by S. J. Bryant
Kari plonked her glass onto the table with a firm thud. "I was minding my own business, unlike you."
"If we hadn't come along, you'd be dead."
"You know as well as anyone why I left you two behind."
"And how did that work out?"
Kari wanted to give some smart response, but she didn't have one so she settled for another sip to buy herself time. What had she been thinking? She'd been thinking that she couldn't trust anyone. But her stupid decision had nearly got both her and Piper killed. Then Ryker and Atticus had shown up, risking their own lives for her. What did that mean?
She still couldn't trust people—Wren was proof of that. But what about Ryker and Atticus? Did it mean they were the exception to the rule?
But she couldn't trust… it was dangerous. And yet, looking at Piper's numb face made Kari's stomach twist. Had she made the wrong decision? What if by choosing to run off alone, she'd gotten Piper killed?
She rubbed her aching jaw. It felt swollen—when had that happened? And tried to get her thoughts in order.
Wren had betrayed her, thus confirming that people couldn't be trusted. But then Atticus and Ryker had saved her life. Ah! How was she supposed to know who to trust? Who to believe? Life was so much easier when it was just her and the open sky. Other people complicated things.
"Well?" Ryker said.
Kari lowered her glass just enough to speak. "Thanks for coming."
Ryker nodded, taking a long sip of his own drink, understanding in his eyes.
CHAPTER 9
Wren gripped her bleeding shoulder as she hobbled away from Ghost and the sound of gunfire. She kept her footsteps light, although it sent shots of pain through her.
Rain and thunder rumbled all around, creating a mess of sounds and smells that rubbed Wren's overworked senses raw. Still, she strained her ears for any sound of pursuit.
Ryker had shot her. Bastard.
She shouldn't be surprised though. He didn't owe any allegiance to the Guild, but he owed it to Kari. What would Kari do now? Ryker had saved her life even when she'd pushed him away. Complicated. But Wren would think about that later. Right now she had to do something about her shoulder.
Rain soaked her clothes and her hair. She shoved her knife into the sheath at her belt. No one was following and she needed her hands free.
At the other side of the shipping area, she found a small, metal hut. The door was locked but Wren barged it open with her uninjured shoulder. It swung wide and hit the wall behind with a loud crash. Not loud enough to be heard over the rain though.
Wren stepped inside, finally free of the rain that pummeled her head, and shoved the door closed behind her. The lock was broken but she pinned it closed with a chair.
The small room inside smelled of dust and grease. An adjustable window took up one wall with a smooth bench in front of it. It looked like a ticket window—maybe they were supposed to pay for parking? Oh well, that wouldn't be Kari's problem for very long.
A few chairs on lopsided wheels were pushed beneath the bench but otherwise the room was empty.
The rain on the metal roof created a tinny roar which echoed off the walls and messed with Wren's senses. It was like being trapped in an echoing drum with someone banging on the outside. She couldn't hear anything over the noise, and even if she could, she doubted she'd be able to tell what direction it came from or how far away it was.
She didn't risk turning the light on. Inside the glass room she'd be like a moving target for anyone standing outside. So, she relied on the dim light of the distant city and the occasional bright flash of lightning.
In the next bright flash, she studied the wound on her shoulder. Ryker had got her good and his damn guns were always powerful. The plasma blast had chewed through the top-most layers of her flesh and into the muscle beneath. Blood poured out of the wound, soaking her shirt.
Wren tugged her outer coat off to avoid getting more blood on it before pulling a jumble of tiny vials out of pockets and compartments on her belt.
She kept her injured arm pinned to her side and with her other hand she snatched a vial with a red sticker, popped the lid with her thumb and poured the contents over the wound.
The strong, heady smell of disinfectant filled the tiny room and a fiery sting burst across Wren's shoulder, racing over her back.
A normal person would have cried out, flinched away, but Wren forced herself to keep still, to keep her mouth closed. The only sign of pain she allowed herself was a slight tensing of her jaw.
She put the red vial back on the bench and took up a bottle with a blue lid. This one she opened more carefully and using one finger she scooped out a yellow-tinted paste which she smeared over the wound.
Tingling numbness replaced the pain wherever she put the paste, including the tip of the finger she'd used to scoop it up. The scent of peppermint and petroleum jelly rose from the wound and Wren drew a deep breath. She'd have to be careful not to do more damage to her shoulder now that she couldn't feel it, but it was better that than be distracted by pain.
A dozen other vials lay scattered on the bench and Wren's thoughts raced as she studied them. The only hint of their contents were the tiny colored stickers; a code which only she knew. Of course any assassin trained by the Guild should be able to tell their contents by smell alone, but a normal person would have no idea.
She'd made most of the mixtures herself, not trusting the so-called 'alchemists' and 'chemists' that dotted the passages of Zenith. Besides, many of the vials weren't exactly legal on the open market. After all, there were many ways to kill a person and while Wren preferred the personal approach of a knife to the back, occasionally poison was necessary.
The vial with the black sticker reflected the distant orange glow of the city. The liquid within swirled and danced.
Wren laid a single finger on the outer glass. She'd wanted to give Kari the respect of a real fight, but that option had disappeared when she brought backup in the form of Ryker. Even if Kari hadn't known he was there, it still wasn't a fair fight and Wren wasn't stupid enough to risk death for some meaningless principle.
Poison would work, and the contents of the black vial would make it quick and sure. But then… how would Wren get it to Kari? It would have been easy while they were still on board Ghost, eating and living together. But now? The others would run a mile as soon as they saw Wren coming, and they weren't going to eat or drink anything she brought them. That made it… complicated. Not impossible though.
Still, there were other ways.
Wren removed her hand from the black vial and took up a bandage. She held one end in her teeth and with her good hand she wrapped the bandage over and around her injured shoulder. The fabric held her flesh together and hid the gruesome wound. With the help of the yellow paste it would heal in a few days—provided she didn't do anything to make it worse.
Wren slumped into one of the chairs and it rolled back a few paces. She lifted her feet, rested them on the bench, and stared out of the windows toward the city. Rain streaked the glass, falling in thick sheets that distorted the distant lights.
The others would be going that way. Wren didn't have to see them run off to know it. They'd be cold and Kari was injured. They'd be looking for a warm place to sit and drink.
Did they have any idea how predictable they were? Probably not. That was the trouble with most people. They had no idea that they were going along like blundering beasts—leaving trails, making predictable patterns.
That's what most of Wren's job boiled down to—patterns. She'd been trained from when she could first walk to never create patterns. Never take the same path home, never leave or arrive anywhere at the same time. Recognize your habits and change them.
So Wren didn't have routines. That was good. It meant no one could predict her next move. But a small part of her wondered what she'd sacrificed for that. Hadn't she just identified the habits that made Kari and the others who they were? And if patterns were what people's
personalities left behind, what did it say about someone who left no pattern?
Wren shook her head and snatched her knife out of its sheath. She flicked it between her hands, tossing it into the air and catching it again, in an effort to distract herself. What did it matter if she didn't have a pattern? The job was the only thing that mattered. That's all she had to think about.
But still, other thoughts crept in. She could picture Kari and the others. They would have made it to some bar and got drinks. Ryker probably won over some barmaid with his smile. Kari would be brooding, Atticus would probably be working on some gadget, and Piper…
A shadow passed over Wren's heart and her expression darkened. Piper.
She was an anomaly. Like Wren, she didn't seem to leave patterns. She just sat and watched and noticed and remembered. She would make a good assassin, but based on the way she'd been frozen when Wren was attacking Kari, she didn't have the guts for it. A shame. The Guild would have appreciated someone like that. Perhaps that was why the Imperium took her in the first place?
"Focus," Wren said. The job was all that mattered, and her job was to kill Kari. So how was she going to do it?
Ryker and Atticus would stick around which meant a knife fight was impossible—suicidal. Fine, there were other ways.
If they were in a bar, she could try to sneak some of the poison into Kari's drink, but they'd be on high alert and might recognize her. She couldn't deliver the drinks herself which meant she had no way of ensuring Kari got the right one unless she bought off some waitress. She didn't like to do that. It equated to outsourcing the job, and that wasn't the Guild way.
A gun then, it had to be.
She could try with her pistol, but it would mean getting close—possibly close enough to be recognized. And Ryker carried the equivalent of a small arsenal on his back so she'd be at risk. No, this required more specialized equipment—a sniper rifle.
Ryker had been carrying all three of Ghost's sniper rifles, so there weren't any on board the ship for Wren to take which meant she'd have to find one in the city. Annoying, because it would delay things, but unavoidable. She had to go there anyway to catch Kari's trail, perhaps she could kill two birds with one stone as the saying went.
Poor Kari. Did she feel warm and safe?
Probably not. Kari was smarter than that.
It was a shame she had to die, but the Guild had ordered it and so it must be.
Wren stood and crawled under the bench. She hunkered in the corner, hidden from the windows and just out of view of the door. If anyone tried to get in, she'd be able to kill them before they knew she was there. She didn't like to sleep in hostile conditions, but she needed to get some rest. And besides, she doubted she'd be able to buy a sniper at this time of night in this kind of weather.
No, she'd rest, let her wound heal, and head to the city in the morning. She sensed in the moving pressure of the storm that it would have passed by sunrise. She'd have a clear view of Kari's trail and a fresh start.
Yes, it wouldn't be long now. Kari was as good as dead.
CHAPTER 10
Kari placed her empty glass on the table and sighed. Atticus had been right, the taste had grown on her, and anyway something was better than nothing. But there it was, an empty glass with just a few pathetic bubbles stuck to the bottom.
Piper's glass was still half full, but Ryker and Atticus had finished theirs some time ago.
Kari kept catching the bartender looking at them with narrowed eyes. It was only a matter of time before he kicked them out. What time was it anyway? Kari felt as though she hadn't slept in days and right then she would have given almost anything for a warm bed in a locked room.
At least her shoulder and wrist had stopped bleeding. She'd wrapped a paper napkin over them to stem the blood and while the white paper was stained with red blotches, the flow seemed to have stopped.
"So," Ryker said.
"So," echoed Kari.
"What's the plan?"
Kari shrugged. What was she supposed to say? She didn't know anyone who had survived after getting a Guild hit on them. Even when they managed to kill the hunter that was trailing them—and that was rare enough—the Guild sent another. There was no escaping it.
"We need something," Ryker said. "You know she'll follow us here. We could set up a trap?"
Kari looked around the room. People milled around the tables, with no sign of business slowing down. "Too many people. And I don't think your friend the barman would appreciate it."
"Yeah," Ryker said. "And not enough sight lines. I know."
"But I will have to set a trap," Kari said. "Running is useless because she'll always catch up."
"We will set a trap," Ryker said. "You're not getting rid of us again."
Kari wanted to argue but at that moment she didn't have the energy. Plus, she didn't like the vacant, dead look in Piper's eyes. Why did it have to be so damn hard? Why did Wren take the job? Why did the Guild put the job out in the first place? And why couldn't Kari just fly away in Ghost and mind her own business?
"Do we have enough katium to get to the next system?" Atticus said. "It will take her a while to find a ship and by then we might have caught a warp to the central systems. She'd never be able to find us there."
"No," Kari said. "We can't risk going back to Ghost. We'd have to do a proper sweep to check for traps, explosives, and even then we couldn't be sure. And she'll be expecting it. She'll be watching Ghost and as soon as we get close… I don't think she'll be using her knife anymore."
"Me neither," Ryker said. "You're a damned fool, Kari. If you'd let us come with you the first time, then we might have been able to get a fatal shot in and this would all be over."
Kari fiddled with her glass. Even if what Ryker said was true, she couldn't bring herself to regret her decision. Look where trust had got her so far? "It has to be the forest."
"The forest?" Ryker said.
"Yes. She's used to hunting in city streets, in buildings. But I bet even she doesn't have much experience with trees."
"So, what?" Ryker said. "We run into the forest and live in treehouses for the rest of our lives?"
"No. We just… we buy time." Kari floundered. It wasn't a plan, hell it was barely an idea. Sure, Wren was probably less experienced at tracking and hunting in forests, but so was Kari. And what was she hoping to do? Set up some kind of bear trap to lure Wren into?
"I don't like it," Ryker said.
"If you have a better option, then I'd love to hear it."
Ryker frowned and twisted his glass through the circles of condensation that had formed on the wooden table.
"If we wait much longer," Kari said. "Then she will find us here, and the first you'll know about it is a plasma blast coming through that window and taking out my head."
They all turned and stared at the dark glass—the rainy world beyond invisible in the darkness.
Kari shivered. She hadn't meant for her words to have such an effect on her, she was just trying to make a point.
"What do you think?" she said to Atticus.
He frowned. "I've only spent short periods of time in forests, and that one is big. They can be good for food, but they can be dangerous too."
"But what about trapping Wren?"
Atticus shifted in his chair. "I don't like the idea of trapping her."
"We can't take her in a fair fight."
"No. I mean I don't like the idea of hurting her at all."
"Did you see her trying to kill me?"
"Yes." Atticus sighed and then shrugged. "I saw, and I know what you're saying. I just don't like it."
"You're welcome to leave me to it," Kari said. "You'll remember I already tried to give you that option."
"I'm not going to leave you," Atticus said. "I just wish there was another way."
"Well there's not. So what do you think? Is the forest better?"
"Not many resources for gadgets. But there will be lots of places to hide. And as you say,
Wren knows how to hunt in cities."
"Do you know enough to find us food?" Kari said. She'd never even seen more than a handful of trees growing together, let alone the huge stretch of green that seemed to cover most of this planet. How did you even find food in a place like that?
"Probably."
"Probably?"
"Yes."
"Because Wren definitely will." Kari turned to Piper. "What do you think?"
Piper gazed at the wall, holding her still-full glass.
"Piper," Kari said. "What the hell is going on with you?"
Piper blinked, something of the heat in Kari's voice cutting through her thoughts. She turned and looked at Kari as if seeing her for the first time. "There was so much violence."
Kari kept her eyes locked with Piper, willing her to stay focused. She had to break out of whatever trance she'd fallen into because Kari couldn't carry her through the forest, not when Wren might be right behind them. "Wren and I had a fight. But I'm okay, and she's okay."
"For now."
Kari couldn't argue with that. Wren had got a job from the Guild and that meant things could only end with one of them dead. "You won't have to watch any more fighting."
"But you could die."
"We could all die."
"Not like that."
"Piper, I'll be okay. But I need you to focus."
Piper frowned. "I am focusing. I can see every raindrop, every speck of blood. I can see the angle of the knife when it came at your throat." She reached out and placed a trembling finger to Kari's neck, right where Wren's knife had cut her.
Kari hadn't expected that. She'd assumed Piper had been knocked into some posttraumatic stress episode because of watching her and Wren fight. But it was something more than that. It was more like sensory overload because she'd been concentrating. And who could keep track of that much information?
"Twenty-five ships, plus Ghost. The rain falling at twenty-three drops per square inch per minute. The velocity—"
"Whoa!" Kari said. She snatched hold of Piper's wrists to stop her hands from trembling and gripped them tight. "Piper. Let it go."
