He looked up at her as droplets of water from her hair landed on his bare chest. Her thin black top clung to her skin. She tugged on the leather cord around her neck. At the bottom there was a small black pendant flecked in gold. She dangled it from her finger. It was too dark to see at first.
Then he realized what it was.
“You kept it all this time?”
“Of course,” she said.
It was his family ring, the one he’d given her as a thank-you for saving his life. Perhaps even as a child he’d known how much Izzy would mean to him, despite how long it would be until they saw each other again.
“Why?”
“At first it was to remember you and the life we had once. For a little while I thought I was giving it back to you.”
He touched her chin and guided her gaze back to his. “I’ve been here all day, Izzy. I don’t think you want to return it after all.”
“Maybe I’m a hopeless romantic deep, deep, deep down.”
“Deep down.”
“You want it?” she asked, a challenge in her voice.
He reached for it, but she held it over her head. Then she jumped back into the pool of water. He watched her swim away, her body graceful as she made for the other side. He was a fast swimmer, and he knew he could catch up to her. But it wasn’t the ring he wanted back; it was Izzy.
As he stood to dive in, something grabbed him and yanked him into the shadows. The skin of a calloused palm slapped over his mouth and cut off his warning to Izzy. He felt the barrel of a blaster against his temple. A man with blue hair stepped in front of him and his attacker.
“We weren’t finished,” said Damar.
Perhaps Jules hadn’t lied after all. The water, once she returned to it, was perfect. It welcomed her like an embrace. She could feel how old everything around her was, the natural archways below where fish gathered. The night was darker, but there was light in the water. She didn’t believe in magic, but as she swam to the other side of the cenote, she knew that at least she believed in herself. She had to trust her gut just as her parents had taught her. The galaxy would still be in flux, but she could be a better version of herself. All those impulses she’d had to help others, she could do that, and her day on Batuu proved it. Her mind felt clearer than it had in so long.
When she swam to the surface, she was still smiling. She looked up at the stars and felt something like hope.
“Jules?” she asked. He wasn’t in the water, and he wasn’t where they had been sitting before. The tree-lined path they’d taken to get there was clear. She suddenly knew something was wrong; she could feel it.
“You really shouldn’t leave this thing lying around,” Damar said, stepping from the shadows of a boulder holding her blaster.
Her body flashed hot and she struggled to stay afloat at the sight of him. It was only rage that fueled her enough to swim to the edge and pull herself out. She felt bare, her clothes gone. Everything was gone.
“Where is Jules?” she snarled.
“I always liked this weapon,” Damar said. “Your mother modified it, didn’t she? It always shot true. Or it was supposed to.”
“Damar,” she said again. “What are you doing?”
He stepped toward her, something wild in his gray eyes. He was stripped down to his open-necked tunic and dark pants, his blue hair in disarray. She’d never seen it that way before. He never even woke with it that way. The family ring he always wore was gone. Izzy had never seen him so desperate, either, not even when they were cornered once in a hangar during a job he’d bungled by setting off an alarm. Then, she’d been afraid of the panicked look in his eyes. She’d been afraid that he was going to leave her behind to take the fall. If she hadn’t shot their attackers fast enough, he might have.
His strange gray eyes seemed to catch the moonlight. “You should have listened, Izzy.”
“I did listen!” she shouted. “Ana Tolla and I had a deal.”
She looked around her. She could make for the caves, but then she’d be leaving Jules alone with Ana Tolla’s crew. There were rocks strewn around, but the ones big enough to do any damage were just out of her reach. He would shoot her before she had a chance. Though she was sure he needed her enough not to hurt her, it didn’t change the fact that they had Jules.
“Go,” Damar said. When she didn’t move, he shouted, “If you want your farm boy alive, you’re going to move!”
Izzy put her hands up. Humiliation rippled through her as she walked barefoot in her underwear across the dewy grass. She cursed herself for letting her guard down. She cursed Damar for ever coming into her life. If they hurt Jules—what? What could she possibly do? All her thoughts of helping and selflessness went out the window. All she wanted was to fight. But she kept walking, retracing the steps she’d just taken, when he shoved the blaster into her wet spine.
“Believe me, nothing would have made me happier than to find someone else for this job. But the locals here are a lot harder to bribe than we thought they’d be. It’s a good thing we found your friend.”
Friend? The salt on her tongue tasted sour. There was a speeder stationed directly beside Jules’s. The sky was cloudless, and both moons illuminated them in silver light: Delta Jeet and Jules.
A dark smirk tugged at Delta’s lips. She didn’t know what a fool she was being played for. She had a blaster aimed at Jules. He was bound and gagged, but he lunged forward when he saw Izzy with Damar.
A red blast shot at Jules’s feet, and Delta screamed.
“That was a warning, Jules,” Damar said. “Don’t be a hero.”
“You almost hit me,” Delta hissed.
“I can aim,” Damar snapped, shoving Izzy forward.
“I want to talk to Ana Tolla,” Izzy said. “Make a deal.”
Damar shook his head. His usually perfect coif was damp. What had happened throughout the day to make him so desperate? People did terrible things when they felt there was no way out, no choice. She could almost hear what Jules would say to that. He’d say that everyone had a choice. That was the sort of person he was.
She wanted to assure Jules that everything would be fine, but she worried her eyes only contained an unshakable fear.
“You had your chance, Izzy. We need the farm boy for the job. You’re just insurance.”
Damar pointed, directing her to stand face to face with Jules. Delta clipped her wrists with magnetic cuffs. “But first, Ana sends a thank-you gift.”
He pulled out a holodisk and held it on his palm.
“Stop,” Izzy said, a strangled sob erupting from the back of her throat.
“Why do you care about what happens to him?” Damar asked. “You told me you hated this place. That you had nothing but bad memories.”
Jules glanced up then, hurt in his eyes. Even Delta, who was still pointing a blaster at Jules, grimaced. Izzy shook her head. She had said that to Damar once. But she had been referring to her mother’s frequent absences and the terrible, vivid memory of the day they left.
“You were only half listening, Damar.”
“I know you well enough,” he said. “Like how you’re stalling. I’m starting to think this simple farm boy doesn’t know you at all. The real you that you don’t want anyone else to see. But he’s about to find out.”
Her heart sped up. She knew even before Damar hit play what would be on that disk. Izzy watched Jules’s features harden as he stared at the holo image of her. It was from when she had been with Ana Tolla outside of Cookie’s. Why hadn’t she considered that she’d been baited?
“That farm boy you were with. What’s his story?” Ana asked.
Izzy watched the expression of disgust she’d made. “He’s just a stupid farm boy who’s never going to get off this rock. He’s no one.”
There was a moment when the image flickered and no one moved. Wind moved the willowy leaves. She could feel how hard and frantic her pulse was.
“Jules—” she started.
But he was no
t looking at her. The tension drained from his shoulders, and he stared at the ground. He was giving up on her. How could he do that so quickly?
She turned her attention back to Damar. “Why are you doing this?”
“I told you. We need your boy. I can’t have him wanting to do anything noble for you. But maybe he’s changed his mind now that he knows how you truly feel. What do you have to say for yourself, farm boy?” Damar asked, still holding the blaster—her blaster—at her back. Delta pulled the gag down from his mouth.
Izzy stepped forward, hands bound. She had nothing with her but the necklace, a relic. The happiness had ebbed away, replaced with helpless anger. There were no stars, no light, no hope. She wanted to say his name, but her words wouldn’t form.
“You know I didn’t mean it,” she finally said. “I wanted her to stay away from you.”
Jules chuckled and shook his head. Why couldn’t he just look at her and see that she was telling the truth? Only he could tell when she was lying. When he finally turned to her, she saw the same intensity as when they fought near the farm right before she’d kissed him.
“Lying is a skill,” he said. “Go home, Izzy. Take your things and go.”
He’d quoted her. She wasn’t sure if that meant he believed her or if he was just calling her a liar.
She shut her eyes and cursed Ana Tolla, herself, everything and everyone. If she lost Jules she—She didn’t let herself finish the thought.
“Unfortunately for you,” Damar said, “Ana likes her toys a little broken before she uses them. Delta, if I don’t arrive safely, you have permission to shoot her.”
She couldn’t see Jules’s face as he climbed into his speeder. Delta shoved Izzy into the second speeder, and they took off side by side.
“That’s not going to work,” Damar told Jules.
As they’d darted down the moonlit road, farther away from the Outpost, Jules had kept trying, and failing, to break free of his bindings. They were magnetized. At least he’d been able to push down the foul-tasting strip of cloth they’d used to gag him.
“You’re new here, pal,” Jules said. “Maybe you should save yourself the trouble because you’re not going to get away with this.”
“I think we already have,” Damar said.
Jules wanted to bash the creep’s face with his metal cuffs. Then he could drive back to the Outpost to get help. But he thought of what Damar had threatened them with. Delta would be angry enough with Izzy to hurt her; of that he was certain.
He wished he’d been paying more attention back at the cenote. They’d been so close to getting through the day.
“What’s that?” Damar asked, moving the wheel from side to side as he tried to regain control of the speeder.
Despite being half naked, freezing from the saltwater drying on his skin, and bound, Jules laughed as his baby, his speeder, came crawling to a stop.
“Don’t worry,” Jules said. “It does this. You have to hit the dash a bit.”
Delta’s speeder slowed to a stop beside them. “What’s happening?”
The blue-haired creep was trying to hit the dash, but he’d clearly never hit anything before. The lights flickered on and his smile brightened before it went dead again.
“Go ahead of us,” Damar ordered. “Tell Ana that we’re on our way.”
Jules took that moment to catch Izzy’s eye. She was clearly terrified. Worst of all, she seemed to have believed his act. They were fools if they thought that was going to be enough to scare him away from her. Didn’t she know that he could tell? Whatever reason she had for saying those things, he believed her. He believed she had to do everything in her power to get help or get away.
But as she wrenched her eyes from his, he wondered if it was enough or if they were both doomed.
Pulsing pain shredded her temples from the tension. Regret was bitter on her tongue. She groaned into a night that did not acknowledge her struggle.
“Quiet!” Delta shouted, clapping a hand on Izzy’s shoulder to keep her in the passenger seat.
“Delta, why are you doing this?” Izzy asked.
“Ana Tolka, or whatever her name is,” she said, “offered me a boon. I get a thousand credits to track you two down and I get to kill you for what you did to me.”
“Really though?”
“Which part?”
“I get that at this point you’d kill me for free,” Izzy said, though she hated that her life was worth so little. “I’m sorry that I stunned you. But I had to get that parcel. People needed it for survival.”
Delta shrugged. “Everyone needs something.”
“I know,” Izzy said, bringing her bound hands to her chest. “But how are you going to spend your thousand credits when you’re being fed to Dok’s dianoga? Or worse, Oga might eat you herself.”
Delta shook her head. “No. This job is sanctioned by Oga—”
“Oh yeah? What’s the job?”
Delta frowned.
Izzy could already see how it had played out. “Let me guess. Ana approached you. Paid you half. Asked you to find Jules and me. Then gave you just enough detail to make you feel like you were part of the crew. I bet Lita even shared her sweets with you.”
“You’re trying to trick me,” Delta growled, but she gripped the wheel tighter.
Izzy nearly beamed when she saw Jules’s retrofitted speeder powered down up ahead. He wasn’t looking at her, but he seemed to be enjoying Damar’s lackluster attempts to get the speeder started again.
When Damar waved them forward, Izzy seized the opportunity to reason with Delta. Self-preservation was the best motivator she’d ever encountered.
“You’re telling me that Oga doesn’t know Ana is working a job here?” Delta asked.
“Have you ever been summoned to Oga’s office?” Izzy paused to let the woman consider this. “Because I have. I know for a fact that Oga is trying to find the woman sniffing around her outpost trying to cut Oga out of a deal.”
Delta didn’t need to know that Oga didn’t know what Ana Tolla looked like. Izzy just needed to make her see that Ana was using her.
“They said it was an easy score over at Kat Saka’s,” Delta said.
It was too dark to see exactly where they were, but they had to be approaching the farm soon. She needed Delta to keep driving.
“Why would Oga hurt her own pocket?” Izzy said, desperate. Reasoning with Delta now was the only way she wouldn’t be outnumbered later. “I’ve been where you are. Ana got me for weeks, and part of me fell for it. But they abandoned me. They’re not going to want to cut into their profits for you.”
Izzy stopped to breathe. She was leaning so close to Delta that she shoved Izzy back to her side of the cockpit. “The only way we live is if we get help, right now.”
“You know what? Fine. I’d rather Ana kill us, because if she doesn’t Oga Garra will,” Delta said. “Who’s going to help us?”
“Oga,” Izzy said.
Delta shook her head. “We wouldn’t get past her guards.”
Izzy thought that perhaps she might. But it didn’t matter; she needed someone who would prioritize saving Jules first.
Izzy got an idea. “Where would Volt be this time of night?”
“Hold on tight,” Delta said, and Izzy’s entire body slammed against the seat as they zoomed toward Black Spire Outpost.
All Jules’s humor vanished when the speeder powered up again. He was really going to have to rip it apart to figure out what was wrong. But first he had to get through the next few hours alive.
They drove with the live broadcast from Oga’s Cantina blasting from the speakers. Jules’s gut turned with every swerve.
“Where did you learn to drive?” Jules asked.
Damar made a face. “My chauffeur taught me.”
“Great,” he muttered.
“Why do I get under your skin, farm boy?” Damar asked. A punchable grin split his angular face. “Is it because Izzy was with me for awhile?”
What had his father said? The overconfident farmer doesn’t yield enough harvest for a drought? He couldn’t remember the exact words, and Damar was not a farmer, by the look of his delicate hands, but he was overconfident. Jules was bigger and stronger, and he could get the jump on him. He could save Izzy and set things right.
Jules raised his elbow and slammed it into Damar’s eye. He grabbed Izzy’s blaster from Damar’s lap, leaning into the swerve of the speeder. Damar winced and cried out, but kept one hand on the wheel.
“Get out of my ride,” Jules said.
Damar had the nerve to laugh. “You didn’t think we’d do this without extra insurance, did you?”
Jules’s body flashed hot. He tentatively lowered the blaster.
Damar retrieved the holodisk again and pressed a button. Jules recognized the unconscious farmer immediately. Belen. He’d never seen his sister slumped like that before. Her wrists and ankles were bound. What would she do when she woke? She would fight and get herself hurt. He couldn’t allow that.
“Now,” Damar said, “I’ll take the blaster. Sit.”
Jules clenched his fists all the way to Kat Saka’s farm.
“You don’t happen to have my clothes, do you?” Izzy asked. “Not to mention the key to these?”
“You’re already asking for too many things when you should be happy I spared your life.” Reluctantly, Delta removed a cube and pressed it to the top of the magnetic cuffs. They fell to Izzy’s lap, and she swept them aside. Her clothes had been shoved into the foot of the cockpit. They were damp and smelled of hangar grease, but at least she wasn’t half naked anymore.
She closed her eyes against the wind and thought of those perfect moments kissing Jules in the cenote. There were times when she was on a job and the only things guiding her were food and fuel. She was aimless in a galaxy she’d never live enough years to explore, but that was not going to stop her from trying to find her way. Now she had something guiding her. Whether he forgave her or not, she had to save Jules. If nothing else went her way, she would hold on to those moments with him.
A Crash of Fate Page 19
