by Dena Christy
"Thank you." Rone took a cloth and put it on the wound at her side. The wounds location was where Cheria had her chip and he could see parts of it were still attached to her while other parts of it hung free. It hit him the the force of a blow to the gut that the machine had tried to cut the chip from her body.
She let out a whimper as she looked down at her wound. Wes made a triumphant noise and hurried toward them with the key in his hand. He picked up Cheria's locked wrists and inserted the key first into one cuff and then the other.
As the restrains fell away, tears fell down Cheria's cheeks and a sob escaped her. Rone wished for a moment that he could tear the machine apart, piece by piece, but that would not help her.
With gentle hands he pulled her into his arms and stood, cradling her against his body. He strode toward the door of the kitchen.
"What do you want us to do with it?"
Rone looked at Wes. "I don't care what you do with it, as long as it disappears and does not resurrect to come after her again."
He turned away and walked down the hall toward the stairs. He carried his woman up them and went into the bedroom where only the night before they'd made their plans to escape.
"He knew about the chip. Knew that it was embedded." Her voice was strained and he knew that the best thing for her right now was for her to be quiet while they waited for medical help to arrive.
"I know. We will unravel what it means later. For now, you need to rest and conserve your strength." He laid her gently on the bed and she cried out when he moved his hands out from under her body.
She turned her head and her eyes widened, as if she was seeing him for the first time since he'd burst in through the door.
"You're bleeding. He hurt you." She moved as if she was going to sit up, and he put a gentle hand on her shoulder to keep her still. His wound was insignificant, and she was more important.
"It is a flesh wound. I have suffered worse. What is important is that you lie quiet until medical help can arrive." He moved away from her and she made a noise of distress.
"Don't leave me."
"I have no intention of leaving you." It would take an army of warriors to tear him away from her in this moment. He'd come too close to losing her to voluntarily walk away from her for any reason.
He moved to the other side of the room where she had a chair placed by the window. He picked it up and moved with it back over to the bed. He took her hand and held it while they waited for medical help to arrive.
"I am sorry I was not here. I am sorry I left you alone and vulnerable." He would understand if she asked him to rescind his pledge of protection. It had been a foolish mistake, leaving her here by herself while he booked passage on the ship. But they'd both thought they were safe here, that they were hidden well enough that the android would not find them.
"It's not your fault. We both agreed that I would stay here. Neither of us had any idea that he was so close." She shifted and a grimace crossed her face. "You got here in time. You killed it."
And that thought was the only reason he was able to forgive himself. And a chill came over him when he thought of what he might have found had he been at the port any longer. The idea of finding her cold, dead body in the house would be one that would haunt his nightmares for many nights to come.
Chapter 23
Cheria opened her eyes and blinked in the darkened room. Her mind was blank for a moment as she fought to remember where she was and what had happened. She shifted, and pain lanced through her side and it all came rushing back in a flood.
The android had found them, he had cut her and attempted to pry out the chip. She squeezed her eyes shut as she remembered the agony of it. The doctor who'd tended to her had finished removing everything, although his work was much more gentle than the android's had been. When he'd finished stitching the wound, he'd told her that she was going to be left with a scar.
The thought of a scar did not bother her. It would be a reminder to her of how dangerous her obsession with money had gotten. It was an obsession she never wanted to revisit.
But where was Rone? He'd said that he would not leave her but he was not in the bedroom. She heard the low rumble of male voices coming from downstairs and the need to see him, to reassure herself that he truly had come through the fight relatively unscathed, forced her to move.
She shifted over, and a soft whimper escaped her when pain stabbed at her side. Her wound hurt, but it was not enough to keep her from him. She needed Rone. She needed to see him, to touch him and to feel his arms around her. He was more than her lover, he was the one who'd put himself at risk to save her. No one had ever done anything like that for her before. And it only reaffirmed for her that she had made the right decision to put her trust in him. And after what had happened earlier, those whom she trusted just got fewer.
Moving over to the side of the bed, she put her feet on the floor. The floor was cold, and she sat like that for a few minutes. She remembered that after he'd patched her up, the doctor had said he would give her something to help her sleep. Her head still felt a little fuzzy as a result, but reality was rapidly returning. And she needed to see Rone, because she had to finish telling him what she'd realized as soon as the android had told her he knew the chip was embedded.
She stood up and swayed for a moment. Holding still, she fought the temporary dizziness that rushed through her, and once she was sure she could move without falling, she took a step forward.
Moving slowly, like someone who was unsure if their next step would lead them forward or straight down to the floor, she made it to the bedroom door. She pulled it open, and the sound of murmuring male voices came to her again, and she recognized the deep rumble of Rone's voice along with that of Wes.
She remembered that Wes had come to aid them in the aftermath of the android attack, and she was grateful that she'd chosen to come back here to hide. How foolish she'd been when she was young, when she'd been so eager to leave this place behind. What she had not realized until now was that this place had been a community, that the people here looked out for each other. It was too bad that she hadn't been able to see it until now.
She slowly made her way down the stairs and when a step creaked halfway down, Rone turned his head to glance up at her. He moved quickly away from where he and Wes were talking by the door and came to stand at the foot of the stairs.
"What are you doing up? The doctor said you would sleep for the night."
"I woke up and you weren't in the room so I came looking for you." She moved down the steps a little more until she was near the bottom. He reached out and put his hand on her uninjured side and she put her hands on his shoulders. "What's going on?"
"I was just helping Rone fix the door. I'll leave you two to get on with the rest of your night." Wes looked up at her and she smiled at him. "I'm glad you're still with us."
"So am I. And thanks for looking out for me."
Wes nodded and walked out of the house, closing the door behind him. Rone moved away from her for a moment so he could make sure the door was secure and once he was satisfied, he came back to her.
"The doctor said rest was the best medicine for you." With gentle hands Rone turned her so she was pointed in the direction she'd come from. The stairs were too narrow for them to go up side by side, so she slowly made her way back up in front of him. His hand rested on the small of her back, and something inside her relaxed at little at his touch.
Once she was back in the bedroom, she moved toward the bed as a tiredness that was bone deep went through her. So much had happened that day, and she had a feeling that more was to come. The android might be destroyed but the one who'd commanded its was still out there. And she knew who it was.
She climbed into the bed as a feeling of anger, tinged with sadness came over her. At first she had not wanted to believe it, but the more she replayed her confrontation with the android, the more it made sense who had been behind it all.
She shifted over when she hear
d a rustle of clothing, and then bed dipped when Rone climbed in the bed beside her. She reached for him, ignoring the twinge of pain in her side. Touching him, feeling close to him was more important than the ache in her side.
She put her hand on his arm and her fingers encountered the edges of a bandage.
"Your wound, I forgot that he'd hurt you too." She remembered the android had slashed his arm after he'd freed her from the leg of the table.
"As I said earlier, it is only a flesh wound. The doctor stitched it and it will be another scar to add to the ones I already have. I would gladly have lost the arm if that was what it took to save you."
Cheria's lower lip trembled for a moment at his words. "I'm glad it didn't come to that. I like having both your arms around me."
"And I like putting them around you." He tucked her close to his side with his large hand on her waist, being careful to avoid her wound. "Sleep now. You need to rest."
Sleep would not be forestalled for long, but she needed to talk to him first. They needed to work out what they were going to do because the danger to them had not been eliminated with the destruction of the android.
"I know who did it. Who sent the android after us, who issued the bounty and who was ultimately responsible for the murders." And a part of her didn't want to believe it, but it was the only answer that made sense. It broke her heart to think of it.
His hand tightened for a second.
"Who?" The growl in his voice promised retribution to whoever was ultimately responsible.
"Remy." Saying it out loud made it feel so much worse. While the identity of the one responsible had been in her head, it hadn't seemed real. But saying it out loud made it a fact. Made it undeniable.
Rone lay silently beside her and she waited for him to absorb what she'd said. He did not know Remy, would not know just how deeply she felt his betrayal, but he would know that the knowledge would be disturbing to her.
"How do you know?" His hand moved in a soothing circled, from her waist down to her hip and back up again.
"It was the android that gave him away, although I suppose it didn't realize that it had. I should have realized it when we saw the machine on the surveillance footage at the Kestral Hotel in Bano Iberi. The alias I used there was one Remy knew and if he’d been alerted to its use, he could have sent his machine there. But what makes me believe he’s responsible is what happened when the Android came here. It knew about the chip. Knew it was embedded and knew where it was. It found us here, and it knew the code that would unlock the door. There is only one other person besides you and I that knew where on my body the chip was located and also knew the code for the door. That person is Remy. When I talked to him, he was keen to know where I was and was angry when I wouldn't tell him. He must have seen something in the background during the video chat that told him I was here. I was still working for him when I bought this place, and he knew the code for the door. He sent the android here to hurt me."
That was what made the betrayal so painful. She'd trusted Remy, had thought of him as a surrogate parent. Had he cared about her at all or had he only been using her when he'd taken her under his wing and led her into the life of a courier?
"What are we going to do about it?"
"I don't know. I want to find out why. What was on that chip that made it worth it to him to send a machine to cut it from my body." She didn't fool herself into thinking that was all the machine had been sent to do. Despite the android's words of reassurance that he had not been sent to kill her, she knew that was a lie the android had been told to tell her.
Remy knew that she was not stupid, knew that she would piece together who it was that was responsible for sending the android as soon as he cut the chip from her. She was certain Remy did not want the chip with the incriminating information on it to be found on her body when the authorities found her, and so needed it cut from her. Why the android had chosen to cut the chip out before he killed her she didn't know. Perhaps it was something as simple as the order of the instructions given to him which he followed to the letter. It didn't matter because those minutes that he'd taken to cut out the chip had given Rone enough time to come home and save her.
"We'll call Landis tomorrow. Hopefully he will have decrypted the information. For now, there is nothing we can do but rest."
Cheria closed her eyes. She thought sleep would prove elusive but with all she'd been through today, along with the warm, soothing presence of the man next to her, sleep claimed her in a matter of moments.
* * *
Rone looked at Cheria, who slept beside him, and for what had to be the hundredth time since the aftermath of the previous day, sent up a prayer of thanks to Thonax. She was alive and whole beside him, and the love he felt for her flooded his body.
A frown pulled his brow together when he recalled what she'd told him last night. She believe that her old mentor, Remy, had been the one behind everything. He had no reason to doubt her, but the question remained what to do about it.
Their ship was scheduled to leave in two days, and they would have to make a decision. If dealing with Remy was going to take longer than that, they would have to decide if they were going to postpone moving on with their new life until Remy found justice.
She stirred beside him and he saw her wince just before her eyes opened. A deep anger burned inside him over what had been done to her. If she was right about Remy, and he had no reason to believe that she wasn't, then the man had a lot to atone for.
Her eyes drifted open and in them he could see what he had not been able to last night when she'd revealed what she knew to be true. Despite the smile that crossed her face, there was a deep hurt in her blue eyes that Rone would do anything to make go away. The way to do that would be first to find out why.
"We will call Landis first thing." The last time they'd spoken to him, Landis had been confident that he could break the encryption. With a little luck, he would have done it by now.
The hurt in her eyes deepened as she nodded her head, and he knew that a part of her wanted to deny the truth. He moved forward so he could kiss her on the mouth. Her lips clung to his as she put her small hand on his waist. He pulled back and looked into her eyes.
"Whatever the cause, it is better to know the truth of it. Once we know, we will decide what to do." He reached up and smoothed his hand down her cheek.
"I know. I just wish it wasn't him."
Rone kissed her one more time and moved away. He got up out of bed and turned to help her out as well. His wounded arm was stiff and sore, and he was used to injury. She was not, and he saw her wincing as she got up out of bed. She smiled up at him gratefully as he helped her to her feet.
It didn't take long for them to do what was necessary to face the day. They met up in the kitchen and sat side by side as Cheria lifted the lid of the computer. A pop up blinked in the corner, and when she expanded it, Rone saw that they'd missed three calls from Landis yesterday evening. Neither of them had been in proximity to hear the alert coming from the computer to notify them of Landis' call. Rone hoped that it meant that Landis had decrypted the information.
Cheria opened up the video conference program, and put the call through to Landis. When Landis' face came on the screen, Rone could see relief written on it.
"I have been out of my mind worrying about you. I tried calling you three times last night and you didn't answer. It was only Cale being his usual reasonable self that talked me out of coming down there to see if you were still alive. What the hell happened?"
"The android found us. He was here to retrieve my chip and Rone killed it." Cheria looked over at him and there was gratitude on her face. Rone reached out and took her hand, raising it to his lips.
"We killed it."
"That's good news. I have some more good news. I have unlocked the file, and have taken a look through it. From what I've been able to glean so far, I can understand why someone would kill to keep it under wraps."
Cheria gripped Rone's
hand. He knew that she was preparing herself to find out why four people had been murdered, why a machine had been sent to mutilate her and had tried to kill him.
"Is there any information contained in the file about a Remington Hane?"
Surprise crossed Landis' face. "How did you know? He's at the center of it."
"It doesn't matter how I know. Just tell us what this is all about."
Rone could see pain in every line of Cheria's body, and he put his arm around her and tucked her close to him. He could not imagine how she must be feeling right now, knowing that what she suspected was true. The man who'd been her mentor, who she'd looked up to like a father, had betrayed her.
"It's all about Scatha. We were on the right track when we were hunting down the corporation that issued the bounty. Remington Hane is a man of varied interests but the most damning one was the food company. He was CEO when they were offered the government contract to supply the food to the penal colony."
"Wait. He was a CEO?" Surprise was written on Cheria's face.
"Yes. Why does that shock you?"
"Let's just say that I know him, but apparently not as well as I thought." Cheria glanced over at Rone. "I always thought he was a handler, but what better way for a CEO to obtain a competitors secrets than by running your own information theft ring."
Her mouth gave a bitter twist and Rone squeezed her hand. There was little comfort he could offer her right now as she learned just how much her former mentor had used her.
"Does anyone want to tell me what's going on?"
Landis drew their attention back to the screen and Cheria shook her head.
"It's nothing. Please tell us the rest."
"Well apparently there was another government contract issued at the same time. A very secret one. It seems the old regime was very interested in germ warfare, and the prisoners on Scatha were the test subjects for a monstrous experiment. Hane was paid a lot of money to allow a deadly cocktail that was cooked up in a government lab to be added to the meals shipped to Scatha."
