by Cynthia Sax
If he left now, he wouldn’t see her weakness. He might continue to view her as the strong, fierce female he loved and not the sobbing mess she truly was.
Powerful arms pulled her against hard muscle. “I’ll never leave you.” Mayhem cupped her head with one of his big hands, pressed her face against his body armor clad chest. “Where you go, I go.”
She didn’t have the energy to push him away. “She’s dead, Mayhem.” And if her mom was dead… “They’re all dead. My mom, my sister, my brother. My entire family is gone.”
“I know, my female.” He stroked her hair, her back.
She could have dealt with his teasing, his taunting. His gentle touch undid her.
“It’s too much. I can’t.” The pain crawled up her throat, undeniable, unstoppable, and she was weak, so fuckin’ weak. “I can’t hold it back.” She opened her mouth.
He covered her lips with his palm. “Then don’t. I have you.”
He had her for now. Her weakness would drive him away. Imee realized that, yet she couldn’t suppress her sorrow, couldn’t contain her pain.
She broke, splintering in pieces, dissolving into nothing, wailing with grief, with hurt, with regret for good lives cut short, words she’d never speak, love she’d never know.
It was a soundless scream, smothered by her cyborg warrior’s grip on her. He held her as she howled, absorbed her strikes as she beat his shoulders with her fists, contained her movements as she twisted in his arms.
Her mom would never again hug her, never again tell Imee she loved her, she was proud of her. Jae would never heal another being, would never forgive her older sister for causing her pain. Geo wouldn’t have that agri lot he wanted. She would never know him as a grown male.
Wetness streamed down Imee’s cheeks, dripped from her chin. Mayhem followed the trails with his lips, murmuring words her brain was too shattered to comprehend.
She cried until her throat was raw and there were no more tears to shed. Then she slumped against her male, riding the rise and fall of his chest. He rubbed her back, brushed his lips against her forehead and cheeks.
“How long?” Her voice was a croak. How long had they been dead?
“Since the beginning.” Mayhem didn’t hold back the truth. “The Humanoid Alliance recorded their voices, their expressions, their actions, so they could craft the simulations and then they executed them.”
“Simulations?”
“Every recording they sent you was manufactured.”
“Oh.” That last recording, the one in which her mom had said she was proud of her, that she loved her, had never happened. She’d never said that, felt that. “Jae was never a healer? Geo was never interested in having his own agri lot? Those were stories, things the Humanoid Alliance made up to keep me happy, to keep me retrieving beings for them?”
“Yes.”
It was all a lie. All of the images, everything she thought she knew about her family. The Humanoid Alliance had created fantasies, manipulating her emotions, to ensure she remained their slave. “Did my family suffer?”
Mayhem said nothing.
Which meant they had. Anguish welled within her. Her cyborg couldn’t lie.
They had tortured her family. Humanoid Alliance warriors had sliced her mom, her sister, her brother into strips as they’d sliced Cheskka, her little cousin.
Geo had been a baby. Jae hadn’t been much older.
The Humanoid Alliance had inflicted unbearable agony on them, on the beings she loved. They’d killed them. Imee grasped her mom’s armlet. They’d parted her parents for all eternity, cursing their souls to solitude.
She pulled away from Mayhem. “They will all die.”
“They will.” His tone was nonchalant. “Shall we kill them now or should we spread out the fun?”
“There’s no we.” Imee couldn’t meet his gaze. “You can’t love me now, not after…” She waved at the nothingness she continued to feel around her.
“I love you even more now, my female.”
He didn’t sound as though he was teasing but he must be. “Cyborgs admire strength. You said that yourself. Multiple times. I’m not strong.” She’d thought she was but she wasn’t.
“You’re not strong?” Mayhem chuckled, his mirth grating on her exposed heart. “You’re the strongest being I’ve ever met.”
What was he talking about? “I cried.”
“You howled with grief.” He gripped her chin, forcing her to lift her gaze, to look at him. She expected to see disgust and pity in his eyes. Instead, they blazed with pride, with love. “You screamed your sorrow into my palm, beat your pain into my chest. You were magnificent, my female.”
She struggled to believe his words. “I had no control. You can’t admire that.”
“I have no control when you touch me.” He brushed one of his thumbs over her bottom lip. “Fierce emotions can’t be restrained.”
She did like it when he lost control. Did he admire that same lack of restraint in her?
“The enemy can use our emotions against us.” Kralj had taught her that.
“I’d like to see them try.” Mayhem’s eyes gleamed. “I’ll laugh in their faces as I carve my daggers into their skin, cutting them again and again with my blades.”
He’d seen what the Humanoid Alliance had done with her family. Rage rose within her, dark and intense. The bastards had recorded their torture.
“They’re my targets, not yours.” Targets she had assigned to herself. “You can return to your brethren. You don’t have to hunt the humans.”
“They are not your targets or my targets.” He tapped her nose and she blinked. “They are our targets and we’ll pursue them together.”
She opened her mouth.
“You won’t deny me that fun, my female.” His voice was firm. “I love you and I want to spend the rest of my lifespan hunting with you.”
He loved her. He was pledging to remain by her side forever. Imee blinked back tears she’d thought sapped. She’d never be alone again.
“Hunting by your side increases the challenge of each kill.” Mayhem’s eyes danced with amusement. “You’re slow and noisy.”
“What?” She slapped his chest, using anger to mask her emotions once more. “I’ll show you slow and noisy.”
“Show me when we return to our ship.” He caught her wrists. “There are three humanoids in this chamber, two in addition to the one we saw. Do we kill them now?”
Imee yearned to say yes, her soul crying for vengeance, but she wasn’t the only being the Humanoid Alliance had wronged. She tilted her head back, gazing at the multi-level horizontal support filled with containers. “I want the contents of my container.”
“We’ll craft a pack out of the largest garment and take the contents with us.”
That garment had belonged to her mom.
Who would never need it again.
Another wave of sorrow threatened to wash over her. Imee balled her fingers into tight fists. Justice, she had to concentrate on that.
Justice meant thinking of others, not merely herself.
“The other Retrievers might want the contents of their containers too.” She couldn’t deny that little bit of closure to them.
Mayhem’s forehead furrowed with thought lines. “Conveying the contents of all of the containers will be more challenging. It would require commandeering the entire station.”
Every being in the station would die…eventually. “We’ll leave commandeering the station to the other Retrievers.” They would desire to walk the aisles, look at their containers, see the truth for themselves.
“Then the killing will have to wait.” Mayhem appeared as unhappy as she felt about that. “Or the Humanoid Alliance will know they were attacked, that it wasn’t a random act of one of their own warriors.”
“We left a bloody trial.” They’d killed four guards, three at the entrance. “The Humanoid Alliance will realize someone accessed the chamber.”
“I have a
plan to clean up that trail.” Her cyborg already had a solution.
“You’ll have to clean up more than the existing trail. Because more killing is required.” She’d ensure some of the beings on board the station paid for what happened to her family. “If any of the Humanoid Alliance warriors see us, we’ll have to kill them…to protect your brethren.”
Her male’s lips quirked upward. “You are noisy and slow.”
She scowled at him. “The first kill is mine.” That would punish him.
The fool laughed.
Chapter Fifteen
Her family’s deaths had devastated his female. She dealt with emotional damage the cyborg way—by inflicting physical damage on other beings. A weaker male might be cautious, might give her distance, seek to protect himself.
Mayhem wasn’t a weak male. He also wasn’t a cautious being. The more his female hurt, the more he drew her close to him, seeking to protect her broken edges, to share her pain.
He helped her gather the contents of the container, arranging them in her mom’s garment, and he tied the fabric, creating a loop to easily carry it. It was too heavy for his female. He slung it over his right shoulder.
She placed the lid back on the container. Unless it was opened, no being would realize it was empty. That discovery could occur in planet rotations or the next quarter end. Mayhem didn’t know. He accessed the system, returned the container to where it had been situated on the multi-level horizontal support.
Imee didn’t move, gazing up at the container, her bottom lip quivering. He waited, unwilling to rush her, dampening his urge to make a joke, to tease her out of her sorrow.
“Well?” She turned her head and glared at him, her eyes sparking fire.
“Well?” He couldn’t process what she required.
“The Humanoid Alliance might discover the bodies. We have to return to our ship before that happens.” She waved toward the exit, indicating he should go first.
Warmth spread across his chest. His normally independent female was asking him to take the lead, to guide her to safety. “I’ll guard you, my female.” Mayhem strutted forward, scanning the area around them.
“I don’t need you to guard me,” she muttered, following him. “I need you to use those cyborg special powers of yours and ensure we don’t get ambushed.”
He had cyborg special powers? He grinned. “No being will damage you.”
“My concern is for both of us.”
“Because you care for me,” he teased.
“Because I care for you.
Mayhem’s jaw dropped. He knew she did but she’d never admitted it before now. “Imee--”
“We shouldn’t be talking.” She pushed against his back. “Someone might hear us.”
There were only three other beings in the chambers and they were positioned far from them. He suspected they all wore auditory devices also.
But he said nothing, allowing his female to emotionally retreat. She needed him and she cared for him. Over solar cycles, that caring would grow to love. He hugged that knowledge close to his big cyborg heart.
They exited the chamber the same way they entered. The males they’d killed hadn’t been discovered, their bodies undisturbed.
They had to dispose of them. Fortunately, the station designers had made that easy to accomplish. Mayhem slapped his palm on a wall panel. It opened, revealing the refuse chute.
His female measured its mouth with her hands and then moved her palms outward. She believed the space was too small.
He’d make the bodies fit.
Mayhem set her makeshift pack at her feet. He entered the inner chambers once more, grabbed the two corpses, hefted them over his shoulders and trekked back to the corridor.
His female waited by the refuse chute.
He stuffed the first body headfirst into the opening. It became lodged at the male’s shoulders. Mayhem punched the corpse between its shoulder blades. Bones cracked. He folded the corpse, fitting it into the small space. The body slid downward.
He grinned at his doubting female. She rolled her eyes.
He disposed of the second body the same way.
Imee tugged on the gray-haired warrior’s boots, dragging the corpse closer to him, leaving a trail of crimson on the floor. Mayhem pushed that male into the refuse chute also, closed the wall panel, and activated the cleaning bots for each of the areas.
The little bots darted out of the bottom wall panels and whirled around their feet, sucking up the blood, polishing the walls, removing all remnants of the kills.
Mayhem continually scanned their surroundings during the process, expecting the humans to enter the corridor and discover them.
They didn’t.
He shook his head, disgusted. The beings on the station relied too heavily on their systems to protect them, assuming those systems would always operate as intended.
The Humanoid Alliance had made the same error with his cyborg brethren, never contemplating that they had their own processors, that they could take actions benefiting themselves.
Mayhem slung his female’s pack over his shoulder, glanced at her. She nodded at him, her expression determined.
He turned and ran, slipping from alcove to alcove. Imee followed him as silently and quickly as humanly possible.
He turned into the final corridor. It was empty. He slowed his pace. Imee did also, raising her guns. She was so fraggin’ fierce, hungering for violence.
Mayhem wanted to end lives also. The Humanoid Alliance had damaged his female, had tortured and killed her family. He had seen a lot of cruelty in his long lifespan. The pain they had inflicted on her brother, a chubby-cheeked, cooing, newly manufactured offspring, had been some of the worst.
Mayhem had deleted that footage both from the chip and from his processors as soon as he viewed it. He would cut off his right arm before he showed that to his softhearted Imee.
They neared the docking bay. The doors were within his sight. If they left without killing someone, Imee would feel cheated. She required justice to repair some of her emotional damage, the type of justice that could only be evoked with a sharp blade.
Mayhem stopped in front of a recessed exit. His female slid into the space behind him. He backed up, flattening her lush form against the door, ensuring both of them were hidden from view.
Moments passed. She rested her guns against his shoulders. Her full breasts brushed against his back with each breath.
No one entered the corridor.
His female shoved his shoulder. Mayhem wouldn’t be rushed. She wanted vengeance. He would ensure she got it. He loved Imee, would do anything for his little Retriever, including waiting in an administrative station’s vacant corridor for a planet rotation if he had to.
He didn’t have to.
A few moments later, one of the doors between the docking bay and their hiding place finally opened. Two human males exited, turning in their direction.
One target would be hers. One target would be his.
It was the perfect last kill.
Mayhem looked over his shoulder, meeting his female’s gaze, and extracted a dagger. Her eyes widened. Her lips were set in grim resolve. She nodded, holstered her guns and slid two small daggers from their sheaths, the whisper of metal against leather audible only to his ears.
She understood. The kills would be quiet, slow, satisfying, undertaken in close quarters. She’d see the fear and suffering in their eyes. The males would hurt as she did.
“They added two Tau Cetians. They’re such a pain in the ass to design,” one of the males complained. “Did you know the width of their stripes change as they get older? And not uniformly either. The stripes on their cheeks are narrower than the stripes on their arms.”
“The good news is none of them are chosen for their intelligence.” The other male smirked. “They’re easy to fool.”
They were talking about Retrievers, about simulating their dead families.
Fraggin’ hole. Mayhem gripped his da
gger tighter.
These humans would soon experience an agony beyond any they could ever process.
“They’re female.” The first male laughed. His mirth contained a cruel condescension. “That’s a--”
Daggers whizzed over Mayhem’s shoulders. This time, his female didn’t miss. Blades lodged in each male’s throat, piercing their vocal cords. They gurgled, reaching for the hilts, their sounds of distress smothered by the weapons.
Mayhem rushed forward and sliced his blade through their wrists, preventing them from removing the daggers. Their severed hands plopped to the floor. Blood sprayed from their wounds, decorating the walls with red.
One male staggered forward, trying to escape his fate. Mayhem circled them and swiped his blade over their calves. He wasn’t sloppy like the being who had scarred his female. He cut the flesh down to the bone, crippling them.
The males fell to their knees, tears running down their faces.
Their targets were silenced and immobilized. Mayhem stepped back and swept his right hand toward the males, indicating to Imee that it was her turn.
Her eyes blazed with rage. She reached upward and extracted her dagger from the sheath positioned over Mayhem’s heart. The message was clear. These kills were personal, a retribution originating in her soul.
Imee made two slashes in each male’s cheek, similar to the black stripes that she sported, that Mayhem sported, marking them as their targets. Flesh parted, revealing bone. Crimson coated her blade.
She gazed at Mayhem.
It must be his turn. He took nicks out of their chests.
They alternated wounding the males. Blood coated the walls, the floors.
First one male and then the other lost consciousness.
That must have taken the joy out of it from his female. She handed him her blade. The final turn would be his. She wanted him to finish them.
Mayhem dipped his head. Killing was what he had been manufactured to do. It pleased his design to end lives.
He gripped the runner’s hair, pulling his chin upward and slitting his throat with Imee’s small blade, cutting deep, ending the human’s life. Mayhem repeated the process with their remaining target.
