“The CO is wrapping up another productive Q & A session,” Iren said, irony dripping from his tensed jaw. Sweat beaded up on his forehead, matching the dampness on hers. “Oh, wait. Here he is.”
Bad Company’s CO shoved the door open and emerged. Squatter and more solid than Iren, he had the lamppost jaw and brow of a man not easily dissuaded—which was why it was notable how studiously he avoided the daggers thrown from Vi’s deadly gaze.
He picked something white out of his knuckle and pitched it on the ground.
“Medic,” he noted Daz, and held up his meaty, bloodied knuckle.
Her stomach turned.
Daz jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Medical’s that way.”
The CO nodded to Talia. “Welcome back.”
She muttered a reply.
He sauntered off with Daz.
Talia looked down at the white thing on the ground. It looked like a tooth.
No way.
She rounded on Vi. “Are you intending to let him beat the stents out?”
Vi set her jaw. As though the last person she needed to receive a talking-to from was Talia. “He’s going back to prison. If he cooperates, they’ll stop the court martial.”
“He’s a member of our team. The Misfits. That used to mean something.”
“Until Logen tells us something, I have no choice.”
“So you’re fine if he gets sent up in pieces, then.”
“He killed you.”
“Then why’s he still here? Do you really care whether he shot me in the back or strangled me with his gun strap?”
Vi’s chest rose and fell. Facing off against Talia.
“Unless there’s something you’re not telling me,” she said. “It’s hard to cooperate when your mouth is full of someone else’s fist.”
She leaned down and picked up the tooth. “He might not have been working alone.”
What the fuck?
Heat smacked into her in a wave.
Her other teammates shifted uncomfortably. Was one of them a murderer too? Or Bad Company? Or the biologists?
It explained why she was under suicide watch. They weren’t afraid she was going to kill herself. They were afraid someone else was going to do it for her.
“Anything else you forgot to mention?” Talia demanded.
“Don’t tell Logen,” Navina said, casting a worried glance at Vi. “We don’t want him to tip off his, uh, accomplices.”
Accomplices, plural. More than two people were trying to kill her. Fantastic.
“How’s he passing messages from inside this confinement?” she asked. “You’ll know who visits. It’ll be obvious.”
“We haven’t gathered enough intel.”
Obviously Vi thought the rest of the Misfits were safe, since they all already had the tip off. Talia felt a little bit better. Not that she trusted any of them much anyway.
Not anymore.
Vi jerked her chin at Iren. “Watch out for Talia. I’m going to talk with Bad Company’s CO.”
“Champion.” Iren cracked his knuckles.
They watched Vi stride across the compound, purpose in her dangerous step.
Iren stretched. “Thank the fucking stars. Way to go, Talia.”
“Yes, thank you, Talia.”
Iren and Navina both smiled at her with relief.
Her face heated. “I didn’t do anything you two couldn’t have done.”
“Yeah...”
“It’s impossible to argue with the CO,” Navina said, “and Vi felt too guilty for sending Logen off with you alone.”
“Exactly,” Iren said.
Well, good that someone had spoken up for common sense. But there was no reason for Vi to have felt guilty. “It’s not the first time we went off on an assignment alone.”
Their smiles faded. They both shared a side-eye glance. Iren doubled-down on his smile. Navina shifted and studied the ground.
“Okay, now what aren’t you telling me?” Talia asked.
Iren reached out his big hand and squeezed her shoulder. “Find out what you can. Don’t get too close.”
Logen had so easily fooled her. Whether working alone or with a group, Talia would never forgive him.
She nodded.
He opened the door. “Go get ‘em, viper.”
She crossed the outer vestibule. Through a pinhole view, Logen hunched in a pool of grim light inside the inner cell, his dangerous face ridged with battle scars.
Her heart kicked. A curl of desire squeezed in her center, pulsing awareness of the powerful, virile man. Nothing had changed despite knowing the truth. He attracted her like no one else in the universe. She sucked in a breath, striving to control her reaction.
She’d thought those scars were beautiful, once.
She’d thought he was a protector. A warrior. A hero.
She’d thought he was safe.
Fucking bastard.
She would squeeze the truth out of him and stomp on the remaining pulp.
Talia took a deep breath and grasped the door latch.
* * *
Logen expected to see the asshole CO back with a healed hand ready for round two, and he growled deep in his throat as the figure hung back in the eastern shadow.
“Come out,” he said, low and furious. Arctic. “Come close. Give me the chance to kill you this time.”
The figure slipped out of the shadows.
It was Talia.
Relief crashed through his body like a wave, filling his eyes with moisture and choking the back of his throat. Impossible, because he was stented. But the impossible feeling built and built, wave on top of wave, until his blurred eyes couldn’t see through the salty water and his whole body relaxed and gave in, blinking streaks matching the sweat dripping down his cheeks from his forehead.
She looked better. Tall and strong, fearless and determined, and with a heart the size of the entire planet. The chest that contained it was pretty nice too, with slim hips and thick, grippable thighs, and breasts that begged for his palms, and a mouth that promised wonders for a long, hot night.
His cock twitched to life.
Also impossible.
But impossible or not, his insistent erection pressed against his ripped flight suit, just like it had all those weeks ago when he had last seen her.
His stents worked perfectly until the moment Talia got too close. Not anyone else. Just Talia.
Then they stopped working and he was flooded with emotions, wrecked with them.
She was alive.
“Thanks for the warning,” she said, reacting to his comment for the CO.
He barely heard her. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
She was wearing an exoskeleton that cinched around the waist, and she slid forward smoothly, on the power of a hover disk. Her normally golden face looked pale, and even her lips had turned a shade of ashen. Her hands, gripping the outside seams of the metal skeleton for comfort, shook. And her eyes watered too, but her trembling lower lip suggested it was not from relief.
“Sure?”
“Why the hell do you care?”
That sounded like her. He started to relax again. “You don't look like you should be upright.”
“Yeah, well, you weren't coming to me.”
He shifted. The manacles clinked. “Sorry I couldn't visit you in Medical.”
“I wouldn't want you to.” Bitterness tinted her words. “I just have a few questions.”
Logen concentrated on her. Drinking in the sight.
Once, he saw her taking off her belt, shimmying out of her suit, exposing yards of creamy skin to his gaze. Moonlight and firelight had cast blue and golden glows to her rounded breasts, her hourglass waist, and most importantly, her heart-shaped ass.
He had failed her. He swore to himself he would not do so again.
And that meant not letting slip that his stents failed around her. They’d stop looking for the real murderer and send him straight up to the solar station for his court mart
ial and quick trip to prison, leaving her unguarded and alone.
“They sent you to talk to me,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to say. Coming here is a waste of time.”
“Answer my questions and I’ll leave you here to rot.”
“A waste of time.”
“I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
She looked like she should be back in Medical, still recovering.
“What happened on Base Two?”
He hated to see her this way.
“Start talking, Logen.”
He took a deep breath.
“Now.”
And held it.
Talia gripped her exoskeleton. “What did you do to me on Base Two?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Lies,” she said. “How did you kill me?”
No. The rest of them hadn’t believed him. But surely Talia—
“I'll start.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “We went to Base Two. We packed up some equipment. We set up our bunks. Then I never slept in mine.”
“You took first watch.”
“And you did what?”
“Slept.”
Her eyes narrowed.
Sweat trickled down his forehead. He tried to rub it away. His manacles jerked his wrists hard and clinked.
“You’re lying,” she said.
“I was in my bunk,” he snapped.
“Until what time?”
“My turn. For watch.”
Only he'd had no one to watch. She’d never come back. That's when he got up and started looking for her.
“You were in your bunk the whole time I was on watch?”
Shit. He was confessing.
Logen gritted his teeth.
“Did you black out? Did you hear something?”
He hadn't blacked out. He had been wide awake, waiting for her to come back.
They’d had a pretty heated conversation. No way could he fall asleep. He’d wanted to run out into the jungle and wrestle dinozoids. His skin had been jumping. He’d wanted to pound his fists into walls. She’d killed all his hope that night.
Then she hadn’t come back from watch, and he realized those feelings were just the tip of how very bad things could be.
“Did you get up and turn off the force shield?” she asked.
The force shield had been on when he got up to look for her. Hadn’t it?
“Did you sneak up on me? Or did I see you coming? When did you decide to kill me? Why did you do it?”
Her questions pounded straight into his gut. Denial twisted it into a tight knot. She had to believe in him. She had to—
“How did you do it?”
The knot looped around his heart and tightened.
Everyone else thought he was a murderer. But Talia had been different. Once, he’d been respected in her eyes. She had seen past the stents. Seen beyond his past. Seen the man he could be.
“How?” she repeated.
He shrugged, not trusting his voice. Did it matter what he said? She’d already made up her mind. Just like the rest of them.
Just like all of them.
She floated closer. “Why the hell won't you say anything?”
“Like what?” He jerked against the chair. Rocking back and forth, helpless, chained to the concrete. “What's left to say?”
Furious tears glimmered in her eyes and thickened her voice. “I thought you were different.”
“I thought you were!”
“Is that why you killed me? Because you figured out the truth?” She pressed her palm over her chest, her other palm on top of it. She took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling until the tide of tears receded, and then she glared at him with her entire force of will. “I’m just an ordinary, easy to kill, undefended little girl.”
He snorted.
Her lips curled. “That’s what you thought.”
No fucking way.
“That’s what you thought! That I’d be easy to kill!”
“Talia!” He shook his head at her. “You’re the single most hardest ass I’ve ever run into. You’re constantly armed to the teeth.”
Her hands clenched and released. Weaponless.
“You’re a danger barehanded,” he emphasized. “I’d rather face the entire rest of the team than go head-to-head with you.”
She straightened and swallowed. “So you’re saying I didn’t curl up in a ball and plead for my life.”
“Whatever happened, I’m sure you went down fighting.”
“Whatever happened?”
“Yeah, whatever happened.”
“So, what, did you just knock me out and throw me outside the force shield?” she demanded.
Never mind. She couldn’t hear the truth any more than the rest of them could.
“Say something.”
“What does it matter what I say?” he said.
“Do you just not like me? I mean, the instant your stents glitch out, you snap and murder me. I thought we got along okay.”
He sucked in a deep breath.
“You were the only one I ever actually trusted.”
Another breath. Against his broken ribs.
“In the whole mercenaries. I trust you, Logen. I trusted you.”
All of the injuries he’d suffered these weeks finally hurt. His mouth swelled up where the teeth were loose, pulverized into his gums, and the hole from the last one gaped and bled copper into his mouth. The cracked ribs cut into his lungs. Fluid filled his sinuses, and all of his bones ached, and his skin stung from the raw, glistening patches rubbed off his wrists and ankles.
“What do you want from me?” he asked hoarsely. “You want me to say I’m sorry? I’m fucking gutted.”
Her face flattened to acceptance. Bitter, angry, hurt acceptance. “I knew you’d confess.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“This whole time, your face said you were guilty.”
He jerked against the chains again, unable to rub the face that apparently professed his guilt.
Did he feel guilty? Of course. He’d been hanging out on his bunk while the woman he loved had been fighting for her life—and lost it. He might as well have opened up the force shield and done whatever else she’d said. He was the most useless backup in the history of backing someone up.
So now he’d really fucked up. He’d practically confessed. She’d leave, tell that Bad Company CO bastard, and she’d be left alone on the planet with the real murderer.
But she didn’t leave.
“That’s only my first question.” She rubbed her face, looking even paler. “You keep saying you didn’t kill me. So who did?”
Wait.
“You believe me?” he said.
“There’s a lot of ways to lie,” she said. “For example, you can slam a person’s head into a counter, and then, when the cops ask if you gave me an injury, you can say no, because actually it was the counter. See? Then that part’s not a lie.”
But that was more than anyone else had given him.
“Who is it?” he asked. “The other suspect.”
“I don’t know. I’m just asking questions.”
“What did you spot? I’ll rip his arms off.”
She focused on his temples. “You sound awfully emotional for a man with a stent.”
Fuck.
He tried to misdirect her from his feelings. “Someone is lying to you.”
That grabbed her full attention. “Who?”
“There's more to this than they're letting you know.”
“Who’s they? Who are you protecting?”
He was protecting her.
“Why aren't you telling me? Are you under orders, or giving them? I can't protect myself if I don't know where to look for the danger.”
He held her shimmery gaze. For now, he had to rely on her. Until he could figure out a way to make them believe his innocence. He had to rely on her to find out the truth for the both of them.
“Don’t close your eyes.”
&n
bsp; * * *
Don’t close your eyes.
The words rang in her head that night as she succumbed to pain and exhaustion.
Don’t close your eyes.
Don’t close them.
She spent the day in recovery, fighting to regain her strength.
Another danger lurked around her. Logen was one. The unknown was more dangerous.
The following evening, her team turned up in Medical in their suits for Upstairs.
“We’ve lost contact with the resupply drone and we’re heading to its last known location to make repairs,” Vi announced.
“Shitty Hazard Zero equipment,” Iren muttered over Vi’s shoulder, dumping supplies into their bin while Navina directed him, inputting the inventory into a tablet.
“You are going to stay in Medical under care of your medic.”
“I want to go to Base Two.”
“In Medical, hooked up to the monitor, with three people on your six,” Vi emphasized. “Not over to an abandoned base where we already turned off the force shield.”
“We have less than a week to gather evidence before we’re all in space and never find out who Logen’s accomplice was.”
Vi’s eyes went unfocused.
Iren and Navina shared glances.
No fucking way.
“You already know who his accomplice is,” Talia said.
“Accomplices,” Navina said, emphasizing the plural.
But Logen seemed to think it was only one accomplice, and he ought to know. Strange.
Vi looked at Navina as though asking permission to tell Talia what they knew.
Their CO, Sirus, never asked for anyone’s damned permission. That’s why Vi would always be their second, never the Misfits’ CO.
Navina nodded for Vi to tell her.
She faced Talia again. “We have reason to believe that Logen received an order through his stents to kill you.”
“You can do that?”
“In prison,” Navina said. “It’s how they control the prisoners. They transmit an order and everyone is forced to obey. But this order came from the makers of the stents. The Robotics Faction.
The Robotics Faction was a mysterious group that produced nearly all technology. It was cheap, easy, affordable, ubiquitous.
She twisted the penknife. Like every other piece of technology in the room, it was printed with an RF serial number composed of Robotics Faction parts.
They also produced war machines. She had fought some of them back in Hazard Five. But the robots themselves were mindless and brainless, programmed to execute orders. It gave her a false sense of the intelligence behind them.
Resurrection Heart: Robotics Faction - Cyborg Mercenaries Page 4
