“Where are we going?” Jack asked Oden as they took the stairs two at a time.
“Back to the pleasure district,” Oden replied.
They swiped their transit cards and took the first train, not worrying about its destination. At the next station, they got off and examined the map, charting a course through three train lines. It took them nearly two hours to reach the pleasure district, despite the speed of the light-rail trains.
At last they climbed off the last train.
“Now, Oden, where exactly will Bit be?” demanded Jack, tired of Oden’s hedging.
Oden cleared his throat. “She’s going to the Carnal Cave. It’s a…”
“I know what it is,” growled Jack. “The question is how does Bit know about it?”
“It’s where our sources work.”
“More importantly, what does her message mean? More than a friend?” asked Calen, his voice sounding only partially like he was joking.
“None of your business,” Oden said, his cheeks turning red again.
Jack scratched at the growth on his chin. “Fine, but for the record I don’t much like you taking Bit to a strip club.”
“For the record, Captain, I didn’t either. But she was insistent on helping you, and you know Bit, once she has her mind set on something…”
Jack raised his hand, forestalling further excuses. “I think we should get something clear, and I will repeat this to the entire crew: Bit is a member of the ship’s crew. You outrank her. If you said it was too dangerous, or whatever, that should have been the end of the discussion. You let her manipulate you, and that shouldn’t have happened. She is a crew member, not a guest on this ship. Got that?”
The muscles in Oden’s neck flexed as he worked to control his anger. Jack stared back at him, waiting for his pilot to respond—either to subside under his authority or to argue. Finally, Oden nodded.
“Understood, sir.”
“You’re not the first of the crew to fall prey to her skills, Oden,” Jack said, consoling Oden’s pride.
“We’ll have to find a way to use her skills,” Randal said, speaking for the first time.
“I’m not sure how a transport ship will use such skills,” Jack replied as he started to walk away from the train station.
“I’m not sure if you can call it a transport ship anymore,” replied Randal.
Chapter Thirty
Bit stood in the shadows of an alleyway, watching the entrance of the Carnal Cave. She didn’t see any signs of Oden or the others, nor did she have any idea if they had gotten her message, much less if Oden would translate it correctly. Bit tried to silence her fears. There was so much that could go wrong with her plan.
She didn’t even know if she should try to go inside or stay hidden in the alleyway. Technically speaking, she had kissed Oden inside the strip club, but outside would provide a better chance of escape if something went wrong. Then again, Blaine or Mr. Windbreaker was more likely to find her waiting in an alley than inside the club.
Bit shook her head, trying to dispel the questions tumbling inside her mind. Truth was, she had no idea what to do, and the numerous possibilities and there even more numerous ramifications were eating away at her. Bit had never been an indecisive person, but she also had never been kidnapped and held by her own friend, suddenly turned psychotic.
Turned away from the sight of the shuttered strip club, she leaned her head against the wall of the dark alleyway and closed her eyes, fear and pain making it impossible for her to come to any conclusion. A feeling, more than any sound, brought her back to alertness.
She jerked her eyes open and glanced up and down the alleyway. The sun was already starting its downward trek, and the insane height of the buildings meant the alleyway was plunged into deep shadows. She tried to make out shapes farther down the long stretch of darkness toward the fenced-off end of the alleyway, looking for any movement, but everything look foreboding.
Bit’s stomach began to twist with new fears. She turned back to examine the strip club again. The doors opened and two workers came out to begin setting up for the night’s crowds. Bit took the all-important step out of shadows when a hand came down on her mouth while another wrapped around her waist, dragging her back.
Bit tried to scream, but the hand blocked the sound. What little escaped was drowned out by the rumble of a ground-level car rumbling down the road. The hands jerked her back farther into the darkness of the alleyway and her mind froze, panic taking over.
She couldn’t think beyond the terror coursing through her veins. Her heart raced inside her chest, pounding against her broken ribs until she thought she’d scream for pain, never mind screaming for fear. Her attacker continued to drag her back into the bowels of the alley, giving her time to settle her mind.
Slowly, the panic receded and clarity returned. She tried to wrench her face free of the hand to get a glimpse of her attacker. It could be any number of people—Blaine, Mr. Windbreaker, the man who had tortured Reese, some random mugger. But the man was too strong and held her head firmly against his shoulder. Instead, she placed one fist inside the palm of her other hand and used the power of both arms to drive her elbow into the man’s ribs while simultaneously trying to slam the heel of her boot onto his toes. Her aim wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.
He grunted and loosened his grip on her body. Bit jerked herself free from his arms, grinding her teeth against the pain in her ribs. She had other bruises that hurt too, but nothing in comparison with her two broken ribs.
She spun on quick feet and found herself face to face with Mr. Windbreaker.
“What do you want with me?” she demanded as she scuttled backwards, trying to find something in the alleyway to topple in between them.
“Mr. Asseltine wants you back,” sneered the man in a voice thick with the same accent of her past employer.
A cold sweat beaded across her forehead and drenched her pits. More sweat trickled down her back until it pooled against her belt. Her breathing came in shallow gasps and her vision began to darken from the outside in.
It couldn’t be. Her past employer hated her. She had the scars and poorly-healed bones to prove it. They had all hated and despised her, until Calen came along and whisked her away to the Lenore. On the Lenore she wasn’t exactly safe—not with pirates attacking and half the crew falling for her—but at least she was valued.
In a sudden moment of clarity, Bit realized the hard truth. It wasn’t a perfect life being one of the crew, but it was a hell of a lot better than the one she had had back on Earth, and, no matter how bad it got, she was better off with Jack and his crew.
“I’m not going back,” she said to the frightening man in the windbreaker. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
“You belong to Mr. Asseltine.”
“My debt is the property of Calen Macleaf. Not Mr. Asseltine. You’ve wasted your time and your employer’s money coming all this way. Legally, I do not work for him anymore, and you are beyond your rights to try and take me.”
“Mr. Asseltine doesn’t care about legality anymore,” Mr. Windbreaker said, a fresh sneer spreading his lips into a thin line.
“Half of my crew is just around the corner. You have no hope of getting more than a block with me,” she said, resorting to all-out lies.
“Ha! No, they’re not. Last I saw them they were a couple hundred kilometers south of here making tracks into Ascraeus District while faithful old Blaine kidnapped you, just as I had planned.”
“You planned? You poisoned Blaine?” Bit asked, suddenly all thought of fleeing gone. “Why would you do that?”
Mr. Windbreaker smirked. “Because he was the most smitten with you. His mind was the easiest to manipulate into doing something crazy, like taking you away from the safety of your friends, and it worked like a charm. Now, be a good little girl and come with me. I’d hate for you to…”
Bit didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. She bolted. The fire in her ribs flared back to life, engulfing
her core in pain until she could barely breathe, but she continued to pound her feet against the pavement. She reached the entrance of the alleyway when a hand grabbed the back of her jacket and yanked her backwards, pulling her off her feet.
She fell back, landing on the pavement with a hard thud. Bit gasped, the air knocked out of her lungs. Before she could remember how to breathe again, the man flipped her over onto her chest, sending more pain stabbing into her chest. Bit blinked back a wash of blinding tears as he jerked her arms behind her back. He wrapped something around them, quickly binding them together until the blood could barely flow to her fingers.
Despite her best efforts, Bit whimpered.
The man was just beginning to pull on her arms, presumably to drag her to her feet, when something barreled into him, taking him to the ground and thumping against Bit’s prone body.
Bit heard the beginnings of a struggle—two men grunting and the clang of something metal being struck. She suspected their booted feet were thrashing about, striking anything unlucky enough to be in their path. Bit rolled onto her side, her bound arms making it difficult. Like everything else, the movement hurt, but she ignored the pain and made it to her side.
Amazement froze her in place. Blaine and the other man grappled across the opening of the alleyway. There was nothing elegant about the way they fought. It was all teeth and elbows, each man desperately trying to keep the other man from climbing to his feet where he might do some real damage.
Bit continued to roll onto her back. She tried to extend her bound arms down to her rump in order to slip them under her backside and legs in the hopes of getting her arms in front of her body, but the effort was futile. Her wrist were too tightly bound and her ribs too painful. She couldn’t bend forward far enough to bring her arms to the front.
Instead, Bit struggled to her feet, her arms still trapped behind her back. She scooted away from the grappling pair, afraid she might be taken down by their flailing limbs. Bit glanced down at the other end of the alleyway, but she knew from when she had arrived that the far end was blocked by a tall chain-link fenced topped with rusted razor wire. There was no escape that way, especially for someone with broken ribs and her hands tied behind her back.
Bit assessed the opening of the alley. Most of the space was taken up by the thrashing men and the two large garbage cans belonging to the business on the far side. She didn’t think she would be able to get by until they made it to their feet and began fighting like men.
Mr. Windbreaker got his arms around Blaine’s neck and pulled him up as he scrambled to his knees, much like a man proposing. Blaine’s face went red as his enemy squeezed. Instead of flailing frantically, like Bit would have done, he jerked up, slamming his knee into Windbreaker’s face. Windbreaker’s grip loosened and Blaine finished the job with an elbow to his ribs before he staggered to his feet.
As if on cue, they both withdrew knives from sheaths on their belts.
Bit felt her eyes grow wide. She had never realized Blaine had a knife on him. She scanned his body, looking for other bulges that could be hiding a weapon. She spotted a cylinder shape, wrapped in black cloth tucked into two belt loops along his rump. She suspected it was the ketamine syringe.
To her surprise, neither of them led with their knives. Blaine landed a quick kick to Windbreaker’s chest, knocking him back a few steps. Not giving him a second to recover, Blaine pressed his advantage and jumped forward, knife at the ready, but Windbreaker was ready and blocked Blaine’s downward slice while at the same time slamming his elbow into Blaine’s nose.
They parted, Blaine shaking his head to clear the haze of the blow and Windbreaker gripping his dominant arm, blood seeping between his fingers.
Bit grimaced as the two fighters picked up speed, their swings and parries increasing, despite Blaine’s drugged state. While on the ship, Bit had watched Blaine practice in hand to hand combat. The drugs coursing through his system, supplied by Mr. Windbreaker himself, were having a decided effect on his speed. Had he been at his top performance, Bit had no doubt Windbreaker would already have been lying on the ground, bleeding out.
Blaine blinked, his gaze suddenly going unfocused. Like her, Windbreaker saw the moment of weakness and went for the attack.
“No!” she screamed, hoping to distract him.
Windbreaker’s steps hesitated for a split second, giving Blaine a chance to regain his focus and block the attack. Windbreaker jabbed and Blaine blocked the jab with both hands, pushing the arm away while simultaneously slamming his foot down on Windbreaker’s outstretched leg. His opponent went down on one knee with a cry of pain and rolled with it, not giving Blaine a chance to slice at his prone back.
Bit suddenly realized she had forgotten her goal of getting away from the two men, trapped in the drama of the fight. She didn’t want Blaine to die, and yet she knew she needed to get away from him. She could stay and await the outcome of the fight, and he, in his right mind, wouldn’t want her to.
She glanced at the opening, waiting for her chance.
The two men closed in on each other, their movements smaller and more confined as they worked to end the fight quicker. Bit took her chanced and worked her way toward the exit, never taking her eyes off the fighters.
Blaine drove his fist in Windbreaker’s shoulder causing his arm to swing wildly. Somewhere in their grappling, Windbreaker’s arm had been cut. Between the damage done and the wide swing, Windbreaker lost his grip on the knife. It went sailing, right at Bit. She tried to dodge, but the spinning blade sliced across her shoulder. The knife crashed into the side of the building and fell to the ground.
She clamped her mouth shut, trying not to cry out for fear they might notice her attempted escape. The cut was deep enough to cause her concern. Blood quickly soaked through her shirt and stained crew jacket, flowing down her arm. She had to get her hands free.
The battered and bloody men didn’t notice her or where the knife landed. Windbreaker was working hard to fight Blaine off without a knife, but Blaine was having a harder and harder time fighting as the drugs raged through his system.
Bit lowered herself to the ground and groped around with her bound hands until they came across the metal of the knife. She winced as she sliced her finger. Carefully, she found the handle of the knife and picked it up. Using the wall of the building for support, she got back on her feet and scooted back toward the entrance of the alleyway.
She stayed in the shadows, fearful someone might call the authorities if they saw a woman bleeding on the side of the street, and they already knew the peace officers—to one degree or another—were in on this. Bit tried to turn the blade to cut her bindings, but each time she tried, she gave herself another cut.
Bit felt tears of pain and desperation prick her eyes and roll down her cheeks.
Just as she was about to give up, she heard feet pounding against the pavement. She pushed herself farther into the shadows, keeping her eyes on the shaded street until a group of four men appeared, running by the entrance of the alleyway.
She jumped forward, going to her knees as weakness overtook her.
“Oden,” she cried, disgusted with how weak her voice sounded.
The men turned back, their faces going pale as they took in her sight. They ran to her, each one pulling a knife out of some hidden sheath.
Am I the only one left without a damn knife? she wondered.
Oden got to her first and reached for her bound hands, stopping just in time to keep from impaling his hand on the knife she held.
“Bit, your hands!” he exclaimed as he took the knife from her bloodied fingers.
She ignored him as he went work cutting her bindings. “Randal, quick. Blaine is fighting Mr. Windbreaker.”
“Who?” Randal asked.
“The guy who’s been stalking me. He’s the guy who drugged Blaine. He did it to get Blaine to kidnap me. He works for my old boss,” she said, finally clamping her mouth shut; she was rambling.
Jack
and Randal ran into the alleyway just as a hover car descended on the street, completely ignoring the rules of traffic.
“Grab her,” Calen ordered as he too raced for the cover of the alleyway.
Oden sheathed his knife, completely ignoring the blood on it. Bit jerked her arms around, nearly screaming in pain as blood rushed to her cut hands. She snatched up her stolen knife just as Oden scooped her up and ran after Calen. They entered the crowded alleyway just as the hover car landed.
Before Bit knew what was happening, Calen had cut off the arm of his shirt and was winding it around the gash on her arm. He tied it, pulling it as tight as he could until she cried out and hid her face in Oden’s neck.
“You okay?” Oden whispered.
She nodded, her face still hidden.
Oden turned to look at the fighting pair, and Bit looked too. Blaine and Windbreaker were still at it, having moved farther down the alleyway. Through the sounds of the fight, Bit heard the thunk of the hover car doors being shut. She glanced over Oden’s shoulder and tensed.
“Oden,” she whispered, “I think you need to turn around.”
He did, and she felt him tense under her arms.
“Jaaaack,” he called as the four men and one woman blocked the alleyway.
Jack, Calen, and Randal turned, joining her and Oden.
“Debby?” Jack asked as he eyed his girlfriend.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Let her go!” Jack demanded, glaring at the leader.
Debby chuckled, tucking her thumbs through the waist of her designer pants. “I don’t think you’re getting it, Jack.”
“Just hand over the embryos and we’ll go in peace, leave you to deal with whatever that mess is,” said the man who apparently was their leader.
“Debby?” Jack asked, ignoring the man’s demands.
“Are you really that dense? I’ve been after the embryos since you signed on to do this stupid run,” she said.
“You’re the one who tipped off the pirates,” Calen said, his face contorting into a look of pure hatred.
Broken & Hunted Page 27
