The Star Thief (24 page)

She opened the door and peeked out into the hall.

Still empty.

Letting Finn lean heavily on her, she led them down the hall. Her muscles screamed at her to hurry. Capture could be seconds away. But Finn could barely shuffle forward, his breath coming in labored gasps. He wasn’t going to make it much farther if she didn’t do something.

“You turning into a pansy on me?” she growled. “I expected better from a Marine. What, are they letting anyone in now?”

He grunted, then sucked in a sharp breath. “Get moving, Carrizal. I can keep up.”

“I don’t believe you. Move your ass, soldier.” She forced herself to pick up the pace, dragging him along with her, even though Finn’s sallow face looked like he was about to pass out. She spotted the door at the end of the corridor. If she could get him through it and outside, the
Athena
could come for them.

They reached the door, and she propped Finn against the wall. She swiped the dead merc’s keycard through the lock, but it didn’t so much as blink, let alone open. “Dammit,” she muttered. Maybe whoever owned this facility didn’t want their people coming or going either.

A few frantic hacks later, the door finally slid open, and she pulled Finn into a small elevator. He swayed on his feet, and she shoved her shoulder more firmly under his. “Buck up, soldier. We’re almost there.”

Her stomach lodged somewhere in her throat as the metal box shot upward.

“Stay here,” she said when it stopped and the doors slid open. She slipped from under his arm and leaned him against the wall, but Finn didn’t answer. Renna’s heart jack-knifed. This was not good at all.

She crept forward into another one of those strange little rooms that looked empty. But she knew better. There was a door here. She just had to find it.

“Scan for imperfections,” she ordered. Her implant returned a faint rectangular outline glowing against the image of the wall. “Oh, thank the stars.”

As she searched, another smaller outline appeared. The keypad.

Renna glanced back at Finn, who was still propped against the elevator wall. His eyes were closed, and air whistled from his lungs with every breath. His skin had turned the color of a dead Ileth—gray and green. She swallowed, tasting the bitter acid coating the back of her throat, and turned back to the wall. How the hell did she get the keypad to appear?

She ran a finger along the wall where her implant said the controls were. It felt perfectly smooth, but by the tingling in her fingertips, she knew something else was there. Her fingers traced it again, searching for anything that would give her a clue. Then her implant beeped softly in her ear.

“Class C electronic device recognized.” Something whirred in the wall, and the keypad rose to the surface, the material sliding off of it like water. Whatever her implant had done, she could have kissed it. A moment later, she’d hacked the door open. The wall here reacted the same way as the material on the keypad, flowing back from the center of the space like a bathtub draining until there was a square door. And beyond it, the dun-colored sand of Banos Prime.

She hurried back to Finn. “Let’s get you out of here,” she muttered, slipping her arms around his waist. He groaned but barely opened his eyes.

His lack of response was like a nanospanner to the heart.

Renna and Finn slipped out into the cold, dry air. “Contact the
Athena
,” she ordered. She had no idea how much time had passed while they were in the facility.
Please let them still be on the planet.

And then she froze. Two of the mechs she’d seen in the crates stood guard in front of them. The machines turned stiffly to face the escapees, their round eyes glowing red.

“Warning. Intruders detected. Please hold while you are scanned for compliance.”

Oh shit. Renna whipped out her gun and shot the first one in the head. It erupted in a blaze of sparks and metal, a bloodcurdling scream ripping from its mouth as it went down.

The second mech’s hands melted, then each hand reformed into a blaster rifle. It raised the gun at them, but Renna was faster. Her bullet hit directly between the mech’s eyes. The machine froze, then exploded, sending shrapnel flying.

Renna’s skin crawled at the long, wavering, almost-human scream it gave before collapsing. She covered Finn’s body with hers and turned away from the blast. Shit. Shit. Shit. That noise would have alerted every merc on the planet.

They needed to get out of there. Now.

TWENTY-ONE

“
Athena
, this is Renna Carrizal. Are you there? We need an extraction ASAP.”

She forced Finn to start moving toward the rock out-cropping where they’d left Keva and Doyle earlier. She hauled his dead weight as best she could, her muscles quaking in protest. She slipped on a patch of sand, and Finn groaned.

“Finn, you need to tell me what’s wrong. Where does it hurt?”

He shook his head. “Everywhere. But it doesn’t matter. We need to find someplace to hide until the
Athena
comes.”

She risked a glance at his pale skin. They weren’t going to get much farther with him in this shape. He was going into shock. She tried calling the ship again, her voice catching at the words. “
Athena
, this is Renna Carrizal. We need you at our location ASAP. Captain Finn is injured.”

Static.

Renna shifted Finn’s weight so she could help him up to the outcropping. By the time they’d made it, he was gasping and trembling in her arms.

“Need rest,” he whispered haltingly, casting a glance back at the facility. They were still too close for her comfort, but they wouldn’t make it much farther if he didn’t take a break.

She helped him down to the sand, letting him lean back against the rocks. Finn closed his eyes, and his head fell back as if the effort to keep it up was just too great.

Her pulse felt like a living thing inside her, clawing to get out. She needed to keep moving or the panic would take over. “I’m going to see if I can hail the
Athena
from that pile of rocks over there. I won’t be far.”

He didn’t respond. After another long stare, she turned and jogged away through the sandy soil. When she’d gone far enough that she couldn’t see the facility anymore, she tried again.

“
Athena
. Do you hear me?”

Static crackled in her ear. And then a voice. “Renna! Where the hell are you?” Keva demanded.

Renna let out a shaky laugh. “Thank gods. Keva, we’re at the outcropping. I know you can’t bring the ship that close, but you have to send the shuttle. Finn’s hurt. Badly.”

“We’ll be there ASAP. Hang on.”

“I’m going back to Finn. I’ll keep an eye out for you. Just get your ass moving.”

“Got it. See you soon, Carrizal.” The woman’s voice held the hint of a smile.

Renna hurried back to Finn and dropped to her knees beside him. He hadn’t moved at all, his head still leaning back at an awkward angle against the rock.

“Dammit.” He was injured badly, and she needed to see what was going on. Her fingers trembled as she pushed aside his jacket and shirt. This time when she sucked in a breath, it wasn’t at the sight of his washboard abs, but at the dark bruise spreading across his ribcage. She wasn’t a doctor, but she’d bet her last credit he was bleeding internally.

“No fair,” Finn said with a weak smile. “It was your turn to show me a scar. Or could you just not keep your hands off me?”

She brushed a lock of hair away from his forehead. Dear gods, he was so cold. “Just sizing up the competition. I wanted to make sure my scars were more impressive than yours.”

He chuckled, then winced and clutched his side. “How bad is it? I’m afraid to look.”

Her lips thinned. If she were hurt, she’d want the truth. “I think ‘fist-of-steel’ may have crushed something, and you’re probably bleeding somewhere internally. We need to get you to a hospital.”

“Probably a good idea.” He coughed, and a trickle of blood dribbled from the corner of his lips. “Where’s the
Athena
?”

“Keva is on her way. We’ll get you somewhere safe and get you taken care of. Promise.”

He nodded. “Go to Lenue. There’s a MYTH outpost there. They can help. Code word: Prometheus.” His eyes drifted shut, and she touched his shoulder.

“Stay with me, Finn.”

He nodded again but didn’t open his eyes. “Tell me about your scar.”

“Only if you stay awake.” She swallowed back the burn of tears when he opened his blue eyes and nodded.

“Deal.” He reached up and touched the scar running from her ear to her jaw, and her skin erupted in goose bumps. His hand fell heavily back to his side. “Tell me.”

She sat back, leaning against the rock beside him. “I grew up on Old-Earth. In New York City. Never knew my dad, though Mom said he was military. After she had me and he left, she…lost herself. Lost her job first, lost our apartment next. When I was five, something changed. She came into some money. Bought a place in the East Village. Started seeing these strange men every night. But we had food on the table again, and I had clothes to wear to school.”

“East Village? Isn’t that…?”

Renna nodded and clenched her fists together in her lap. “Where the prostitute slums are. She’d become an escort. She was making good money, too, until one of her Johns decided he didn’t just want to screw her, he wanted to destroy her. Luckily one of the service owners was in the building and saved her, but he scarred her pretty face. After that, no one wanted to hire her. We got kicked out of our apartment, but she still had friends in the business. They hooked her up with a new pimp.”

She stared down at her hands. She’d never talked about her childhood before. Wasn’t sure she wanted to tell anyone about it, let alone this man. He already knew she was damaged. Now he’d know how badly

“Must have been hard for a kid your age,” he said softly. “How old were you?”

“I was seven when we moved to the tenement. The ladies there became surrogate mothers to me. Took care of me when Mom was…busy. Showed me how to cook and clean and dress myself. They were so kind. Even some of their boyfriends looked out for me. Mom had a few regulars, too. One of them showed me how to pick locks. Another taught me how to shoot. We lived in a dangerous area. Kids had to learn to take care of themselves.”

“Especially girls, I imagine. And pretty girls at that.”

Her lips curved into a wobbly smile, but she shook her head. “You never would have known I was pretty, with greasy, ratty hair and my face covered in dirt. It probably saved my life, though.” She sobered, stared out at the desert, not seeing the sand, only the cramped room where her mother had tried to raise her, the tiny bed tucked into the closet that was her room. She’d hated it there. Had spent as little time in that apartment as she could. She and the other kids in the block had run roughshod over the neighborhood. They’d been her real family.

Finn squeezed her hand and didn’t let go. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”

“No. It’s just a memory I thought I’d forgotten.” She swallowed before continuing. “My mom, like most of the prostitutes who worked in the East Village, was addicted to clay. All of them used it before a visit. After a visit. Whenever they felt low. Most of the women kept it to a minimum as it could affect their performance, but Mom didn’t care. And when she was on it…she wasn’t herself.”

Tightness built in her chest until it was hard to breathe, but she made herself continue. “I walked in on her shooting up with one of her Johns, and she lost it. I don’t know if it was a bad batch or I startled her or what, but she went into a frenzy, screaming and throwing things around. The John got out of there as fast as he could, so Mom took the rest of it out on me.”

Renna’s voice shook, and she cleared her throat. “She didn’t know what she was doing. Honestly, I believe that now. But she grabbed a knife from the kitchen. She was screaming about how she wouldn’t let me grow up to become her. That I’d be better off dead. And before I knew what she was going to do, she tried to slit my throat.”

A gust of wind caught her words, and they drifted out into the cold air of Banos Prime like a wisp of memory. Finn’s hand was still in hers, and he stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. She was grateful he didn’t say anything.

“One of the other ladies heard the screaming and got me away from her before she could do anything more than cut me, but we couldn’t afford to go to the hospital, so she patched me up the best she could and let me stay with her for the next few days. Mom eventually came down from the drug and tried to apologize, but I didn’t want anything to do with her. I spent the next three years learning everything I could to get the hell out of there.”

“How old were you?”

“I was ten when she attacked me. I hopped a ship when I was thirteen and landed on Antibes Prime. That’s where I met you and Blur. Never saw my mom again.”

Well, not that Renna would admit. She’d looked her up once, last year, to see if the woman was alive. She was. Renna didn’t need to know anything more.

“I’m sorry. I remember how messed up you were when Blur found you out outside the warehouse. We weren’t sure if you were entirely sane for the first few months.”