Chapter 8
The two women sat across from each other like feral cats, tense and silent.
The bruising around Wraith’s neck was already purple and brutal. Spook sported a black eye.
They hadn’t said a single word in the ten minutes since they’d sat down at a small table down a crooked alleyway behind the arena. A silent man with a pronounced limp had brought them tea before disappearing.
Spook’s eyes shifted to Kael, narrowing.
“Does he need to be here?”
Wraith turned her head to him, “Do you?”
He looked from one to the other. Finally picked up his cup of tea and shifted to the table on the other side of the door. He could hear them perfectly from here. And they’d say more with the illusion of privacy.
“How are you still alive?”
Spook’s voice was soft, almost awed.
Wraith smiled. “You always told me I was too mean to die.”
“And I stand by that, but seriously. How? Because I’ve got to tell you, Ash, you look like shit.”
Wraith shrugged. “Five years in a small box on a floating prison rig isn’t great for the complexion.”
Rina looked at her, wide eyed.
Wraith was glad that she was the one facing Golden Boy and not Rina. She was sure he was noting every word despite his affected indifference.
“How?”
Wraith gave a half shrug, “Blast wave, darkness, box. You’re the first friendly face I’ve seen since they sprung me a month ago.”
“Is that why you’re working with SID?”
Wraith leaned around to look at Helios, “You see,” she told him, “I told you it was obvious.” He looked up and glared.
She turned back to Rina.
“They Tethered me.”
She said it softly, confession and death sentence.
Rina’s eyes filled with horror. Her eyes slid to the side, indicating Helios behind her.
Wraith nodded.
Rina’s fist clenched, knuckles white beneath old scars.
“So, why are you here, Wraith?”
“Golden Boy, here, wants us to put the band back together,” she jerked a chin towards him.
“I’m strictly pay as you go these days.”
“And it looks good on you. The others?” She couldn’t stop herself asking.
Rina shrugged, “In the wind.”
She met Rina’s gaze. “Alive?” she mouthed.
Another shrug. Then, “You sucker punched me.”
“I did.”
Rina smiled, “I’ve missed you, Ash.”
She stood and pulled Wraith into a rough hug. “Stay strong,” she whispered.
Then flung Wraith backward. Right at Helios.
Kael chased Spook, but the split-second head start she’d gotten throwing Wraith was turning into an insurmountable lead. He had the speed, but she knew the city. And she was using it to her advantage, ducking into side alleys and collapsing crates and other debris to slow him down.
He couldn’t hear Wraith’s footsteps anymore. If she didn’t catch up soon, he’d have to go back to her. If he got too far away, the Tether would finish the job Spook tried to start.
A rapid pivot into a blind alley and he ran straight into a fist.
Dropped like a stone.
Wraith had held back when the Major took off after Rina. She was pretty sure a couple of her ribs were broken, so even if she had been inclined to follow Helios’s instruction to “Keep up!”, she wouldn’t have been able to.
What she was doing was a risk. A big risk.
But she had to know whether the Tether was real.
Better to know now, while she could still—hopefully—recover.
How far was too far? It had been almost ten minutes. That would put him, what, a kilometer away given the Folly’s penchant for twisting alleys instead of streets.
The buzzing came first, then the pressure behind her eyes. And then the pain—sharp, blinding, like her skull was trying to split itself open from the inside out.
Shit. Not good.
Tether activation. It was a warning, and not particularly subtle. She didn’t have much time.
Wraith pulled herself to her feet. Hobbled as best she could in the direction the Major had gone.
Swearing the air blue the entire way.
Wraith lay with her eyes closed on the med table. The fight had taken more out of her than she’d let on, and she practically collapsed when they got back on board the Styx.
Kael had already regained consciousness by the time she reached him, which had taken a surprisingly long time.
He’d been sitting at the entrance to the alley, blinking away disorientation. She’d taken one look at him, rolled her eyes and set off towards the space port. Limping more obviously with every step.
Looking at the MedScreen now, he could see why.
“Intercranial bruising, internal bleeding, three fractured ribs, and a partially crushed windpipe.”
These weren’t the sort of injuries you just shrugged off, they were the kind that killed you. And it made him fucking furious.
He grabbed her jaw roughly and pulled her head to face him. Her eyes popped open, and she grabbed his wrist, but he used his other hand to press down on the pressure point on her shoulder to make her release him.
“Next time,” he told her through gritted teeth, “you say something before you collapse.”
“Next time,” she muttered. “Can’t wait.” She closed her eyes, shutting him out.
The white walls and sterile surroundings of the MedBay were a stark contrast to the sensory assault of The Folly.
“We should be out there tracking down Spook. Instead I’m here, trying to make sure my new asset doesn’t die on me.”
He thought he saw a flicker of reaction, a slight twitch of closed eyes. Guilt wormed its way through the worry and rage.
“We wouldn’t have found her. Not if she didn’t want to be found.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word on that?”
A half shrug, “That’s your call, Major. But it’s true regardless.”
He clenched his jaw as the diagnostic table completed its intervention protocol, beeped loudly.
“This is going to hurt,” he warned her.
Another shrug.
“I can give you a pain killer. Or knock you out. Your call.”
“Is it?” she asked. “Or are you just giving me the illusion of choice?”
Cold fury settled on him. He tapped the start button and turned to leave, “You change your mind, you call. That enough choice for you?”
The Major was right. It hurt like hell. And she would be damned before she called him for help.
Well. More damned than usual, at any rate.
The pain in her body was nothing compared to the emotional overload of seeing Rina again. Of finding out that the others were possibly, even probably still alive.
Until she’d seen Rina, she hadn’t actually let herself believe.
A few minutes. That’s all they’d had together. It would have to be enough.
She had little doubt that this current assignment would kill her, one way or another, but her sister lived. And for now, was free. Not Tethered to the system that had tried its damnedest to kill her.
Pain thrummed through her like she was holding a live wire. Her back arched and she gritted her teeth.
She would not cry out. She would not give the bastard the satisfaction. Below his nice-guy demeanor was the stone-cold asshole that held her leash. She couldn’t let herself forget that.
She groaned as pain spiked again, clenched her fists. Tried to sink below the pain, barely noticing as the door slid open.
“You’re a stubborn idiot, you know that?”
Helios’s voice was ice. The fire from earlier extinguished.
There was a rush of cool through her and the pain subsided.
“Any fool can be uncomfortable,” he muttered as he left.
Bastard.