No. It had definitely been a mistake.
So why couldn’t she get her mouth to cooperate and say the words?
“Nothing to say for yourself?” Haldin asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
The clear, windless air around them began to softly swirl and crackle with power, and with it came the stirring of Rachel’s own anger.
“What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry?”
So maybe it had been a mistake. But did Alton really deserve to hear that she thought so? That she was wrong? Could she really bring herself to apologize, even indirectly, to one of the bastards who’d been a part of the murder of her family?
No.
Haldin didn’t back down at the tone of her voice, nor did he look anything but maybe more angry as she began to gather her own power.
Within seconds, the air was whipping around them, buffeting hair and clothes and everything else. Haldin stood poised and unafraid, looking like he had no doubt he could take anything she threw at him and still have enough left to bury her under Pryce’s truck.
Let the son of a bitch try.
“I saw an opening,” she growled. “I took it. Everyone’s still alive, aren’t they?”
“That’s your excuse?” He took a step forward, and a heavy pressure settled over Rachel like a lead blanket. “An opening? That’s what you call trying to sacrifice an ally?”
Rachel channeled the energy, pushed out enough to counter his telekinetic dick-showing, and was just about to push further when one of the windows of Pryce’s living quarters jerked upward and Elise’s raven locks and fair skin appeared in the open window.
“Hal…”
She called the name with only a hint of chiding, but enough to be heard.
Rachel braced herself, half expecting it to simply push Haldin over the edge that much more, but Haldin took a great deep breath, let out a long sigh, and relaxed. Wordlessly, he threw Elise a thumbs-up over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving Rachel.
“Shall we talk, then?” he asked, the hints of a wry smile creeping onto his face.
Rachel let out a long breath of her own and cautiously released the energy she’d gathered back to her surroundings in one last gout of heat and swirling air.
Jesus. That had been close. And as much as she wanted to think she could hold her own in a fight with Haldin or any other arcanist, she sure as hell wasn’t going to lament not finding out for sure right now.
“All right,” she said. “I’m listening.”
He considered her for a stretch, looking like he was debating where to begin. “You wanna know how I first found out about the raknoth?”
She watched him closely, still not quite trusting the sudden change of direction. Finally, she gave a stiff nod. “Sure.”
He rested his elbows against the hood of Pryce’s truck and made a point of studying his fidgeting fingers for a long handful of seconds. Finally, he sighed.
“The first raknoth I ever encountered was parading as the High General of the Legion. That’s our military on Enochia.”
“Shit,” Rachel said.
The raknoth had pulled similar tactics on Earth, but that didn’t really make the charade any less terrifying—especially not after how things had turned out for Earth.
Haldin gave a slow nod of agreement, his eyes focused somewhere in distant memory. “Shit’s right.”
“So when you say you encountered him…”
“We had the good general over for dinner one night. I grew up in a Legion family myself, I should add. My dad was a captain, and I was a tyro, a trainee, at the time.”
Rachel looked down at her feet, suddenly sure she knew where the story was going.
“It wasn’t so unusual, the general dining in with an old friend and a loyal Legion family. But what I didn’t know was that my dad had been privately investigating Kublich—the general, I mean—for months. My mom and I didn’t know what he was up to, only that he was spending a lot of time away from home for what he insisted was work stuff.”
Haldin laced his fingers over the truck hood and shook his head. “Johnny tried to tell me my dad was having an affair, for the love of Alpha.”
“But your dad knew?” Rachel asked. “About the raknoth, I mean.”
He shook his head. “He knew the general had been behaving erratically and was possibly involved in some shady activity. I don’t think my dad had any idea just how right he was until that night.”
Haldin straightened and speared Rachel with a painfully somber gaze. “He killed my parents. Ripped them apart with his bare hands in our living room that night, right in front of me.”
“Jesus,” Rachel whispered. Then, feeling she had to fill the empty silence, “How’d you, uh…”
“Escape? Survive?”
She nodded dumbly.
“A man named Carlisle burst in and saved my life. He’d been investigating the general for months. Lucky he chose that night to sneak on base and have a closer look. He was a Shaper, or, you know”—he waved a hand—“like us. Gifted. Incredibly gifted. I had no idea I was too at the time, but…” He cocked his head. “Well, there’s nothing like losing your family and being blamed and hunted by an entire world order to kick your ass into gear, I guess.”
The rest of the tension bled out of Rachel’s shoulders and back. “I’m sorry, Hal.”
It wasn’t enough, but she wasn’t sure what else to say. “I… Well, you know my story. You know I mean it when I say I can sympathize.”
He nodded. “I know you do. Which is why I’m telling you.”
And just like that, tension began to creep back in.
Here it was—the part where he pointed out that he managed to put his own shit in order, let go of the hate, and do the right thing for the good of everyone, and shame on her for not doing the same.
But this was different, she wanted to insist. This was her family. Her family that’d been destroyed on the whim of Alton’s clan leader. Her mom who’d died afraid and alone to save her, in part because Alton had gone along with it all.
Her mom who’d also tried to wipe the raknoth off the face of the Earth, a small, irritating voice pointed out. Because she couldn’t just forget that part, could she?
As terrible as it was, as unforgivable, she couldn’t completely delude herself into denying that the raknoth coming after her mom had been, in some way, a matter of self-defense—or self-preservation, at least.
If Haldin’s parents had been killed just for his dad poking around too much, could she really say she had any more right to be pissed at the raknoth than he did?
Probably not. And yet here he stood, defending one of them.
What did that say about her? Or him?
He was watching her patiently, awaiting some conclusion.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
He shook his head, looking his true younger age for once. “I really don’t know either. I just know that your world is in serious trouble, and that if we don’t stop them here, mine probably will be too.”
“But…” She looked toward the window Elise had disappeared from, wondering if Alton could hear them right now.
“How do you do it?” she silently sent, careful to make sure it only made it to Haldin and no one else. “How can you look at Alton or any other raknoth and not see your parents dying in front of your eyes again?”
Haldin made something like a flinch and closed his eyes. “I still do, sometimes. And then I remind myself how many more children will lose everything if we’re not strong enough to stop it. I…”
“I didn’t want to work with Alton when he gave himself up back on Enochia,” Haldin said out loud, apparently feeling no need to hide the information from prying ears. “He was a part of some truly horrific atrocities on my planet. Enslaving humans to be used as comatose blood bags, or worse.”
“Worse?”
“They were building an army of human-raknoth hybrids.”
Half-formed images of what such cre
atures might look like passed through her mind, each one more horrifying than the last. And what had become of the human half of the equation?
“Jesus,” she muttered.
“It wasn’t pretty,” Haldin agreed. “For a long time, I thought Alton and his clan were just trying to take over the planet and rebirth a race that had been all but demolished on another planet—a planet called Earth that somehow, impossibly, was halfway across the galaxy and yet home to humans just like us. That was hard enough to wrap my head around to start with. When Carlisle and I finally succeeded in exposing the raknoth to the rest of Enochia, though, Alton came out of hiding and turned himself over to explain what they’d really been trying to build an army for.”
“To take on the rakul,” Rachel said.
“I didn’t believe him, of course. Not at first. Even after he showed me”—Haldin touched the side of his head in reference to the memories of the rakul Alton had shown him and he in turn had shown her—“I still had more than a little doubt. It was all too convenient. And, while it by no means justified what he and his clan did to thousands of innocent Enochians, it painted their actions in a new light—one that was desperate and hopeless rather than pure, baseless evil.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to believe it.”
She knew a thing or two about how that one felt. “But here we are?”
He nodded. “But here we are. And, barring some miraculous intervention by Alpha, God, or any other deity we happened to miss on our way across the galaxy, we’ve got twelve seriously powerful assholes to deal with, and no one but each other to count on. I, uh…” He scratched his head, looking away. “I didn’t mean to go all spirit of vengeance on your ass just then.”
When he lowered his hand, he was wearing a guilty grin. “I promised Elise I’d keep it together. We just need to know we can trust the people at our backs if we’re going to throw down for this planet. And, all things considered, I really hope we can.”
Rachel swallowed a big gulp of dry nothing, warm shame creeping up her neck and onto her face.
He was right, dammit.
“I’ll do my best,” was all she could manage to say.
He nodded as if he understood and hadn’t truly expected anything else and started to turn for Pryce’s shop. “Right, then. Let’s go build some cloaks.”
15
The second time Jarek woke in his sad little medical bed, it wasn’t to Rachel’s caring gaze, but to cold darkness. And he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t sure how he knew it, as his sleep-logged conscious mind struggled to catch up to whatever its sleeping counterpart had detected, but something was wrong.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and listened.
Hushed voices, barely perceptible from out in the hallway. Two men arguing.
Over what?
Jarek opened his eyes and forced himself to let the tension out of his aching muscles and fiery shoulder.
It was almost certainly nothing to do with him. The low disgruntled voices had probably just set off some overly sensitive danger alarm of his sleeping brain. That was it.
Except that didn’t explain why one of the said disgruntled hallway goers pulled open the door to medical one room over and uttered a hissed, “Shut up!” at his friend.
Jarek swallowed and looked around the area by his dim bedside light for options, coldly dismissing the quickening of his heart and the nervous energy that came with it.
It was probably nothing. He sure as hell hoped it was nothing, because if it was anything else, he was screwed. There was nothing to work with, no impromptu weapon to be found, and even if there had been, his shoulder wasn’t in any condition to allow him to fight.
It was probably nothing.
But as the first dark silhouette appeared in the doorway, some deep-seated instinct told him that “nothing” was coming, and it was coming to hurt him. Maybe it was the way the figure paused and gestured back to whoever was behind him. Maybe it was just the vaguely familiar stout bulldog outline.
Well, no reason to lay quiet and wait.
Jarek put on his best top of the morning to you tone. “Mr. Rodgers, as I live and breathe. What brings you here in the creepy-ass dead of night?”
The silhouette had gone rigid at the sound of his voice, but it quickly recovered and prowled toward him. Another figure slipped into the room behind him, and then a third as the leading shadow drew close enough to the dim light for Jarek to see he’d called the leader’s identity correctly.
“We’ve got something to say to you, Slater,” Rodgers the angry bulldog said.
Crap.
He knew that tone—the tone that clearly designated their “something” probably involved a pillowcase and a bar of soap, or, if he was lucky, maybe just good ol’ fashioned fists.
For whatever reason—and there were admittedly plenty to pick from—they had serious beef with him. They had him cornered, trapped, defenseless. He wasn’t going anywhere, and they knew it. But that didn’t mean he had to give them the satisfaction of admitting his insides were turning to cold gravy.
Instead, he tilted his head toward the bedside table that was empty but for a cup of water and the earpiece he’d slipped out for the night. “You can add your get well soons to the pile. Otherwise, maybe you should come back in the morning. Pretty sure we’re outside of visiting hours, and there aren’t enough hours left in the world for the beauty sleep I’m needing.”
Rodgers was close enough in the dim light now for Jarek to make out his cold grin. “You never stop do you?”
Night Raider Number Two drew up beside him, and Jarek recognized the guy who’d damn near zapped him with a stun gun the previous morning.
“Of course he doesn’t,” Stun Gun said. “He’s the fucking Soldier of Charity, didn’t you hear?”
The third guy—tall, thin and leery—Jarek didn’t recognize as he stepped up on Rodgers’ other side, but that hardly mattered now. He didn’t seem interested in adding to the interaction—not in any way that involved words and not fists, at least.
“I might be way off base, guys,” Jarek said, “but I feel like I’m picking up on a little bit of hostility. Anyone care to let me in on what gives?”
“What gives,” Rodgers said, sliding Jarek’s bedside table aside and stepping into unmistakable intimidation territory (and, coincidentally, within handy cock-punching distance of Jarek’s good hand if things went that way), “is that we’ve had enough of your bullshit.”
Jarek suppressed the desire to coil defensively up to the head of the bed as Stun Gun crossed around to his injured side and Leery moved to the foot of the bed.
“Yeah…” Jarek said, fighting the urge to try to watch them all at once and instead focusing solely on Rodgers. “I get a lot of that. You might need to be more specific. Was that the bullshit where I pulled a dozen Resistance fighters out of the shit at the port? Or maybe the part where I faced the strongest raknoth on the planet in single combat so none of you ninnies would have to worry your pretty little—”
The world exploded in a bright dance of swirling stars and pain. As quickly as it blazed into existence, the flare receded to a local throb that informed him Stun Gun had just given him a cold clock on the side of the head.
“Yeah,” came Rodgers’ voice through Jarek’s hazy surroundings, “you’re a real hero of the people.”
“A hero who lords it over the rest of us mere mortals,” Stun Gun said.
“A hero who abandons his post and does whatever the hell he wants without the slightest thought of how it might affect the rest of us,” Rodgers said.
Stun Gun leaned in closer and planted a thumb over Jarek’s shoulder bandages. “A hero who wouldn’t be worth the dirt on our boots without his big fancy exo.”
He could take them, a small voice whispered in the back of Jarek’s mind. Even with one arm out of commission. A sucker punch to Stun Gun’s nose straight into an elbow to Rodgers’ waiting groin. A chest kick for Leery, and then to his feet, where he could administ
er follow-up kicks and knees as required to shut these indignant ass-wipes up for good.
His injured arm might just fall off along the way, but he could do it. He’d won worse fights before, hadn’t he?
Maybe so. But what was the point?
He’d fucked up. He already knew that. Fighting these guys wasn’t going to fix anything. Beating them, assuming he even could, wouldn’t make them wrong.
“Fine.” He plopped his head to the pillow and stared at Rogers, feeling more tired than he could remember having ever felt. “You’re right. Is that what you wanna hear? You’re right about everything. So take your fucking shot. Or don’t. Just get on with it.”
Judging from the look on Rogers’ face, he’d been hoping for a bit more spunk, or fear, or whatever else from Jarek. Whatever disappointment he felt, though, was quickly replaced with cool smugness as he traded a look with his co-conspirators and regained his wobbly confidence.
Rogers grabbed Jarek’s throat and cocked a fist to strike. “You asked for it, hero.”
Jarek watched with an odd mixture of dread, selective apathy, and, as he thought of the ashes of Katashina, maybe just a sprinkle of sick, twisted eagerness.
“The next time you boys decide to pull some harebrained payback bullshit,” came a voice from the doorway, “you might wanna at least check the corners before you go on attacking your own men.”
Alaric. Thank the cowboy gods. But what did he mean, check the corn—
A low growl rumbled in the darkness off to the right. Rodgers’ grip on Jarek tightened for a second. Then a pair of scarlet fiery orbs appeared in the darkness, and Rodgers released him and staggered back with a strangled yelp.
Alaric flipped the switch by the door, and bright light flooded the room, revealing Drogan in a seat against the far wall, watching them with a flat expression under his glowing eyes.
“I’d like to speak to Slater alone if you boys’ll leave us to it.” Alaric stepped aside to clear the doorway for them, looking utterly unperturbed by the scene he’d walked in on.
Jarek’s would-be attackers looked as one from Alaric to Drogan to Jarek and, finally, to one another. Then, by some unspoken agreement, they all scampered for the doorway.
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 69
