Redek Read online

  There was no point in wondering if she was going to fall in love with him anymore.

  It was already too late.

  It had already happened.

  "What happens to us now?" she asked, completely ignoring the important matters. She couldn't imagine being around him and feeling like this and not being able to act on it.

  He tucked her hair behind her ears, and said, "I've stolen you away from a powerful man with all the money in the universe. Seeing if we can manage a relationship doesn't seem like a very big risk anymore."

  She beamed, and kissed him deeply, losing herself in this happiness she’d never felt before. Nothing had ever fit into place like this in her life. There’d been happy moments, but there’d always been the confines of the compound and the watchful eye of Damien looming over her. Here, flying away from her old life, her heart was ready to burst out of her chest.

  She’d deal with the fact all of this was being said in the heat of the moment when the adrenaline and relief were still running high later, when doubts started knocking on the door.

  She rested her head against his chest again. “Really, though, what are we going to do now? We’re going to be running forever. Your job…”

  He stiffened for a moment at the mention of his job, and ignored it when he replied, “We have to find somewhere to refuel and see a mechanic about any kind of tracking device in the ship. I know someone who won’t ask too many questions at the edge of the solar system. We can think about what to do after that when we’re definitely not being tracked anywhere. We might even swap ships if he has something. Find something more comfortable.”

  “Sounds good to me.” The ship she’d chosen had been built for speed, and there wasn’t even a bed. It was meant for short distances, and the fuel tank wasn’t up for a multiple solar system chase. She left the topic of his job alone, ignoring the possibility that the resentment he was inevitably going to feel would tear them apart. “What did you want to do with my information? You know I’ll be in just as much trouble. I was the one hacking into their computers. It was illegal.”

  “They’ll make an exception for your circumstances. I’m sure.” He didn’t sound entirely sure, though.

  So devoid of real contact with the outside world, Maddie had always read the news. She loved knowing what was happening in the universe, even if she couldn’t engage with it. She knew the limits and the reputation of the Intergalactic Union. All their criminal investigations were reserved for things that interrupted with fair trade within the universe, and Damien’s crimes fell within that umbrella.

  If they went to the IU, they would snatch her hand off for the information.

  But she’d been the one to make it all happen. She’d been committing a crime, too.

  They might lock her away when she’d only just escaped confinement.

  “You really think they’ll make an exception?”

  “Yes.”

  She couldn’t blame him for saying it. If she didn’t hand over the information, they’d have no choice but to be on the run for the rest of their lives. Maddie thought being on the run and seeing the entire universe would be something she could cope with, but it wasn’t fair to put that life on Redek, too. Not when he’d given up everything for her.

  She hoped that, at some point, the nagging guilt would subside and she’d be able to enjoy the fact he was there; that he’d made that choice for her.

  8.

  REDEK

  Redek managed a nonchalant face as he landed in front of his old acquaintance’s garage-cum-scrapyard.

  Kreen might not ask too many questions, but that didn’t mean Redek wanted to make it obvious how much trouble he was in.

  Kreen raised an eyebrow when he strolled out of the hangar in front of them. “Redek,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you ever again. Not after what happened to Mirx.”

  Mirx had been his charge a few years back. He’d been a gang leader, and had ended up being arrested by the IU for running a cartel. Suytov Securities wasn’t interested in the reputation of its clients, all it cared about was money. Redek had worked for some unsavory characters over the years.

  “I can’t say I expected to ever see you again, either.” He clapped Kreen on the shoulder, well aware of the way Maddie was staring around the new surroundings like a blind person suddenly able to see.

  The planet they’d landed on was nothing special. In fact, it was barren. Aside from Kreen’s hangar and junk heap, there was nothing but tundra. Redek couldn’t feel the cold through his thick skin, but he realized Maddie had wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. He removed his coat and put it around her shoulders, dwarfing her.

  “Thanks,” she said through chattering teeth.

  Kreen, body covered in burnt orange fur, wouldn’t feel the cold at all. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for a ship. No questions asked.”

  “I’m going to have to ask a few questions.” He glanced at Maddie. “But we can do them inside. I can put the heater on.”

  Redek wrapped his arms around her shoulders, loving the way she immediately relaxed against his side, and guided her inside. In his office, he grabbed a chair and put it in front of the heater for her.

  Then, he leveled with Kreen. “I need something fast with a decent fuel tank on it.”

  “Like that thing you’ve just parked outside my business, you mean?” The man folded his arms, staring Redek down. He wasn’t a fool.

  “I need one that doesn’t have the logo of the people I’m running away from smeared all over it.”

  “Does it have a tracker?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “It shouldn’t,” Maddie chipped in. She seemed to flinch as she spoke. “I’m pretty sure it’s part of his personal fleet, and he doesn’t like the possibility of being followed. That’s why I picked it. I can’t guarantee anything, though.”

  Kreen nodded. “Then I’ll take it. It won’t take me long to find and destroy a tracker if there is one there, but I’m sending you down the river if whoever owns it comes looking for me. I hope you realize that.”

  “Of course,” Redek said.

  “I have some options for you, but they’re not great. Nothing like that thing out front.”

  “I’ll take a look at what you’ve got.”

  Viewing the three ships Kreen had on offer didn’t take long. He had no idea whether he could really trust the guy, but he had no other options. Using Damien’s ship was riskier.

  “This one will do,” he said. It was another small ship, but this one had a bedroom at least, and a large enough fuel tank to get them to the other side of the next solar system before refueling. As long as Kreen wasn’t selling him a faulty ship, they’d be as safe as they could be in it. “How much did you want?”

  “The ship out front is more than enough for this thing. I’ll warn you I haven’t run it in a while.”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  He ushered a still shivering Maddie onto the ship, wondering where her excitement had disappeared to. Her eyebrows were pinched, and she stared at her feet. He didn’t have time to ask her right now, though. The longer they stayed on the planet, the bigger the chance of them getting caught.

  He clapped Kreen’s shoulder once more. “Thank you.”

  Then they were on their way. The ship started without issue, and he checked the map of the next solar system over to see if he recognized anywhere they could stop and contact someone from the IU.

  When he set their course to a small planet he knew a colleague had worked on for at least a decade, he turned in his chair to where Maddie was still huddled in his jacket. Her eyes were watering. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. My scar hurts.” She moved her hand to her back and flinched badly, screwing her eyes up and tears falling. “It really hurts.”

  “Let me look.”

  Redek’s heart pounded a mile a minute. They were trapped aboard this little spaceship running a
way from the richest man in the galaxy and she was in pain. If it was something beyond his ability to fix, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  She stood up, bracing herself on the arms of the chair and shrugging out of his jacket. He pushed the edge of her shirt up, and swore. “Fuck.” There was a flashing blue light beneath her skin, and the scar was raised. It was like the device had enlarged and come to life.

  It hadn’t been a scar from an attack, it had been a scar from an insertion.

  Her nightmare didn’t seem so random after all.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a tracking device in your back. I need to get it out.” He wanted to beat around the bush and tell her gently, but they didn’t have time. Damien knew where they were, and he was coming for them. He’d comfort her when they weren’t being hunted.

  “What?” she squeaked. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s something flashing blue beneath your scar. I think it’s a tracking device. I need to get it out.”

  He grabbed his bag from the floor of the ship and pull out a knife and his small first aid kit, swallowing down bile.

  “How?”

  His grip tightened on the knife. “I have to cut it out.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I don’t have a choice.” He rifled through his bag for something that might dull the pain. He had some headache tablets, but they weren’t very strong. “Do you have anything to drink?”

  She shook her head.

  He rummaged around the ship quickly, checking every crevice to see if whichever unsavory character Kreen had bought the ship from had left anything behind. In a loose panel beside the bed he found a cheap bottle of liquor that claimed it had a fifty percent alcohol content. “Chug some of this.” He gave it to her.

  She slumped back down in the seat and flinched when her back rubbed against the chair. She looked at the bottle questionably.

  “I don’t have time,” he urged, wanting to be patient, knowing he was being unfair, but unable to wait any longer.

  He could see everything that would happen if they were caught as clear as day. Redek would be killed on-site. There wouldn’t be any hesitation there. Maddie would be taken back to the compound and put under even stricter lock and key. She’d never have even an ounce of freedom again. And that was only if Damien didn’t just kill her right away, too.

  He had to get this thing out of her.

  Maddie looked at him long and hard, and must have seen the panic etched all over his face, because she pulled the cork out of the top of the bottle and took a long swig.

  She coughed, putting her hand to her mouth as though she was about to throw up. “Oh my God,” she muttered, looking at the faded label. “This is vile. I think it might have gone bad.”

  “Drink more,” Redek urged, considering taking a few swigs himself to calm his nerves. He’d done first aid before. He’d done worse than this before. But he’d never hurt someone he cared about, even if it was something that needed to be done. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to go through with it.

  His kit was practically medieval, too. He didn’t have any of the technology like in a hospital that could have sealed her wound the moment he’d retrieved the tracker. He was going to have to sew her back up.

  Maddie did as she was told, forcing down multiple more mouthfuls before she shook her head and put the bottle down. “I’m really going to throw up if I drink anymore.” She was pale and shaking, whether from the pain or the drink, he wasn’t sure. “Just get it over with. I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s going to hurt.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  “Lay on the floor. I don’t know where else to do it.”

  She stood up, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Don’t worry about hurting me. I’ve apparently survived this once before.”

  She lay on the cold metal floor of the ship, cheek to the ground and facing away from him.

  He knelt beside her, pulled her shirt up, and doused his equipment with the alcohol, the knife, a pair of tweezers, and the needle he was going to stitch her back up with. Then he took a deep breath, and he cut her.

  Maddie cried out the moment the knife split her skin, but now that he’d started, Redek’s hand didn’t wobble. He picked the device out with the tweezers, and hesitated only a second before beginning to stitch her up. He wanted to crush the thing immediately beneath his boot, but Maddie was barely managing to keep still through the pain. She was silent now, and he was glad he couldn’t see her face.

  The device hadn’t been as big as the scar, and the cut wasn’t as deep or big as he’d thought it would need to be, but he still had to sew seven stitches into her back. When he cut the thread, his shoulders slumped. “Are you okay?” his voice was hoarse, and he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

  There was no reply from Maddie, though, and Redek’s stomach clenched. “Maddie?”

  All thoughts of getting her to stand up so he could wrap a bandage around her middle disappeared, and he knelt beside her, pushing her hair out of her face. She was out cold.

  “Shit,” he muttered, hands really shaking now. He lifted her to his chest bridal style and carried her through the ship to the single bed. He had to lie her on her stomach, afraid touching the wound on her back would make it worse. The pain must have been unbearable. He just hoped he hadn’t sent her into shock.

  As much as he wanted to sit, cradle her head in his hands, he was forced to walk back and pick up the tracking device he’d extracted from her back. It was still covered in her blood, flashing blue through the red liquid. He put it back on the floor and stamped on it multiple times with his boot, until the flashing stopped. Then he put it out of the airlock, watching it float into the vacuum of space.

  All being well, it would be the last thing they ever saw that had come from Damien.

  With Maddie lying unconscious on the bed, though, Redek wasn’t optimistic they were even going to make it to another planet.

  He changed course, paranoid that Damien would have figured out their intended destination based on their trajectory, and instead headed for Lyskar, a bigger planet notorious for its lawlessness. They’d definitely be able to find fuel there, maybe even trade ships again, and there would be no police force Damien could have tipped off. He didn’t know if it was the right thing to do, but he had to make a split second decision, and that was it.

  Course changed, he hurried back to Maddie.

  Perching on the edge of the bed, he did his best to wrap the bandage around her wound. It wasn’t bleeding much thanks to his makeshift stitches, but he figured the bandage couldn’t hurt. When it was done, he ran his fingers through her hair and closed his eyes, unable to look at her sleeping face. Maybe he’d been wrong.

  Maybe this wasn’t better than life on the compound.

  He might have convinced her to throw the life of luxury and safety she had away, and for nothing.

  9.

  MADDIE

  Maddie tried to lift her hand, but nothing happened.

  A woman she’d never seen before stood in front of her, a bowl of candy in her hand.

  At least, Maddie didn’t think she’d ever seen the woman before. She thought back to her years on the compound, her years of scouring the Net, and nothing rang a bell.

  But there was something familiar about her.

  “You can only have one,” the woman said, holding down the bowl of candy so it was at Maddie’s eye level. It wasn’t until now that Maddie realized how tall the woman was. Maddie barely came up past her knee.

  Maddie, without having told her body to move, reached out and grabbed two wrapped candies from the bowl. She felt her mouth grin, even though she hadn’t told it to.

  “I said one,” the woman said, shaking her head, but smiling not frowning. “That means none tomorrow, you know!”

  “But, mom.”

  Maddie’s mind recoiled at the words which had just left her mouth, but her body didn’t move. It wa
s a memory, she realized. She was remembering her mom.

  She’d never been able to remember anything about her mom, even though she’d been nearly six when the accident happened.

  She wanted to reach out and touch her, to hold her hand and give her a hug, but she had no control of the small body she was in. She just had to watch it play out.

  “But nothing. You know the deal. One candy a night after you’ve eaten your vegetables.”

  There was a knock on the door. “That must be your dad,” her mom said, fluffing her a hair a little and walking toward the door. “His work emergency must have been shorter than he thought it was going to be.”

  Maddie recognized the man on the other side of the door, though.

  It was the man she’d thought was like her dad for years.

  “Hi,” Maddie’s mom said, sounding confused. “Can I help?”

  Damien stuck out a hand. “I’m Joseph Kerr,” he said. “I hope I haven’t come at a bad time.”

  That was wrong. Damien had said he was friends with her parents, so why was he calling himself a different name and acting like they’d never even met before?

  Her mom’s face broke out into a grin. “Oh, Joseph. It’s wonderful to finally meet you,” she replied, shaking Damien’s hand with enthusiasm. “Please, come in.”

  He stepped over the threshold and two bodyguards followed behind him.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked, flitting about the kitchen.

  Damien nodded, his face relaxed in a pleasant smile.

  A shiver ran up her spine, though, when her mom turned around to open the fridge and she saw his face change in an instant to a focused, dark look.

  He wasn’t a friend.

  Her mom kept talking, not expecting anything. “When do you think you’ll hear back about the application to the school?” she asked. “I still can’t believe you’re doing this for us. It means so much. She’s special, I know it.”

  "I'm sure I should hear back tomorrow. It was a last-minute application and the term starts soon. That's what I came to ask you about, actually. I'm certain that the application will be successful. I thought that maybe you'd want to go shopping for some things for her, when she starts school. There's no obligation, of course—"