Rift

by Heidi J. Leavitt

  “I think they want money. They thought if they took us away, they could get someone to pay a lot of money to get us back,” she explained simply, her voice still low. None of their kidnappers had returned to their room since leaving the kids, but she didn’t want to do anything that might convince them to come back in and check on them.

  “Is Daddy going to pay them?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so,” Jenna answered. She didn’t even want to try to explain what she’d heard about an auction. Plus she had no idea if Jimmy was all right or not. Why not just try to ask for ransom from Jimmy? Jimmy would hate it, but he could always ask his father for the money. Surely the kidnappers had thought of that.

  Kendra turned her face up to her mother, her nose scrunched up. “Where is Mrs. Smitz? She was with us in the woods.”

  Jenna sighed, smoothing Kendra’s hair back from her forehead. Her hair had been tied back with a red strip of cloth, and Jenna pulled the tie out, gently finger combing her daughter’s damp hair as she tried to decide what to say. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “They just said that she was gone.” She hated putting it that way; she didn’t want Kendra to worry, but she believed in being as truthful as possible with her children. Besides, at this point, Kendra had to know something very dangerous was going on. She would probably see through any fake reassurance Jenna tried to give. For such a young girl, Kendra was often extremely astute.

  Her daughter was silent for a few moments while Jenna retied her hair back from her face. “What if they take you away too?” she finally said.

  “I won’t let that happen,” Jenna said firmly. Of course, to protect her kids, she needed to be able to move. Jenna tried to shift her legs again. No luck. “Kendra, can you get up and walk around the room? Tell me what you find in here,” she requested. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim red light, but she still couldn’t move well enough to see into the shadowed corners. For all she knew, there might even be windows or another door besides the one the kidnappers had dragged her through.

  Her daughter pushed herself to her knees and then clambered up. She hopped between the still-prone bodies of her brother and sister and then stretched out her arm to touch the wall. She made a circuit around the room. “Hey, Mommy, there’s a toilet! What a funny place for it! Are we in a bathroom?”

  A toilet! Jenna sent out a silent shout of praise to the stars. Their captors did have the ability to show some mercy after all.

  “What about a door? Any windows?” Jenna called softly, trying to shift her body so she could see the other side of the room. It was harder than she would have guessed to move around without using her legs at all. Her neck still screamed in agony every time she twisted it too. Kendra ventured deeper in the shadows.

  “I don’t see anything else. There’s just one door, the one behind your head,” Kendra reported. “No windows at all.”

  Just the one door, then, the ones the captors had brought them through. A large, totally empty room with no windows, no contents or furniture of any kind, and a toilet. Did they regularly keep prisoners, then? Had they built this room specifically to hold people in?

  It worried Jenna. Professional kidnappers would not be easy to escape from.

  Kendra came back to her side and dropped back to the ground, curling against her mother’s chest.

  “Dina says she can’t help us in here, Mommy,” Kendra whispered. “She wishes she could.”

  “Dina?” Jenna whispered back.

  “My friend. She tried to help when the kidnappers appeared in the woods, but she wasn’t strong enough.” Jenna tried to smooth away her automatic frown. She remembered what she had heard from Archer about the trouble he blamed on Kendra. She wasn’t sure if Dina was real or if Kendra just had some extraordinary supernatural ability (both possibilities were terrifying), but maybe it would do them some good. Kendra cocked her head to the side, her eyes unfocused. Then she looked up at Jenna’s face again. “She says she did something to the . . . um, boxes they had us in? I don’t know what she’s talking about. But she says they should be broken now, and they won’t be able to put us back in them.”

  “The boxes?” Jenna asked. “Do you mean the medical capsules?” Kendra just raised her shoulders. She had never been awake that Jenna knew of while in her capsule, so how did she know about them? Maybe “Dina” was a part of her subconscious that always knew what was going on around her. Well, if the capsules were truly broken, hopefully Jenna could use it to her advantage. The trouble was, when Berry and Erik woke up, Jenna would have her hands full just keeping her children calm. What did they expect her to do with the kids in this room? She mentally dismissed that problem. She’d cross that bridge when they came to it. But all this stuff about Dina worried her.

  “Kendra,” she asked hesitantly, “does Dina . . . talk . . . to you often?”

  Kendra twirled her fingers into her hair. She just stared at her mother with wide eyes for a moment, and then finally she nodded.

  “Can you see her?” Jenna strove valiantly to keep her voice neutral and merely curious.

  “No. She’s always just been there, talking to me. I don’t know what she looks like,” Kendra explained. “I wish I could. I bet she’s very pretty,” she added wistfully. “She has a pretty voice.”

  They sat there silently, Jenna trying to digest the idea that her daughter had been listening to a “pretty voice” in her head for all her life.

  “Mommy, I’m scared. I want to go home.”

  “I know, sweetheart,” Jenna reassured, stroking her daughter’s cheek. “Me too. Everything’s going to be OK. Daddy’s going to help us.” She looked over at the sleeping forms of Berry and Erik. How was she going to keep them all safe?

  Please, Jimmy, find us quickly!

  ●●●

  It was just as bad as she feared when Erik woke up. Berry was still out, but Erik woke up in a panic. No matter what Jenna said, he wouldn’t calm down. He wanted to get out of the room. He needed to use the bathroom, but he wasn’t going to use the strange toilet. He wanted something to drink. He was hungry.

  Eventually, unable to get his mother to give him what he wanted, he threw himself on the floor and screamed. Jenna finally could move her legs just a bit, but not enough to go to Erik. Kendra knelt next to him, rubbing his back and trying to get him to calm down. Jenna looked fearfully at the door, worried that their guards would come in. She didn’t want them to think that Erik needed to be silenced.

  Berry woke up in the middle of Erik’s tantrum. She didn’t even hesitate before joining right in. Kendra had given up trying to soothe her brother and had scooted against the wall and put her fingers in her ears. Jenna dragged herself toward Erik and Berry, using her arms as much as possible.

  “Hey,” she murmured. She put one arm around Erik and pulled him next to her chest and awkwardly tried to get another arm around Berry. Berry realized she was there and burrowed closer, trying to shove Erik out of the way. For a minute the two children warred over who would be closest to her, and Erik stopped screaming while he pushed back at his sister.

  “Hey, kiddos, it’s going to be all right,” she soothed. “I’m here. Mommy’s here.” After a few minutes of this, they both finally quieted down. Luckily, no one had come to check on them yet. Shortly after the kids had settled down and Erik had allowed Kendra to help him use the toilet, the door slid open and a figure—masked again, with the voice distortion box in place—looked around the room.

  “You two,” the crackling voice ordered, pointing at Berry and Erik. “Come with me.”

  Berry shrank back against the wall, shaking her head. “Mommy!” she pleaded, her voice rising.

  “What do you want with them?” Jenna demanded, pushing herself up on her elbows. Kendra ran to her side and grabbed onto her arm, like it was an anchor in the middle of a storm. Berry and Erik stared at the newcomer with wide eyes; Erik’s low
er lip trembled and Berry breathed rapidly, but they weren’t crying again yet.

  The guard didn’t answer. He (or she?) just strode into the room and grabbed Berry by the shoulders, yanking her away. Jenna snatched back at her and lost her balance, crashing painfully back onto an elbow. Another guard brushed past her and clamped his hands around Erik, pulling him off the ground. Erik screeched and kicked, but the guard just shifted to get a better hold and strode back out the door.

  “Where are you taking them?” Jenna shouted.

  Berry was crying, trying to pull her arms free from the guard. He started to shove her toward the door, and she dragged her legs, refusing to walk. There was a groan of exasperation, and then the captor grabbed her by the waist and picked her up. With Berry’s squirming figure, he retreated quickly through the door, and it slid shut with a clang.

  Jenna dragged herself over to the door and started pounding on it, cursing her useless legs.

  “Don’t hurt them!” she screamed. “Bring them back!” She pummeled the door until she was exhausted and her fists felt bruised from colliding with unyielding metal. Finally, she slumped to the floor and sobbed. She felt a small hand touching her cheek and opened her eyes to see Kendra’s wide, terrified eyes.

  “Mommy?” she said, sniffling.

  Jenna pulled her close and clung to her daughter, listening desperately through the door for any sound from Berry or Erik, any hint that her children were all right. There was nothing but complete, ominous quiet.

  She had to hold it together. For the sake of Berry and Erik. For the sake of Kendra, who pressed her face into Jenna’s shoulder, her silent tears soaking through the thin fabric. Most of all, Jenna needed her legs to respond again. There had to be some way to get them all out of this alive, but how could she protect her kids if she couldn’t even crawl, let alone stand or run or fight?

  Please, oh, please, stars protect Berry and Erik!

  21. The Plight of Moriel

  Moriel appeared in the security waiting room as Zane was checking his flipcom for the thousandth time, wondering if Jimmy would ever return any of his comms. Zane had received a comm from Grier confirming that arrangements for paying off Monserrat had all been worked out and that Mrs. Smitz had been returned to Tarentino Bay. Zane had thought with good news like this, Jimmy might at least be willing to listen to an apology. However, since he hardly felt he should be apologizing for working himself to the bone to find Jimmy’s family when all he’d gotten for the effort was a broken nose, it was possible his comms were not coming across as the abject groveling that his father had demanded.

  “Hey, Moriel,” he greeted absently as his sister came to stand next to him. He looked down the hallway behind her. Lilah was supposed to arrive at any minute; sending her alone to meet her brother in the decrepit plastic box he currently called a home had not been an option. Zane had insisted on a team accompanying her, and for once, she hadn’t argued with him at all. Apparently Lilah had sense when it came to the Red Zone—more than her brother, apparently.

  Moriel didn’t acknowledge his greeting; instead, she began to circle the tiny waiting room like a bird of prey preparing to swoop in on a target.

  Zane finally snapped his flipcom shut and watched his sister silently for a moment. He knew what was bothering her. After she’d made her third circuit of the room, he decided it was time to intervene.

  “It’s not the end of the world, Moriel. You don’t even have to say anything to him.”

  She shot him a withering glare.

  “I understand you’re angry. I would be too. But he did help us. At least we have one of the five hostages back.”

  “Lovely,” she snarled. “I’m glad my sacrifice is worth something.” Zane sighed as she resumed her pacing. He couldn’t understand why Rawle even wanted to meet with her. She would never forgive him. Moriel was the queen of holding grudges.

  “I can’t believe Father is humiliating me like this,” she muttered, sounding for all the world like the sullen teenager she had once been.

  “Father is not humiliating you,” Zane reminded patiently. “You are fulfilling a bargain to meet with a man who traded us a very valuable piece of information. That’s all.”

  “Father is asking me to sit and listen to the man who ruined my life, Zane!”

  “He didn’t ruin your life, Moriel!” Zane argued, exasperation finally getting the better of him. “It was one vid that ended up on the feeds. What impact did it actually have on you?”

  “I am the general manager of the Quintan Edge!” she raged. “Of course it had an impact on me! Do you know how hard I’ve worked to gain the respect of those who work under me? How much that vid set me back? You have no idea what it’s like!”

  “No?” Zane raised an eyebrow. “You don’t happen to remember a rather horrifying vid of me punching Jimmy while on nanospeed and Jenna publicly rejecting my proposal? It was the top of all the feeds too, once.”

  “Yes, and look what happened to you!” she hurled back. “You wrecked your life!”

  Zane flinched at this shot but didn’t back down. “The nanospeed addiction wrecked my career as general manager, Moriel,” Zane said quietly but firmly. “Not some embarrassing vid of me acting like a brute. Nor has that vid of your drunken striptease ruined your career. One mistake at a party. That’s all it was.”

  “But Rawle made sure everyone knew about it!” Her voice cracked. The anger was going to turn into tears in a moment, and Zane knew that if Moriel cried in front of Rawle, she would hate herself forever.

  “This is a business transaction, Moriel. He has something he wants to say to you, and you’ve agreed to hear it. Then we’ll escort him out, and you’ll never have to see him again.”

  She nodded and visibly pulled herself together. By the time the security officer announced that Rawle Byrne had arrived, Moriel was completely composed. Zane escorted her into the Ocean Room and waited for the guard to bring Rawle in. Zane hadn’t seen him in a long time, but he immediately recognized the tall, skinny man with the pale skin. His orange hair was neatly tied back, and he wore a black slimsuit, looking far more formal than Zane would have expected from the Red Zone hacker. Maybe he really intended to make amends with Moriel. He nodded to Rawle and received a jerk of the head in reply. Then he disappeared into the room, and Zane directed the guards to take their places outside the door. Moriel didn’t want anyone else to be a part of this meeting, but that didn’t mean that Rawle was getting a pass. He’d been scanned and disarmed, and Moriel had the ability to call for help in an instant if she needed it.

  Zane had been on Kirtuth when the whole uproar with Rawle had originally happened. The superstar hacker was also the son of one of the old intelligence officers that Zane’s father had originally hired when he’d built the Quintan Edge. Rawle’s family had lived in the Tower, and he, the same age as Moriel, had often played with her when they were young. By the time they were teenagers, it was clear to everyone that he liked Moriel a lot, bordering on infatuation, but Moriel had never been interested in him. She’d been nursing her own obsession with Jimmy. Apparently, sometime during Zane’s first year on Kirtuth (and after Moriel’s heart had been broken when she learned Jimmy had married Jenna), Rawle had convinced her to go to a wild Red Zone party where all the stops had been pulled out. Moriel had been stupid enough to try the Drukkan punch. After that, well, she’d gone a little crazy, including treating the whole room to a dance that featured on both society and porn feeds, thanks to Rawle. He’d gotten her on vid and tried to use it as blackmail to convince her to date him. When a sober Moriel had wanted nothing to do with Rawle, he’d posted it to a society feed. Zane shook his head. He’d been a world-class idiot when it came to Jenna, but Rawle had to be the universe’s stupidest suitor to date.

  The meeting lasted about five minutes before the door slid open and Moriel strode out of the room. “Mr. Byrne is leaving,” she d
eclared coldly, and then she continued straight down the hall without looking back even once. Rawle followed her out, and the security guards flanked him. His face was red and blotchy, and his lips were pursed in suppressed rage. But his hungry eyes followed Moriel, and Zane shook his head in pity. Rawle was despicable, but he clearly was still stuck on Moriel. Nothing like a lost cause. Zane had a better chance of convincing Jenna to divorce Jimmy and run off with him. The flippant thought made him wince. Of course, they had to find Jenna first. Maybe they were chasing a truly lost cause, and Rawle’s hopes weren’t so outlandish in comparison—then he shook the thought off. He wouldn’t give up. The Quintans didn’t give up. They would win in the end.

  The security guards had barely escorted Rawle back to the holding room to return his weapons when Lilah appeared in the hallway that led to the tube platform. She was frowning when she reached his side.

  “What’s wrong with Moriel?” she asked worriedly. “She looked about ready to murder someone.”

  “Yes, well, she probably would like to murder Rawle Byrne.”

  “The hacker?” Lilah clarified.

  Zane nodded.

  “Ah.” Lilah had clearly heard some version of the story. Zane wondered if Moriel was right. Had all of her managers seen that vid? Gossip in the resort was rampant, he well knew. Lilah shrugged. “If it had been me, I would have just played it up, acted pleased that it made the feeds. Then it wouldn’t have been a scandal, and nobody would have paid it any attention.” Zane snorted. He could well picture Lilah deflating the whole situation merely by embracing it. Of course, with her amazing voice, such a vid probably would have stayed at the top of the feeds for months. There was a reason she’d headlined performances at the QE before becoming a manager.

  “Are you ready?” Zane asked, changing the subject.

  Lilah sighed heavily. “As I’ll ever be. I don’t understand why he won’t come meet me here.”