Talia Jager

by Without Hesitation

  I punched him and he let me.

  “It’s not fair.”

  “I know.”

  Huxley let me hit him over and over until the tears started flowing, and then he gathered me in his arms and held me close.

  “Ever?” Briar’s voice was somber through my earpiece.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re here.”

  I’d spent most of the night soaking my pillow with tears, dreading the thing I had to do this morning. There was no way around it. I couldn’t think about what might happen to Akacia, couldn’t waste time. I had to hand her over now. Huxley and I stood in front of Akacia’s door and waited for her to come out.

  Maybe it was the look on our faces. Maybe it was the gun in Huxley’s hand. But she knew.

  “What’s going on?” Her blue eyes were no longer full of wonder and curiosity. Instead they were full of fear and panic. “Everleigh?”

  My throat was dry and tears pricked my eyes. “It’s time for you to go.”

  “Go where?”

  I couldn’t look in her eyes. She knew.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “It’s the job. Nothing personal.” I kept my face stoic, though I was crumbling inside.

  “Return me home and I’ll see you’re well taken care of,” she pleaded.

  “I can’t.”

  “I’ll give you three times what they’re paying you.”

  “It’s not the money.”

  “You said it’s the job.”

  “I have to do what’s right for my people.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “You can’t! Akacia, you have to let it go.” I couldn’t even bring myself to call her Kaci anymore. Kaci was what friends call her. I wasn’t her friend. Friends didn’t hand over their friends to evil people.

  “Let it go? This is my life. These people will kill me.”

  “No. They said they just needed to talk to you.”

  “You think they’re telling the truth?”

  I had to believe they were. If I let myself believe that they were going to kill her, I wouldn’t be able to hand her over. And I had to. I had to because my people needed to be kept safe. “I’m sorry.” It came out in a whisper.

  “You said I’d be safe. You—” Her voice broke. She looked around the room, hoping to find an ally. Her eyes came to a stop on me again. “I hate you.”

  I nodded. It was what I expected, but my heart still broke into pieces.

  Huxley took her weapons from her and then led her down the corridor. He had a firm grip on her, but that didn’t stop her from trying to get free. She even punched him a few times, and he took it. Just like he had taken it from me.

  Standing at the airlock, Huxley asked, “Do you want one of us to walk her over?”

  “No. This is something I have to do.”

  I forced back tears as my throat burned and wished that Caspar would take me instead. I hated myself for what I was about to do.

  Akacia wasn’t going without a fight. I didn’t blame her. She started lashing out, kicking and broke away. She took off down the corridor, but Huxley was faster. He tackled her to the ground and ordered Zabe to zip tie her wrists together. They pulled her up to her feet and turned her around. My eyes locked with hers and I saw the pure hatred she had for me. I knew I deserved it. I had promised she’d be safe and I’d get her home, but instead I betrayed her. She was right to hate me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again as I gently placed a gag in her mouth.

  The glare I received would forever be etched in my mind.

  I led her down the corridor to where we were docked to Caspar’s ship. The door opened. Caspar and one of his guards stood there. Akacia started to thrash again.

  “Oh, a feisty one,” the guard said, as his gaze slid up and down her body.

  Bile rose in my throat. I wanted to take him out.

  “It’s about time, Everleigh. You’re lucky. I was trying to decide who I was going to kill next.” He looked at Akacia and then ordered, “Take her.”

  The guard grabbed Akacia’s arm and led her away.

  “Nobody else gets hurt,” I confirmed.

  Caspar sighed. “They’re safe, for now. I’ll contact you when I have another job for you. But, Everleigh, when I do, don’t make the same mistake. If I ever find out you are double-crossing me again, I’ll kill all of your people and you.” He pushed a button and the door hissed closed.

  In the privacy of my quarters, tears flooded my eyes and I cried until my body shook with sobs and my throat grew raw. No longer able to suppress the rage I felt at the situation, I kicked at the desk chair and it moved a few inches. Fury filled me and I grabbed the chair and threw it against the wall. I swiped everything off my desk in one fierce, sweeping motion. I tore apart my room and screamed at the top of my lungs. I didn’t stop until everything was destroyed.

  I was a complete and utter mess. Feeling like I couldn’t breathe, I tugged at my shirt, and screamed until I got it off. It hurt. This thing I had done and couldn’t undo.

  I slid down the wall and sat on the floor, tears flowing freely.

  I brought my knees up to my chest and hugged them.

  That was how Huxley found me hours later.

  Chapter Five

  Akacia

  THE DOOR BEHIND ME HISSED shut and with it all hope. I thought maybe it had been a ploy. That there was a plan. Or that Everleigh wouldn’t go through with it. But she had. She handed me over. Something inside me changed. My heart hardened.

  Someone pushed me from behind. “Move.”

  Swinging my right elbow upward, I hit the guard behind me in the gut. He pushed me up against the wall and backhanded me. I kneed him in the groin. Once he doubled over, I brought my knee to his face.

  “Bitch!” he yelled and threw me against the wall slamming my head against it. Black spots exploded in my vision and my stomach churned.

  “Steel! I need her to answer questions. Can you keep her conscious, please?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Steel grabbed a handful of my hair and forced me down the corridor to a dark, bare room. Shackles lined the base of the walls and a few hung from the sides as well. The smell of copper and death filled my lungs. This room was where people died. I wouldn’t come out of this room alive.

  They led me to a chair and pushed me down in it. The back of my head pounded and my vision was still fuzzy, but I could make out the guns in the hands of both guards.

  “Empress. How nice to finally meet you face-to-face.” A man with inky, spiked hair stood in front of me. “I’m going to remove the gag. I hope you’re smart enough to know that screaming won’t help. You’re on my ship. Nobody here will help you. It’ll only give me a headache and I don’t like headaches, so I might be tempted to take that out on you. Understand?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He reached around and cut off the gag with a knife. “Do you know who I am?”

  Well, yes, sort of, but I didn’t answer him. I would live longer if I didn’t answer his questions. Maybe I could buy enough time to formulate an escape or for Ever and her crew to rescue me. I didn’t want to believe she had just turned me over to a man who would most certainly kill me. She wasn’t that heartless…or was she?

  “I’m Caspar. Do you know why you’re here?”

  I kept quiet.

  “I need answers.” He paced around me. “Your father was a scientist. He was experimenting with splicing DNA. Did you know that?”

  My father was into cutting edge research and technology, but I knew nothing of splicing DNA. I wasn’t even sure I knew what that meant.

  “Twenty-one years ago, the first splicers were born. Human with strands of animal DNA to make them faster, stronger, better. They were bred to be guards and soldiers. Nine years later, your father was murdered, and all the research vanished. I’ve been trying to recreate what your father did for a long time. I’m tired. I just want access to his work, his experiments. Give it to me an
d I’ll let you go.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. If he knew I didn’t know would he let me go or kill me? Did it matter? “I don’t know anything about his research.”

  He was quiet for a moment as he continued to pace around me. “Maybe not. It could be that you don’t know anything or it could be that you do and don’t want to tell me or you might know something you don’t realize you know. Maybe you know of a secret hiding place. Or someone he worked with that got away?”

  “I was seven.”

  “Well, nevertheless, we’ll try to jog your memory.” He looked at the two men who stood behind him. One was the guy from the space station. The other was the guy who walked me in here. “Lorcan, let’s start with you.”

  “Let me at her,” Steel growled, nursing his injuries.

  They took turns using my face and body as a punching bag. I lost count after fourteen hits. Tears pricked my eyes, but I kept them from falling.

  “Stop,” Caspar ordered. “Have you remembered anything yet, Empress?”

  My teeth felt loose and my mouth was full of blood. I glared at Caspar and spat at him. I could feel my face swelling. There was nothing more I could say. They could do whatever they wanted to me, but I was just going to stay quiet. If I ended up dead, then so be it.

  “Again,” he ordered and the beating resumed. And then, once again, Caspar stopped it and asked me if I remembered anything. It was an endless cycle and I tried to go somewhere in my head where the pain didn’t reach.

  “Maybe some time alone will help. Let her think about things.” They tossed me to the floor. Loran snapped the metal shackles into place around my ankles. Only after giving the chain a hard tug to make sure it was secure did he cut the zip tie around my wrists. Seconds later I was alone. I curled into a ball and let the sobs come. Exhausted from the beating, I fell asleep soon after.

  When I woke I didn’t know how long I had slept. Could have been minutes or hours. My bruised and probably broken body was stiff from sleeping on the cold floor. A loud growl cramped my stomach, so I knew it had been long enough to get hungry. It was quiet and they didn’t come. Nobody came. I sat up and yanked at the chain. I kicked the wall. And when that didn’t work, I sat against the wall and stared at nothing.

  The quiet made me think about things that I didn’t want to think about. The kiss I shared with Everleigh was among those things. It played over and over in my mind. I tried to push it down. Tried to block it out. Tried not to think about it. But the more I did, the more it surfaced, taunting me and making me feel guilty and naïve.

  How warm she was. How soft she was. How perfectly our lips had fit together.

  How could she betray me? Those kisses were nothing but empty promises. Nothing but lust.

  I hung onto that anger when Caspar’s men finally came back and took off the shackles only to hook me up to different ones. There was no give in the chains that spread me out like an X. Then, for who knows how long, I was punched, kicked, and even whipped a couple times. When none of that worked, they got out a chain and whacked me across the back with it. My mind went to that hatred and betrayal I felt for Everleigh and stayed there. I fought to stay conscious so that I could hear what they were saying.

  “What if she really doesn’t know?”

  “Or maybe she was trained to withstand torture?”

  “Let me have some fun with her, boss.” I think it was Lorcan who spoke, but my head was pounding so hard, I wasn’t positive.

  I felt a hand on my butt, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  “No. Give her some water, so she doesn’t die of dehydration. Let her go hungry a little longer, then we’ll up the tactics.”

  The next thing I knew someone was pouring water in my face. I wanted to refuse, but I was thirsty, so I gulped it down.

  They left me hanging there, but that was okay. I slipped into the darkness that had been waiting for me.

  Chapter Six

  Akacia

  AS THE VOICES NEARED, I stayed still, wanting to get a sense of what was going on.

  “I’m telling you, she looks better than she did before. She was all cut up, bruised, and swollen, but her skin looks almost flawless now,” a voice said.

  I was rolled onto my back and someone’s rough hands pushed my hair away from my face. “Could it be…no…maybe…”

  Caspar was close. I could smell garlic on his breath.

  My eyes popped open. I lunged forward, grabbing Caspar by the neck and squeezing. I kneed him in the gut and forced him onto his back. I pressed harder and his face turned a deep shade of red.

  Someone pulled me off of him. I caught a blow to the face and tasted blood. I waited for the next blow, but instead Caspar grabbed my face. “Watch that wound. Let me know how it looks later,” he wheezed. “No water or food today.”

  When they left, I pushed myself against the wall and closed my eyes, welcoming the darkness again.

  I was being dragged somewhere. I felt weak and hungry, but not in any extreme pain. They placed me on a cold table.

  This was new. Now what?

  “Run the machine,” Caspar ordered.

  Machine? What machine? What were they doing? I didn’t ask though. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. A hum came from below and a strange blue light filled the room and they both disappeared.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Caspar said from somewhere to the far right.

  My eyes darted to him wondering what he had just found.

  “There was a rumor that your father had finally perfected nanites to be used for healing,” he said, almost in awe, as he examined my skin. “It was said that someone close to him had been mortally injured and he had fixed them. It must have been you. You were hurt, almost dead, and your father must have injected you with the nanites. They heal you. Not immediately, but quickly.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but my head was swirling with questions.

  “I’m going to take a sample of your blood.” He pulled out a syringe and jabbed it into my arm and filled the vial.

  “Lorcan, we need to change our methods.” Caspar looked back down at me. “Unless of course, you’re ready to talk.”

  I turned away from him. I knew nothing, but he’d never believe me.

  “Take her.”

  This time I was put in some sort of choke collar, forcing me to stand. I was weak. Beyond exhausted. I no longer cared about anything. I was given only a few sips of water. Hunger pains gripped my stomach. Every time I fell asleep, my body would go slack, causing the collar to choke me, forcing me awake and to my feet once again.

  I still had no answers for them when they came to question me.

  “She’s still weak and tired, so the nanites do nothing for her there,” Caspar said to himself more than anybody else, like he was experimenting on me. “You can still die, you know.”

  My mind wasn’t clear enough to think about what he was saying. I didn’t care. I wished they’d just kill me and get it over with.

  They released the collar and I fell to the floor, too weak to stand. Lorcan grabbed a fistful of my hair, dragged me across the room, and shoved my face into a basin of water and held me under. My lungs burned. After a few seconds, he yanked my head out. I gasped for breath.

  “Answers? No?”

  My head was submerged again. I thrashed, trying to break free. He held me under a bit longer this time, until I started to kick and grab at his hands.

  “Anything?” he asked, once he’d yanked me out.

  I fought against him, but he easily overpowered me and plunged my face into the water again. Water forced its way past lips that I desperately tried to keep shut. It burned as it trickled down my trachea. The fingers in my drenched hair tightened and yanked my head out of the water. I tried to breathe, but all I could do was cough.

  The next dunk was longer and my lungs screamed for air. Be strong. Stay strong. Don’t let them break you. I focused on the betrayal. My hatred. That was what kep
t me from just giving in.

  Two more times he dunked me, and just when I felt myself slipping, Caspar yelled for them to quit.

  “Let her think about this. Tomorrow, we’ll start cutting off fingers or toes, maybe taking some teeth. I suggest, Empress, you think about if protecting this information is worth losing your body parts.”

  Lorcan dragged me over to the wall and locked the chain around my ankle. Wet and exhausted, I succumbed to the darkness quickly.

  Chapter Seven

  Everleigh

  I SAT UP IN BED GASPING for breath. The nightmare had woken me up again. Akacia was falling and I couldn’t catch her. I couldn’t save her.

  “Just a dream,” I said out loud to myself over and over again. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t just a dream. She was out there, with that creep, and I was responsible for that.

  At first, I tried not to let this torment me. I was the commander of the ship. I had made the best decision under those circumstances and I needed to move on. But the weight of the decision crushed me.

  I had to fix this and the only way I could fix it was to kill Caspar.

  My every waking moment was spent thinking up a plan to kill him. It wasn’t going to be easy and I might die doing it, but I had to try. It was the only way to rescue Akacia and keep my people safe. I knew she hated me. I doubted she’d ever forgive me. But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try.

  “This won’t work, Ever,” Huxley said when I pitched a plan. “It won’t work. I know you’re hurting, but we can’t go in there with a half-assed plan like this. We’ll all get killed.”

  “Screw you.”

  Huxley sighed. “Ever—”

  “What if you could rescue her? Kill him later, but rescue her now?” Briar interrupted.

  I looked up at her. “What?”

  “What if we were to take the Artemis, cloaked of course, get close enough to Caspar’s ship and jump. We could grab her and jump back out of there.”

  I stared at her for a minute and then walked to the window. “His ship is ten times the size of ours. How will we know where to jump to?”