Nightchaser

by Amanda Bouchet

  For every step the Overseer backed up, watching me, his gun to Shiori’s head, I took a step forward, Shade at my back. Vaguely, I realized how hard I was breathing. But panting was the only thing keeping me from totally losing it, so I just kept wheezing, my breath like a hurricane in my throat.

  I glanced back only once, drinking in my last sight of Jax and Fiona. “Stay with Fiona,” I told him. She was somehow still conscious, but that was Fiona—tough as nails. “When I’m gone, call Surral.”

  “Don’t go with that man!” Jax pleaded.

  “Goodbye, partner.” This was the end of everything. I wished the Widow had taken us. Then we’d have all gone together. Our choice.

  “Tess…” His voice cracked.

  “Save her, Jax,” I begged. “Live.”

  His face twisted. It broke. He broke, just like I did.

  “Jaxon,” Fiona called weakly.

  I wouldn’t let her slip away when there was still time to save her. I turned and left, walking out on Jax, because that was what I had to do—for him, for Fiona, and for Shiori. Jax and Fiona would be all that was left of us. Maybe they’d start a new family on the Endeavor. She was a good ship, meant to be a home.

  I walked as if in a trance, raw and aching from the pain and shock of sudden loss. I stepped off the ship and moved across the platform toward a smaller craft in the next bay over, following the man who wasn’t actually my father. He never took his eyes off me—or his gun off Shiori’s head.

  The Overseer climbed the ramp onto his cruiser, dragging a limp Shiori as protection against the Grayhawk I still had pointed at him. He held her in the doorway, facing me.

  “Get on,” he snarled. “And drop the gun.”

  “You drop yours,” I answered tonelessly.

  “Drop the gun, girl, or I’ll shoot her in the head.”

  I threw the gun away from me.

  Still behind me, Shade cursed. I wanted to say goodbye to him, to say something, but what was the point? I thought he knew I didn’t hate him anymore, that maybe I never really had, and that maybe I’d had hope for us only a few minutes ago.

  Shade and Bonk and me in the tunnels. It had felt like a new beginning.

  A burning fist gripped my heart and tore. I couldn’t look at Shade. Looking at him would only make things worse.

  I continued toward the Overseer’s ship, barefoot, unarmed, and a blast of color I hoped would sear that drab-loving bastard’s eyes. Life, for however long it lasted, would really suck from now on. I was glad I’d had that night with Shade.

  Shots rang out from behind me on my right. The Overseer darted to the side as half a dozen goons jumped out of his cruiser to defend him. They returned fire, some of them falling, while the Overseer scrambled for cover, a look of pure shock and rage on his face.

  I scooted to the left, away from the line of fire, and turned to see what had made a hint of fear splash across the Overseer’s expression.

  Big Guy stalked forward, picking off the goons with perfect aim and avoiding their shots with a slippery kind of swiftness that defied my vision. His terrifying focus never left the Overseer.

  Shade dove for my gun. He slid onto his side as he grabbed it and picked off two of the goons from the floor of the dock.

  “Novalight,” Big Guy growled. With no more soldiers between them now, Big Guy started running for the Overseer, his inhuman speed eating up the space between them in great, angry gulps. He let out a beast-like bellow.

  Panic flashed in the Overseer’s eyes. He punched his hand down on the door control and then backed away from the huge man racing toward him like a deadly black torpedo. The ramp retracted fast, and Shiori’s shock-blank face suddenly took on life again right before the armored door whooshed shut.

  “Don’t come for me!” she cried. “I forbid it!”

  The sliding panels latched together in the middle mere seconds before Big Guy slammed into the closed door with a snarl. The engine fired up, and a thump of heat drove me back a step and made Big Guy throw himself away from the cruiser. A moment later, the ship took off. As soon as it cleared the dock, the cruiser leaped into warp speed and disappeared from sight, taking Shiori from us.

  I stared after it, heartsick. How could this have happened?

  Big Guy turned to Shade and me. He’d shaved off his beard. He’d also shaved his head. He still looked furious, though not at us.

  “You’re back.” My whole body went heavy and weak, as if I could finally just stop for a moment. Stop and rest.

  Big Guy holstered his gun. “Thought I’d help out.”

  “But…how?” Actually, I didn’t care about the answer right now. I was just glad he was here.

  Shade hauled himself up and limped toward me. He slid his hands into my hair, cradling my head, and kissed me full on the mouth. Then he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in close. His heart pounded against mine, and I stood there, absorbing his comfort and warmth, too devastated to do anything else.

  When he let go of me, sweat dotted his brow. His mouth was a line of pain, and his pallor was suddenly so evident, even under his suntanned skin, that anxiety twisted through me like a lightning snap. The fog pressing in on me disappeared, and my senses roared back online, all of them flashing code red. Shade and Fiona needed help.

  “Come on, Shade. Let’s go sit.”

  He managed a few steps, but it looked as though the adrenaline and fear keeping him going until now had just fizzled out. I tried to steady him, but he sagged too much, and his weight dragged us both down.

  “Shade?” I struggled to keep him on his feet.

  “Just need to rest,” he said.

  Big Guy swooped in and heaved Shade up just as he was slipping from my grasp.

  “Careful of Bonk,” Shade mumbled, and tenderness flooded my chest.

  With fingers that still shook, I unclipped the front straps of Shade’s bag. Poor Bonk. He’d been jostled around so much.

  Big Guy started helping Shade toward the steps of the Endeavor, and the pack slipped from his shoulders and into my hands. I unzipped it and looked inside.

  A groggy Bonk lay curled up on a crumpled brown towel. He slowly turned his head. His eyes were unevenly open, as if one were heavier than the other. He was just waking up from the sedative and looked small and limp and helpless. He let out a croaky meow when he saw me, and a lump swelled in my throat.

  Swallowing it down, I whispered a hello before zipping the bag back up. Bonk probably wouldn’t appreciate being confined now that he was awake, but there was no way I was letting him loose until I was sure he couldn’t run away again.

  I set the Bonk pack down beside Shade on the steps of the Endeavor and then looked at Big Guy. “First aid kit,” I said. “Under the main console on the bridge.” I couldn’t go back in there. Not yet.

  He nodded and went.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told Shade, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

  He nodded without looking up, his head hanging low as he gingerly stretched out his injured leg.

  I went to the nearest com station on the wall. I needed Surral, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember her bracelet code. I knew Mareeka’s, though. She changed it only once a year, to match Surral’s age. I typed in fifty-six and waited for her to answer.

  “Yes?” Mareeka’s voice crashed into me, nearly breaking whatever dams of control I still had in place.

  “It’s Tess.” My voice croaked like Bonk’s. “I need Surral on my dock. Two gunshot wounds.”

  “What!” That was both of them—Surral’s voice coming from slightly farther away, where she probably sat across the dinner table from Mareeka.

  “Not me. Fiona and…someone else.” My next breath shuddered hard in my throat. “And I need a cleaning crew. No children, please. Biological…” I couldn’t bring myself to say waste.


  I fought tears, thinking only of Miko, even though there were also six dead goons on the dock.

  “Surral is getting supplies,” Mareeka said. “I’m on my way.”

  I heard them both curse the temporary security blackout before the channel went dead.

  I moved back to Shade with purposeful, measured strides, trying to regain some of the numbness from before. I needed it, because right now, every word I said was a battle not to scream, and every step I took was a struggle not to run from the future before us all.

  Big Guy handed me the first aid kit, his face reflecting shock and sympathy after what he’d seen on the bridge.

  “Is Fiona still alive?” I asked, not wanting to feel my words as they came out. The question scared me too much. For me. For Jax.

  He nodded. “Unconscious, but breathing. Your first mate looks like he’s about ready to give up on life. Told him you were still with us, and that seemed to help.”

  Us. Had Big Guy joined the crew, then? I hoped so. His presence reassured me somehow.

  I found scissors in the first aid kit and cut off first the makeshift bandage and then the blood-wet leg of Shade’s dark combat pants. “Sorry to ruin your clothes, since you have nothing left.”

  “Got a few spare things in my little cruiser over there.” He tipped his head toward one of the other occupied bays on the dock.

  As I looked, my eyes snagged on some lumpy shapes in a dark, recessed corner. Five Starway 8 sentinels were on the floor, bound, gagged, and what looked like sedated. With the cameras down, Mareeka had posted guards on the open docks. They must have encountered Bridgebane first and maybe known he was somehow connected to the orphanage, so they hadn’t put up a fight. Shade hadn’t been questioned, and the Overseer would have shot to kill.

  “Big Guy? Can you check on those guards over there? Free them and make sure they’re all right?” I asked, pointing to the sentinels.

  Big Guy nodded and jogged off.

  “That’ll fit inside the Endeavor,” I said of Shade’s small ship. It was the two-person craft he’d used to fly me to the beach.

  Shade looked up, something in his eyes melting right into me. “Is that an invite?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I guess so.”

  Where else could he go? The Dark Watch would soon be stalking his place in Albion City, if not torching it to the ground. According to Bridgebane, Shade now had a huge price on his head. And I… I kind of wanted to keep him around.

  “Just don’t hit anything when you’re flying it into the central cargo bay,” I said, souring my voice on purpose.

  Humor briefly touched his lips. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sugar.”

  I snorted softly. “One more sugar, and I’ll punch you in the thigh.”

  “Noted,” Shade said.

  I almost smiled. The impulse died when I realized the bullet had gone in but hadn’t come out. “I’m going to have to dig for it,” I told Shade as I inspected his leg. I didn’t dare try to take care of Fiona. She needed Surral and trained nurses. This, though, I could probably handle myself.

  “Do you know how to do that?” Shade asked.

  I glanced back up. “Does having done it before count?”

  He looked dubious. “Got any numbshot?”

  I shook my head, wishing I could inject him with something to dull the pain, but there was nothing on the Endeavor that would help. “We’re too poor and not well enough connected for that. We grit our teeth through this kind of thing…cupcake.”

  Shade smiled, despite the pain he must have been in.

  “Or you could wait for Surral,” I said. “She’ll probably bring some with her, although she rations it out carefully.”

  “She your doctor here?”

  I nodded. “But she needs to see Fiona first.”

  “How ’bout you take care of me, Tess.” He didn’t ask, exactly. He just said it. And he used my name, which threw me—and filled me with warmth.

  I sprayed his leg clean with a large dose of saline. The wound had almost stopped bleeding, but it started again as soon as I began digging around with a pair of long, sterile tweezers, my fingers gently pulling the hole in his thigh apart.

  Shade bit down hard, his molars grinding. After a moment, he tipped his head back so he wouldn’t look. I wouldn’t have wanted to watch this, either. I didn’t want to. Big Guy returned and then backed up a step, and my stomach turned over at the pull of flesh and the squish of muscle and blood. I saw a flash of bone and grimaced.

  Shade grimaced, too. Often. He was pretty damn stoic otherwise. I finally got the bullet out, and blood gushed from the wound again. I quickly pressed a sterile pad to it, trying to stanch the flow.

  “You all right?” I asked, looking up. My eyes crashed into Shade’s, and my heart gave an unruly thump. Despite the agony hardening his expression, there was something incredibly soft in his gaze.

  He opened his mouth to say something just as Surral raced onto the dock. Mareeka burst out of a different elevator a second later and caught up to her with only a few running steps.

  “What happened?” they frantically asked together.

  “First Bridgebane,” I answered. “And then the Overseer himself.”

  Their eyes widened in shock.

  “But…I don’t understand.” Mareeka looked around in confusion. “Where are the guards?”

  I turned to Big Guy, who answered, “Over there. Sedated, but fine.”

  Both women glanced quickly toward the sentinels, now propped up in a line against the wall.

  “The cameras are going back online now,” Mareeka said. “But we have three hours that are totally dark.” She sounded as though she’d never regretted a decision more in her life.

  “Tell us the situation, Tess,” Surral said with urgency.

  I didn’t want to explain, or to make already horrifying things even more real by saying them out loud, but they couldn’t work efficiently without facts. Neither could the nurses and administrative assistants who’d just followed them onto the platform with rubber gloves and biohazard bags.

  My throat tightened painfully. I had to force down a breath. “Fiona is unconscious on the bridge. Miko is…dead. Shiori was taken in a bid to get me on board the Overseer’s ship, but then Big Guy showed up and chased him off.” I waved a hand toward Big Guy. He needed a name—preferably one that fit the only person I’d ever seen the Overseer fear.

  I glanced at Shade’s leg. “And I need one of those laser healer things to close this up. I already took the bullet out.”

  Surral produced the healing instrument I needed from her medical kit.

  “I can wait,” Shade said. “Go to Fiona first.” He lifted a corner of the sterile pad to look at his thigh. “It’s almost stopped bleeding again.”

  “Who is this?” Surral asked.

  In spite of everything, I felt heat crawl up my neck. “The lying fuckhead,” I answered.

  “Ah” was all she said.

  Shade’s wry smile said he totally deserved that. Which he did.

  Mareeka didn’t ask. She didn’t waste time when she knew she’d get the information later from Surral.

  “I have two.” Surral handed me the medical laser. “Just press the green button until the healing is done. It couldn’t be easier.”

  Shade’s and my thanks fell on her back as she immediately climbed on board the Endeavor to try to help Fiona. Two nurses went with her while two others went to check on the Starway 8 sentinels. Mareeka started to follow Surral, but I stopped her with a hand on her arm. Surral was the doctor, and I needed to warn Mareeka.

  I waited until the administrators had divided themselves between the Endeavor and the downed goons in the next bay over before saying, “I think I’ve put Starway 8 in danger.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “Why do you say that?”r />
  “The Overseer found me here. He’ll think you harbored me. That I come here…” I shook my head. “He could retaliate.”

  “I know who you are, Tess. I’ve known since the day your uncle dropped you off.”

  I stared at her in shock.

  “You keep running from that man, and you let me worry about the rest.”

  “No.” It didn’t work that way. I wasn’t a kid anymore. “I’m responsible for this place.”

  “You aren’t. I am.”

  I drew back, hurt.

  Mareeka softened the verbal blow with a gentle hand on my cheek. “If he decides we harbored you, then destroying us would take away something he could use against you. The Overseer is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. And if Bridgebane doesn’t tell him your true connection to Starway 8, the Overseer might not realize the extent of it. Also, there are thousands of people alive in the galaxy right now with a strong sentimental attachment to this place. Attacking us would have the potential to turn public opinion against him.”

  “And he thrives on adulation.”

  She nodded. “‘Baby Killer’ has a terrible ring to it, doesn’t it?”

  It did. There was a good chance he wouldn’t risk that. The Overseer had gotten away with atrocities in times of war, but we were technically at peace. Nuking the galaxy’s biggest orphanage for no apparent reason would do more than raise eyebrows. It could raise arms against him, especially considering the type of people Mareeka churned out of this place.

  “What about an infection? An epidemic? Something subtle?” I asked.

  “And what would be the point of that?” she asked.

  “To take you from me.” Just like he’d taken Mom. And Miko. And Shiori.

  “If he can’t glory in his accomplishment, it isn’t one. Baby Killer, Tess.” She shook her head. “He won’t do it.”

  “Be careful. Be vigilant,” I said, not quite convinced. I wasn’t sure the Overseer was truly sane, and this line of reasoning required rational thought.