Release

by V. J. Chambers

  She bit down hard on it. He was insane, just like Keirth had said.

  And another horrible thought occurred to her. Where was Keirth? Had Risciter gotten to him too?

  Risciter drew back, snarling. “You bitch.” He slapped her.

  Ariana sobbed again. She was shaking all over.

  “If you hurt me,” Risciter was saying, his fingers trailing over her face, over the place he’d just struck her, “I will make it much worse for you, do you understand?” His hand moved lower, to the place where her jumpsuit was fastened.

  Oh. Ariana thought she was going to be violently ill.

  Risciter unclasped the jumpsuit fastener and the smartclasp parted in the middle, opening up all the way down her torso. He grinned. “I do like these jumpsuits. Easy in. Easy out.”

  The night air felt cold against her bare skin. Dread and fear knotted themselves inside Ariana. Her worst nightmares weren’t nearly as awful as this. He was Risciter. She’d loved him once. And now...

  Risciter’s hand crept underneath the fabric of her jumpsuit, his hand closing over her breast.

  No.

  And then another feeling burst through Ariana’s body. Pure rage. She was the daughter of a duke. No man had the right to do this to her. And if Risciter was going to kill her anyway, she didn’t see what she had to lose.

  With a shriek of anger, she tore one of her arms out of Risciter’s grasp. He’d been so interested in touching her, he seemed to have forgotten he was holding her arms over her head and had loosened his hold. Making a fist, she slammed it into Risciter’s crotch as hard as she could.

  His expression froze in a grimace.

  She punched him between his legs again.

  Risciter’s grip loosened on her other arm. He howled.

  Ariana rolled back over onto her stomach. She slithered out from under Risciter and staggered to her feet.

  Risciter’s arm shot out and grabbed her wrist. “I’ll make you pay for that.”

  Ariana reached for the first thing she could find with her free hand. Her fingers closed over a thick branch. She heaved it around, expecting to need to wrench it free from a tree. But it was a fallen tree branch. She swung it in a wide arc, and it crunched into Risciter’s forehead.

  Risciter’s grip on her arm loosened. He looked dazed.

  Screaming, Ariana raised the branch—really a log—over her head and brought it down on Risciter’s head again and again. When she pulled it back, it was bloody. And Risciter’s body was crumpled on the ground. He wasn’t moving.

  She’d killed him.

  Ariana dropped the branch and ran back in the direction of the ship.

  * * *

  Keirth was furiously trying to find Risciter when he saw Ariana. He’d nearly had Risciter when he’d gone back into the ship, but Risciter had gotten away from him, run off into the woods, and Keirth had been searching for him ever since. He was frustrated, because his revenge scheme had, yet again, gone wrong.

  Then he saw Ariana. Her jumpsuit gaped open, her hair was messy and full of twigs. Her face was red from crying. She half-stumbled, half-ran out of the woods.

  What had happened to her?

  He rushed to her, his first instinct to gather her in his arms, she looked so pitiful, but when he got to her, he suddenly realized it wasn’t really appropriate for him to touch the daughter of a duke, especially when her clothes weren’t exactly fastened and he could see—

  He yanked the jumpsuit together instead, fastening the smartclasp so that it closed over her skin, leaving behind a seamless swath of fabric. “Sweetheart? Are you...?”

  She gave him a dazed look. “I killed him.”

  What? No. She couldn’t have killed Risciter. Keirth was supposed to kill Risciter. He’d been planning to kill Risciter for seven years.

  Keirth checked himself. It wasn’t revenge he should be thinking about right now. It was this woman. Something had happened to her, and Risciter had done it. “What happened? What did he do to you?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing really. He tried to... but I hit him. I hit him with a big, big stick.” She sucked in a breath. “He started...” She touched her forehead. “Blood. He’s dead.”

  “Show me,” said Keirth. “Show me where Risciter is.”

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to look at it again. We should go.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll find him.” He pointed into the woods. “This way?”

  “Don’t leave me alone!” she said, terror making her voice shrill.

  “Then come with me,” he said. He tried to keep his voice calm, reassuring. “Show me where you left him.”

  She shuddered again, sniffled, but turned and walked back into the woods. He followed her. They walked for some time, no sound except an occasional hitching breath from Ariana and the crunch of their feet on the forest undergrowth.

  Finally, she stopped. “I thought he was here.”

  “Well, he’s not here now,” said Keirth. There was nothing there but trees.

  “But my stick. The thing I hit him with. It isn’t here either. So maybe...”

  “You hit him over the head, and he started bleeding,” said Keirth, “but maybe you just knocked him out. Maybe he got up.”

  She shook her head. “I killed him.”

  “Maybe you didn’t.” And as sick as it might be, Keirth was excited to think Risciter was still alive, that he could still take his revenge.

  Ariana was hugging herself. “I thought it was here, but everything looks the same.”

  She was in a great deal of shock. It was cruel keeping her out here, trying to make her look for a body. Keirth saw that. He had to get her home. He had to get her to people who could take care of her. “Let’s go back to the ship.”

  “Can we leave?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Let’s go.”

  “Good,” she said.

  * * *

  They were in hyperspace, and the girl was sleeping. She’d fallen asleep almost immediately once they’d gotten on board. Keirth stood in the doorway to her darkened bedroom, feeling guilty for getting her involved in all of this. He hadn’t had much choice, of course, but she wasn’t part of his revenge scheme, and if she’d never come along, nothing like this would have ever happened to her.

  No woman deserved to be terrorized by Risciter. And apparently, he did it as a matter of course. As some kind of macabre hobby. The girl would never be the same, Keirth knew. She looked peaceful now, but these horrors were inside her brain now. She’d never quite be able to be free of them.

  And she wasn’t built for this. She was rich and pampered. She’d probably never had to deal with anything so terrifying in her sheltered life. It made Keirth sick. Sad.

  He’d programmed the ship to take them to her homeworld of Wendo. He thought that the authorities were probably watching for his ship, prepared to arrest him for capturing the daughter of a duke, and because he wanted to save his own skin, he couldn’t land in any of the proper docks. He knew about some docks on the planet that wouldn’t ask questions, however, places where he’d be able to set the ship down in relative safety. He could get the girl back to her family, and then he’d be back on his own.

  Risciter had taken his blaster, so he needed another of those. And he’d want another ship. The underground would have to help him out with both of those things. Once he’d procured supplies, he’d head back to Kush. If Risciter’s ship was gone when he arrived, he’d know that Risciter was alive. If not, he’d try to find Risciter’s body, make sure he knew the truth himself. If Risciter was alive, Keirth would hunt him down again, and he’d make sure he got it right this time.

  Either way, he needed to make sure the girl was okay before he did anything else. Leaving her on a colony planet someplace wasn’t an option anymore. After what Keirth had exposed her to, he owed her more than that.

  He closed the door to her bedroom, leaving her to her rest and went to the kitchen to rehydrate some kind of food.
>
  He was sitting down a meal of noodles and some kind of powdered, spicy sauce that had turned out to be quite nice, when Ariana appeared in the doorway. She wasn’t wearing the jumpsuit anymore. He guessed that since it was her ship, she had her clothes on board. She’d changed into an outfit that wasn’t nearly as form fitting. Instead, she was clothed in something that obscured her shape and covered her from neck to wrist.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “You should rest,” he said.

  “I’m not tired.”

  He gestured at the noodles. “Hungry?”

  She nodded.

  Keirth dipped some into a bowl for her.

  She sat down opposite him at the kitchen table and took a bite. After chewing and swallowing, she said, “Where are we?”

  “We’re in hyperspace,” said Keirth. “I’m taking you home.”

  She dropped her fork onto the table with a clatter. “What?”

  She wasn’t pleased? “You need to be back with your family. You’ve been through an ordeal, and they can—”

  “I can’t go back there.” She looked furious. “I’m a murderer.”

  Keirth sighed. “Risciter might not be dead.”

  “He’s dead,” she said. “I killed him.”

  Keirth took a bite of his noodles. “Even if you did, you had to. It was self-defense. He was trying to hurt you.”

  “No one will believe that,” she said. She picked up her fork again. She twirled noodles around it. “People won’t believe what Risciter was. I didn’t believe it until I witnessed it myself.”

  “Well, if he is dead, his body’s on Kush,” said Keirth. “No one needs to know.”

  She brought her fork to her mouth. She chewed.

  Good. Maybe she was calming down. She’d seen reason. He ate another bite himself. It was really quite tasty. He’d never had dehydrated food this good.

  “Even if I could lie about it,” she said, “and I’m not sure I could, I can’t go back. I’m ruined. I’ve been unchaperoned for nearly two days. I’ll never get an offer of marriage. I’ll turn into my Aunt Tildy, drinking myself into a stupor at parties every night.” She shook her head. “No, I’m not going back.”

  Oh, this was ridiculous. Keirth got up to get himself a glass of water. “Where else are you going to go?”

  “I...” She shook her head.

  Hadn’t thought of that, had she? “Do you want some water?”

  “Please.”

  He set a glass in front of her and took a drink from his own glass. “I’m sorry about what happened. I’m sorry if this has really made a mess of your life. I wish you’d never been on the ship with me. I wish none of this had happened. But you have your family—”

  “You don’t know anything about my family.” She sipped at the water. “They’ll be horrified. They’ll tell me I brought this on myself. I did go after Risciter without a chaperone. I’ve destroyed all my prospects, you see. And now I’ll be a burden on the family. Without a husband, I’ll be the spinster everyone has to pass around for the rest of my life.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Keirth. He supposed he’d never really thought about how binding the rules were over the nobility.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked him.

  Keirth’s jaw dropped. “Don’t get any ideas, sweetheart. I may not want to cause you any more harm, but I’m not taking responsibility for you.”

  “Of course,” she said, looking down at her noodles.

  “After I drop you off, I’m going back to make sure Risciter is actually dead. If he’s not, I’m going to find him and kill him.”

  “What did he do to you, anyway? Why do you want to kill him?”

  Keirth pushed his noodles around in his bowl. “It was my mother. He...killed her. I was fifteen. I saw it happen. I tried to stop him, but I failed.”

  “Oh,” said Ariana. “I’m so sorry. That must have been... He’s really very horrible.” Her voice trembled. “Do you really think he could be alive?”

  “I don’t know,” said Keirth. But he hoped so. He’d dreamed of snuffing out Risciter’s life so many times. He didn’t want that taken away from him.

  She ate some more of her noodles. “I really am sorry about your mother. And I hope he is dead. Because he was...he was evil.” She shut her eyes tight.

  Keirth felt for her again. She’d been through so much. He knew that when she’d come out of the woods, her clothes had been askew. He didn’t want to push for information, though. He figured it wasn’t his business. But he knew that for a man like Risciter, raping and killing women were all caught up in his twisted ideas of pleasure. His own mother... Keirth didn’t like to think about that. It had been his mother’s profession. Keirth hadn’t liked it. He’d tried, so hard, adolescent that he was to find some way to get together enough money that she could stop, but he’d never been able to find enough work. He knew was Risciter was capable of. And if he’d...violated this girl, maybe that was why she didn’t want to see her family. Keirth couldn’t imagine what an experience like that would do to someone like her.

  “You’re right, though,” she said. “If I don’t go back, I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Should he ask her? How would he put it? What would he say?

  “But if I don’t tell them what happened to Risciter, what will I say? What will I say I did? Where will I say I was? Will I tell them you captured me and then you just let me go?” She looked at him. “And what will happen to you? They’ll think you hurt me. They’ll be after you. And you haven’t done anything wrong. Of course you’d want to kill Risciter. Anyone would. He’s...” She grimaced.

  “Don’t worry about me,” said Keirth. “I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself, sweetheart.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said.

  Keirth had to admit he was glad to see a little of her fire come back. He smiled.

  She stood up. “No, there are too many things rolling around in my head. What if Risciter is dead, and they find out I’m a murderer, and they put me in jail? What if Risciter isn’t dead, and he comes back into society like nothing happened? I can’t let him get away with that. And no one would believe...” She gripped the back of her chair. “I need to know. I need to be sure that he’s dead.”

  Keirth rubbed a hand over his face. “That’s not going to work.”

  “Why not? Turn the ship around. Let’s go back.”

  “When we left, you wanted to leave.” Despite feeling sorry for her, she was starting to annoy him again.

  “I know that,” she said. “But I was in shock then, and I hadn’t had a chance to think. We need to go back and make sure, like you said.”

  “No,” said Keirth. “He took my blaster, and I’m in a stolen ship. This is the last trip I’m taking in it. I’ll put this boat down, and I’ll find another one.”

  “Okay,” she said. “So, then we get another ship. And I want a blaster too.”

  She really wasn’t getting this, was she? “No, you’re not coming with me.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “Why not?”

  Keirth’s mouth worked for a second, but no sound came out. She couldn’t seriously be asking that question, could she? “Because you’re Miss Ariana Gilit, and I’m a criminal, and you’d... It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “But I have to know.”

  “So give me your comm number. I’ll send you a message when I’m sure he’s dead.”

  “No,” she said. “Let me help.”

  “You can’t help,” he said. “You’d just get in the way. Now, I’m sorry for everything. I really am. But I’m taking you home, and that’s all there is to it.”

  Ariana surveyed him for several minutes, tilting her chin and looking down her nose. Then she turned and stalked out of the kitchen.

  Kerith slumped in his chair. She was angry, but she had to see that it didn’t make any sense for him to drag her across the galaxy. She was a member of the nobility. It wasn’t
his problem if she didn’t want to go home. He shoveled more of his noodles into his mouth. She might not like it, but it would be better for her. She’d see.

  Suddenly, the ship started to shudder. There was a screeching noise radiating from the walls.

  Oh no. Keirth leapt out of his chair and bolted for the bridge.

  She was standing over the console.

  “What did you do?” he said, even though that sound meant only one thing. He knew exactly what she’d done.

  “I disengaged the hyperdrive and put us back in real space,” she said, looking triumphant.

  He pushed her out of the way, hitting buttons on the console. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Did you hear that screeching noise when you did that?”

  “I guess so.”

  He glared at her. “You guess so? You know what that sound was? That was the hyperdrive dying. You burned it out. It’ll have to be replaced.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Is that really bad or something?”

  “Kind of,” he said sarcastically. “We can’t go faster than light now.” He typed furiously on the console. “Where the hell are we anyway? Are we even back in the sector?” The console blinked the location at him. Damn it. He sat back in his chair. He could strangle Miss Ariana Gilit. He really could.

  Chapter Seven

  Ariana had her arms wrapped around herself. She stood back from Keirth as he scrambled around the bridge, checking various consoles and muttering to himself. “I’m sorry.”

  Keirth glowered at her. “Well, you should be. You wanna know where we are, sweetheart? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  She chewed on her lip. “That’s bad?”

  “Of course it’s bad.” Keirth pointed at the console’s screen. “Do you see how many light years we are from the sector?”

  She peered at the screen. That was a lot. Oops. She hadn’t meant to screw everything up. “So, um, it would take us hundreds of years to get back to the sector?”

  “Yep,” said Keirth. “If we even had enough fuel, which we don’t. Without a hyperdrive, we’re crippled. We can only go to planets close in this system.”