of how alone she was, how empty her life was without Tyler. In those times of dreadful calm, she could not keep the memories of beloved Tyler at bay, images of what could have been. If only she had been able to let go of the past. She’d had a good man, and she’d let him slip away.