“I’m sorry.” She tries to back away, and she’s trembling all over. “Please, I’m sorry. Just let me go.”
I don’t know what she sees on my face, but she’s terrified that I’m going to hit her back. She’s finally realized where she is, and that I’m one of the criminals she should probably be scared of.
I take another deep breath, and my voice comes out as a growl. “Don’t. Do that. Again.”
“I’m sorry. But you’re hurting me.” She glances at her captured wrist, and I force myself to loosen my grip on her arm. But I don’t let go.
“Rayla, I’m going to take the bandage off your hand. If you try to fight me, I will hold you down. I don’t want to hurt you. But I have every fucking right to see what’s under there.”
“Please. I’m not sick. That’s not why my hand is wrapped, and that’s not why I mentioned protection. I swear on my life.”
“Then why?” I ask as I walk her backward toward the counter, where I pin her between it and my body.
“I’m worried about…pregnancy,” she finally admits.
“Why? You’re sterile, right?” I hold her right arm up, and she tries to pull away again when I start unwrapping the bandage, beginning with the loose part at the lower half of her wrist. “They sterilize all the women. We’ve been over this.”
“I know, but mistakes happen. That’s how I got here.”
She’s not looking at me. Which means she’s lying, but not about being born here. She’s already told me that part, looking me right in the eye. I do not understand this woman.
I unwind more of the bandage, and just like I expected, her wrist is pale and creamy—and completely unmarred by bruises or wounds.
“Please!” She’s still fighting my grip, and there are tears in her eyes. “Please, Jai. Stop!”
Out of patience, I take the bandage and pull harder than I probably should, and it unravels over the length of her hand. Rayla jerks her arm free and shoves her hand behind her back before I can see the number.
I roll my eyes and pull her arm forward again; she’s not strong enough to stop me. She’s crying now, tears pouring down her face, and I hold her hand up, hoping I’m wrong. Hoping I don’t have to hate her, after what we’ve just shared.
Hoping she hasn’t killed me, with one bareback romp.
I blink, staring at her hand, and at first I can’t process what I’m seeing. There’s nothing there. Not just no circle.
No number.
“What the fuck?” I let go of her hand and back away, trying to understand.
Rayla sniffles, rubbing her arm, where the imprint of my grip lingers.
“Where’s your number?” I demand. “Where’s your fucking prisoner number?”
“I don’t have one,” she sobs. “I’m not a convict. I snuck onto the damn planet, okay? Kenny was a friend, and I hired him to look out for me while I searched for my mother, but he died in the crash, and now you’re all I have, and…and…and I don’t have any fucking STDs! You’re the first man I’ve ever slept with, and I wish I’d never fucking done that, you asshole!”
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
7
RAYLA
“You can’t be here,” Jai growls, but he looks less angry than…scared. For me. “I mean you absolutely can’t be here. Why the fuck would you sneak onto a prison planet?”
“To find my mother. Everything I told you was true, except the part about me being a prisoner.” Though what I’d told him wasn’t the whole truth…
“What…? Why…?” He can’t seem to find enough words to finish his question, and now he’s looking at me like I’m the dumbest person in the whole damn galaxy. “People don’t break into prison, Rayla! Have you ever even met your mother?”
“Not that I can remember.” I’ve seen pictures of myself as a newborn, with my father, which probably means I was taken from my mother the minute I was born.
Or maybe she gave me away.
“Why would you do all this to talk to someone you’ve never even met? Why would you even want a prisoner for a mother, when you’ve obviously been given everything in the world by whoever raised you?”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I snap.
“I know you’re healthy.” He steps closer, challenge shining in his blue-gray eyes. “Not just up-and-walking healthy. Glowing-healthy. The kind that comes from fresh vegetables, and expensive vitamins, and top-of-the-line exercise equipment, if you were really raised in space. I know you’re groomed. Manicured. Pedicured. You’ve been here three days, and your hair still smells like money. You were a virgin until half an hour ago, but you’re groomed down there too. There were girls like you on my homeworld, princess. Soft. Beautiful. Like stars shining in the night sky, they were so out of reach. Like they didn’t even see those of us mired in the mud. I know that someone’s given you everything. And that it wasn’t enough.”
“Not everything,” I insist, and that’s the truth. But he can’t possibly understand that I’m not what he thinks I am. That he’s lumping me in with spoiled, pampered girls he knew growing up because of a few superficial similarities.
“Oh really? What do you not have? Your own shuttle? A genetically engineered miniature tiger on a gold chain? A few years ago, those were all the rage for the rich bitches on my homeworld, while the rest of us struggled to make rent. To buy food. So tell me what your perfect life is missing, Rayla.”
“A future.”
I didn’t mean to admit that. He knows too much already. But I can’t stand the way he’s looking at me, as if I’m everything that’s wrong with his life. As if I’m here because I got bored eating seafood and cruising from system to system on a fucking space yacht.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I don’t exist, Jai. Yes, my dad buys me things. But not because he’s rich. I mean, I guess he makes plenty of money, but we’re not wealthy. Not like you’re thinking. He spends more than he should on me—” Even now that I’m grown and employed. “—but he does it to keep me…complacent. Compliant. To keep me from trying to leave. Because my adoption wasn’t legal. My citizen ID number is fraudulent. According to the government, I don’t exist. I can’t go to school. I can’t vote. I can’t get a real job. I can’t get a pilot’s license or take out a loan or make a major purchase. I can’t get married or start a family. That’s why I’ve never been anywhere. And I mean anywhere. I’m a secret. An open secret, on…where I’m from.” Which Jai doesn’t need to know. “But still a secret.”
It’s like the UA is fine with me existing, as long as my dad doesn’t rub that in their faces. As long as I don’t push my boundaries. As long as I don’t want anything more than an entire life lived on an orbiting guard station, alone, except for my father and a rotating staff of guards I’m not allowed to fraternize with.
“I’m just as much a prisoner as you are, even if my cage is gilded. And I’m here to find out why.”
“And you’re not…sterile.” He glances at the mattress, where the evidence of what we just did—without protection—is still quite visible.
“No. And I didn’t even think about it. I mean, I was just lost in the moment. It felt so good.” My face burns, but I push through embarrassment and tell him the truth. “You felt so good.”
“But you wish you hadn’t let me touch you.” He sounds hurt, and I open my mouth, but he speaks over me. “No, it’s okay. I understand. Neither of us knew what we were getting into.” He exhales. “I’m sorry about your wrist.”
“It’s fine.” Just a little sore.
“I don’t think you need to worry about pregnancy,” Jai says. “It was just one time.”
I laugh, but the sound feels more bitter than amused. “It’s like you paid no attention in sex ed.”
“Pregnancy is the worst-case scenario. Not the most likely one. And anyway, if it does happen, and you don’t want it, you can have it taken care of when you get off this rock.” But he’s speaking through clenched teeth, a
maelstrom of conflicting emotion raging behind his eyes. I know how that feels.
When I said sleeping with him was life changing, this isn’t what I meant.
“I guess that’s real, huh? If you snuck onto the planet, I guess you can sneak off,” he says. “And since you’re not a criminal, they can’t legally keep you here. Although, for the record, the UA does a lot of illegal shit here.”
“Jai, I…” I sink onto the edge of the mattress, cross-legged, trying to figure out how to say what he has a right to know. Trying to decide whether that will make this better or worse. “I can’t just ‘take care of it.’ I… If there were a baby, I would keep it. You wouldn’t have to do anything.” Which is little more than a pointless assurance, in this case. What could he possibly do from the surface of a prison planet?
What could my mother have done?
“I just… If there’s a baby, I want it.” That hypothetical baby might be the only family I ever have, and since I can’t get a parenting license without a valid citizen ID number, my child would have to be a secret. Just like me.
No. I can’t do that, either. I couldn’t get rid of my baby, if there were one. But I couldn’t keep a child caged, either.
“Okay, this is way premature,” Jai says, as if he can see everything I’m thinking. “We’re borrowing trouble.” He sinks onto the mattress across from me, legs folded. “We need to be figuring out how to get you out of here. How did you even get here? How did you happen to meet a prison guard stationed on the edge of the damn galaxy?”
“I actually work for UA,” I admit. “I know lots of guards.”
“Wait, you work for Universal Authority? Where? Up there?” Jai points through the ceiling at the sky again. “On one of the guard stations?” He frowns, and I can practically see him puzzling it out. “If you spent your childhood isolated in space, why would you take a job in orbit, in self-imposed exile from the rest of the galaxy, when you could have found work on the surface of any planet, like a normal person?”
“Without a valid—”
“ID number,” he finishes for me. “Of course. You couldn’t get a job. So then, how did you wind up working for UA, without a valid citizen ID?”
Shit. He pulled at one thread in my web of lies, and now the whole thing is starting to unravel.
I don’t need to answer. He’s already puzzling it out for himself.
“You were born on this planet. Raised in isolation, in space. An open secret. And you’ve never ‘been anywhere.’ Yet you work for UA.” Jai stands and backs away from the mattress, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Have you spent your whole life on a guard station? On…Station Alpha?”
I nod slowly, because there’s no sense lying anymore. And because I don’t want to lie to him anymore. I want him to stop looking at me like he’s just bitten into a juicy apple, only to find a worm inside.
“Who would raise a kid on a guard station? Who could get away with—” He backs farther away. “Princess, who is your father?”
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that—”
“Rayla, who is your fucking father?”
“Warden Shaw!” I’m shouting because he’s shouting. “I’m Rayla Shaw, okay? I’ve spent my entire life on Station Alpha, thinking that the reason I was stuck there—the reason I couldn’t go on trips with him—was that there weren’t supposed to be kids on the guard station. That if our open secret became too open, my dad would lose his job. Or he’d have to send me away.
“Then I grew up, and he always came up with some reason to keep me on the station. Some reason I couldn’t leave just yet. He got me a job and gave me whatever I wanted. Except my freedom. Except for a fucking life of my own. Then I found out the truth. Part of it, anyway. That I’m not his. That he kept an inmate’s baby, and now that I’m grown, I’m an even bigger problem than I was as a kid. So I spent my life savings to come down here and find out why. To find out who I really am. How I got here. That may sound stupid to you, when I was a ‘pampered princess’ on Station Alpha. But it means the whole damn universe to me.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid,” Jai says. “It sounds…” But then that switch flips again, and whatever sympathy he felt for me is buried. “What the hell am I saying? You’re the warden’s daughter. I just fucked the warden’s daughter. And you were a virgin.”
“Okay, that part’s not really relevant.”
“Right. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled that his daughter was deflowered on a filthy mattress by a convict. I’m sure he’ll want to shake my fucking hand!”
“My dad has nothing to do with this. He’s not even in orbit right now. I waited to sneak off the station until he left on a business trip.”
“We have to get you out of here before he finds out.”
“That ship has sailed. Kenny crashed a borrowed patrol shuttle. They’re going to notice that. And when they realize I’m missing, they’ll put two and two together.”
“So then what’s your plan? How are you intending to get out of here, with your pilot dead?”
I shrug. “I was going to wait until my dad figures out where I am. He’ll send a whole team down to find me, and all I have to do is…be here.”
Jai’s scowl deepens. “I take back what I said. That gun’s not the most dangerous thing on this planet. You are. When those guards come down for you, they’ll shoot whoever’s with you and ask questions later.”
“I’m sorry, Jai. I didn’t mean to get you caught up in this. I’ll just…I’ll just go. So they won’t find you with me.” My gaze strays to my bag. Surely I’m just as safe with my gun as I am with him, and I know the general heading of Settlement B, now.
“Princess, you’ll never make it. You landed in one of the most isolated places in zone four, but the closer you get to what passes for civilization, the more people you’ll run into, and most of them will be men. And they’re not going to offer to help you find your mother.”
“You did.”
“No, Rayla, I didn’t.” He exhales slowly. “You offered me your gun, and I played along, intending to take it from you as soon as you fell asleep.”
“We’ve spent three nights together, and you didn’t try to take it.”
“Yes, I did. You slept curled up with that damn gun the first two nights, and I was afraid that if I tried to take it, you’d wake up. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get you to fall asleep thinking about something else. Curled up with something else.”
“You…?” I glance at the mattress again. “You fucking seduced me so you could steal my gun? So that was… That meant nothing to you?” Of course it didn’t. He said no strings. I agreed to no strings.
“No, princess, it’s not—”
“Stop fucking calling me that!”
“Fine. Rayla, that’s not what this was. I mean, it started out that way, the other day. In the stream. But then I got to know you, and tonight, I got caught up in the moment. Caught up in you. That’s why I’m telling you this. Because my plan did change. You changed it.”
Humiliated, I shove my feet into my pants, then I stand to pull them up. “Fuck you, Jai,” I snap as I push my feet into my shoes, without bothering to fish a fresh pair of socks from my bag.
“What are you doing?”
I grab my bag and head out the door, ignoring the warning in his voice.
“No! You can’t go out there alone.” His footsteps thump after me, and I take off at a jog, heading in the same direction we’ve been walking for three days.
“Rayla!” Jai shouts. “Fuck! I’m barefoot. Will you wait?”
I ignore him, still jogging, and seconds later, I hear the huff of his breath as he begins to catch up. I’m in good shape, but he’s much more used to the gravity on Rhodon than I am, so his physical efforts are more efficient.
“Rayla, stop! You’re going the wrong way!”
“Bullshit. We’ve been walking this direction for two and a half days.”
“I know!” He grabs my left
arm, jerking me to a halt, and when I try to pull free, he tightens his grip. “Just listen to me.”
“Let go!” I try to slap him again—damn the consequences—but he catches my other wrist before my hand makes contact.
“I’m trying to apologize, and you’re at least going to listen, before you decide whether or not to forgive me.”
“Apologize. You’re sorry for having sex with me?” Humiliation burns deep inside me. “Well, I’m sorry that was such a fucking hardship for you.”
“It wasn’t. I don’t regret a damn thing we did on that mattress, and if I thought you’d let me, I’d go for an encore right here on the ground.” He lets go of my left arm, but his grip on my right remains. “Even if you get on your damn rescue shuttle and hate me for the rest of your life, I will never regret one second I spent touching you.”
“I—” I should fight him. I should kick him in the scrotum and run. But the way he’s looking at me right now, with moonlight highlighting the sincerity in his expression… “Then what are you sorry for?”
“Will you come back inside?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not going to like what I have to tell you, and I’m afraid you’ll run off again.”
“Just say it, Jai.”
Instead, he lets go of my arm just long enough to pick me up and throw me over his shoulder. My bag hits the ground.
“Put me down!” I shriek, but he only clamps one arm down on my thighs, to keep me from kneeing him in the ribs. I pound on his back, but it’s like he can’t even feel the blows. Several steps later, we’re back in the front room of the abandoned building.
Jai sets me on my feet, in a patch of darkness where moonlight doesn’t reach. He’s standing in front of the door.
“Move.”
“No. Just listen.”
“My stuff’s still out there. Including the gun. What if someone takes it?”
“There’s no one out here. Not for miles. That’s part of what I have to tell you.”
Dirty Lies Page 9