“We’re fine.” Rayla can’t seem to stop staring at her mother.
“So…what’s your name? What did he call you?”
“I’m Rayla Shaw.”
Wendy blinks, trying to hide her true reaction to hearing the last name.
“Why?” Rayla asks. “Why am I Rayla Shaw? Why would the warden keep an inmate’s baby, instead of giving me a normal life and family? Or sending me to your family? Do I have any other family members? Any siblings? Why did you give me up? Who is my father? How did you even get pregnant out here, anyway?”
Wendy blinks again. “Okay. That’s a lot of questions. So let me start with the big one. Arnold kept you because you weren’t just some inmate’s baby. You’re his daughter, Rayla. He kept you because he is your father.”
11
RAYLA
“I’m…” I stand so quickly Jai has to grab my chair before it can clatter to the floor. I have to move. I—
I’ve spent the past few months convinced that my father stole me from my mother. That he found a baby and figured he’d never have a chance to have a family, posted on a guard station on the edge of the galaxy, so why not keep this baby born to two criminals? This baby no one wanted? But… “He’s actually my father? How did that—? I’m not asking for intimate details, but how did that happen?”
Instead of answering, Wendy—my mother—stands, her hands opening and closing at her sides. “Would you like a drink?”
“No thanks. I have water.”
“No, a drink. Leda, one of our more recent additions, was arrested for bootlegging on a moon colonized by a teetotaling religious sect. It’s the most bogus conviction I’ve heard of.” Wendy shrugs. “But their loss is our gain. She makes some damn decent dandelion wine. And there’s a fruity version she just bottled up yesterday, made from a bunch of mixed fruit pouches. She uses sugar from the drink mixes and yeast from the bread. That girl’s a genius.”
“Um…okay. Sure.” I’ve never had alcohol, but how bad could it be?
Wendy opens one of three intact cabinets mounted over the dented but serviceable countertop and pulls out one of several water pouches lying on their sides. “Normally the ladies have to earn this—though we’ve started giving complimentary shots to women on their way to or from Settlement B.” She gives Jai a nasty look, as if he’s to blame for the organized prostitution. “But you’re a special case.” She takes two dented metal mugs from the next cabinet, rinses them in the sink, then half-fills each with a cloudy, bitter-smelling liquid from the water pouch.
She motions for me to sit again, then she sets one of the cups in front of me and sips from the other one herself. She doesn’t offer Jai one.
He doesn’t seem offended.
I lift the mug and sniff the contents, then I have to fight the instinct to recoil from the odor. It smells terrible. But Wendy is contentedly sipping from hers, waiting for my reaction. So I take a drink.
It tastes as terrible as it smells, and it burns going down.
“Thank you.” My voice is hoarse. I set the mug on the table. “That’s—”
“The first alcohol you’ve ever had. Right?” Wendy laughs. “When you get back to Station Alpha, look in the lower left drawer of your father’s desk. Unless something’s changed, he keeps a bottle of imported whiskey on hand. Some of the best in the galaxy. Give that a try before you decide you’re a teetotaler.”
“Okay.” But I can’t quite wrap my brain around what she’s saying. “You’ve been in my dad’s office?”
“Honey, I’ve been in a lot more than that.”
“Yeah, I guess you would have. So—and again, I’m not asking for intimate details—how did I get here?”
“When I arrived on Station Alpha, twenty-one years ago by my best count, your father had been warden for less than a year. He was young, and attractive, and he held quite a bit of power. As I’m sure he still does. And he was lonely.
“I was a pretty young thing—looked quite a bit like you do now—and I was terrified of being sent to the surface.” She leans in closer and lowers her voice. “I’ll deny it if you repeat this.” She turns to Jai, and her gaze hardens. “And I’ll kill you if you repeat this. But I hyperventilated and passed out during in-processing. Your dad was doing rounds and found me in the infirmary. He liked what he saw and offered me a deal. My company, in exchange for a delay in reporting to the surface.”
“Didn’t anyone notice that you were still on the station?” I ask.
“Oh, sure. But no one was going to question the warden if he wanted to keep a little tail around, on-demand. He altered my paperwork to say I had some kind of blood infection and kept me in the infirmary during the day. Then he snuck me into his quarters at night.
“If that were to happen today, I’d take the opportunity to look for a weapon—for what little good that would do me. But back then I was young, scared, and naive, and it never occurred to me to take advantage of my position. Which was only supposed to last a couple of months. But after about six weeks, I discovered I was pregnant. Shouldn’t have been possible. We never did figure out what went wrong. They used a different procedure then, and evidently it had about a two percent failure rate.
“Since then, I’ve known one other woman to get pregnant here, on the surface. She…opted not to have her baby, and I can’t say I blame her. Who could raise a kid here?”
I don’t have an answer for that. I understand why my mother gave me away, but that fact still stings.
“Um…” In the awkward silence, Jai taps the side of my mug. “If she’s not going to drink that…may I?” Wendy glares at him for a second. Then she gives him a terse nod.
“I would have kept you if I could have, but that wasn’t an option. The only choice I got was whether or not to give birth. He said if I did, I could stay on Station Alpha until the delivery, then he would make sure you found a good home.” She shrugs. “So that’s what I did. He moved me into his quarters, but didn’t give me access to the doors, so I was basically locked in. Everyone knew. It was kind of an open secret.”
“Sounds familiar,” I tell her. “The staff all knew I was growing up there too. And I didn’t have access to the doors to our crew quarters until I was ten or so.”
“How did he…raise you? While he was working?”
“He brought in a nanny. She stayed in the spare bedroom, and when I was old enough, she supervised my education, using online resources. When I was fifteen, he let her go and I transitioned to self-study. Then, when I was eighteen, he got me a job in the supply room. I was an open secret on-station, but I didn’t figure out I was a complete secret to the rest of the galaxy until I tried to register for college and discovered my citizen ID was bogus.”
“That bastard.” Wendy drains her cup, then looks longingly at the one Jai is nursing, and for a second I think she’ll snatch it from him. But she doesn’t. “There has to be a way to get you a legitimate number without exposing what he’s done. That’s why he hid you, and he won’t let you go live your own life unless he knows it won’t put him at risk.”
“At risk for what?” Jai asks. “What did he do? Other than impregnate a vulnerable young inmate?”
She glances from him back to me. “Well, that’s part of it, and that’s bad enough. That could get him sent to prison, at the worst. Fired, at best.”
Prison.
I’ve known for most of my life that my existence could get my father fired, because kids aren’t allowed on Station Alpha. But I didn’t know about the circumstances of my birth. I didn’t know he was as much a criminal as my mother was.
“Wait, that’s part of it?” I ask, when what she’s said finally sinks in. “What’s the rest of it?”
Wendy’s frown deepens. “He never told you?”
“Told me what?”
“He has another family, honey. A wife, back on his home planet and—when I knew him—two kids. He may have more by now. He hid you not just because it was a crime for him to conceive you with me
, but because his wife would have left him and taken their kids, if she’d known.” Wendy shrugs. “For what little that matters. He hardly ever saw them, during the year I spent on Station Alpha. I can’t imagine that’s changed, if you didn’t know about them.”
I blink, stunned. I do have more family. I have siblings. And my father doesn’t think I’m good enough to even tell them about me.
“He, um… He goes on trips. He says they’re for business, but they’re pretty regular. Twice a year, for a month each.” He travels on a high-speed transport, presumably so he’ll have more time to spend with the kids he does claim? The children who can go to college, and fly a shuttle, and get married, and start families.
The children the world knows about.
Wendy leans forward. “Don’t let him do this to you, Rayla. He’ll make it right, if you push the issue. Don’t let him keep you prisoner—you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Well, I have now,” I admit. “I helped steal a shuttle and breach the pyro-shield without permission. I cost a guard his life. And I—”
Jai takes my hand and squeezes, a silent command for me to stop talking. “The crash wasn’t your fault. And your father’s driven you to do those other things, by denying you a real existence for your entire life. By locking you up. By hiding you.”
Wendy turns to him, truly seeming to consider him for the first time. “And who are you?” she says after a moment of reflection, her arms crossed over her chest. “To Rayla?”
“This is Jai,” I tell her.
“Jai what?”
I turn to him, realizing all over again that I still don’t know his last name. Not that things like that really matter, on a prison planet.
“Jai Janssen.” He’s still holding my hand. Wendy makes a point of noticing that, and I want to tell her that he got that black eye defending me, but that seems pointless, considering that I’m about to leave him here.
“Jai Janssen, will you excuse us for a moment?” Before he can answer, she stands and sweeps one hand toward the door into the lobby. “Just step outside and have a seat for a few moments. But don’t approach any of the women. We’ve all been tense since the raids, and we’ve armed ourselves the best we can.”
Jai glances at me, and when I nod, he stands. “Um…sure. But I’ll just be right outside.”
“She’s been fine without you for twenty years,” Wendy says. “I’m sure she can make it for a few minutes without you now.”
He gives her an awkward nod, then heads out.
When we hear the front door close behind him, Wendy turns to me with a serious, imploring look. “Who is he? For real?”
I don’t have to answer her. I’m grown, and she may be my mother, but she’s not my mom. Yet I want to answer. And I want to tell her the truth, because this may be the only chance I have to let my mother worry about me.
“He’s…” I shrug. “I don’t know. I like him.” The truth hits me as I say it. I like him enough to forgive him for the lie he spent two days telling me. For the time he cost me. “I really like him.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
My cheeks burn. I could tell her that’s none of her business, but that’s not much different than telling her the truth. So I only nod.
“Rayla, this may be the only opportunity I ever have to give you some motherly advice, and if I’d met you when you were any younger, that advice might not have been worth much. I didn’t get to raise you. I don’t know how you take your tea or when you got your first period, or what you like to watch on the feeds. But I know what I’m talking about with that boy. That man.”
“Okay…”
“When your father comes for you—and that could be any second—you get on that shuttle, and you fly back through the pyro-shield, and you fight for your right to leave this place far behind. And you don’t come back. Not for me. Not for your father. And not for Jai Janssen.”
“I don’t think I could come back if I wanted to,” I tell her. “That was pretty much guaranteed the moment my shuttle crashed. But Jai…he helped me. He could have left me all alone out there, but he helped me find you.” No need to mention those first two and a half days…
“I know. And I can see that he likes you back. But Rayla, he’s a convict with a life sentence. There is no future there, and if he really cares about you, he’ll tell you the same thing. There is nothing for you in this entire sector of the galaxy. Nothing. But it’s a big universe, and you deserve to see it. So go see it. And don’t you dare look back.”
“I—”
“Wendy.”
I turn, startled by my father’s voice, but not surprised that we didn’t hear him come in. He’s always been sneaky.
“Rayla,” he says in that firm, expectant tone that makes his staff members tremble. I stand, my hands clasped at my back, but Wendy only scoots back in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest.
“You promised me you’d find her a good home.”
“I gave her a good home,” my father insists.
“You gave her a metal and polymer cage! She’s a girl, not a bird, Arnold! And she’s not a convict. You have to let her go.”
“I’m not here to argue, and I’m certainly not going to take orders from you, Wendy.”
“No, you’re just going to take my child. Again.”
“Do you honestly think she should stay here?”
“No, I think she should have been given to a good family, on a good planet, far from this horrible rock. I think—”
My father scowls. “She’s had every—”
“Guys. I’m here, and I’m old enough to make decisions for myself.”
My father throws his arms out to encompass the entire planet. “If this is an example of your adult decision-making process, then I beg to differ. Say goodbye to your mother. We’re leaving.”
There’s no sense in arguing. If my father’s here in person, he probably has a twenty-man team of guards outside, securing the entire perimeter of the building. Speaking of which… “Where’s Jai?”
His scowl returns. “Who’s Jai?”
“My…friend. He went outside a few minutes ago.”
“There were no men outside,” my father says. And he doesn’t sound disappointed about that. “Say your goodbyes.”
I exhale, fighting for patience. “May I have a few minutes of privacy?”
His eyes narrow. He slides his hands into the pockets of his dark suit. “Of course. But Rayla, I have men posted at every exit. Do not try me.”
I roll my eyes at him. “I never planned to stay. I just wanted to meet her. Talk to her.”
He nods, and for just a second he looks…guilty. “You have five minutes.”
“Five whole minutes?” I snap.
He turns on his heel and heads out the door.
The moment it closes behind him, I snatch my pack from the ground and set it on the table. “I want to give you something,” I whisper, in case my dad has…I don’t know. Bugged the room, or something.
“Rayla, I don’t need anything. Just seeing you is more than I thought I’d ever get.”
“Well, that’s not enough.” I dig through my bag until my hand closes over my personal wrist com. “I let the battery run down on purpose, so my dad couldn’t track me, but it’s solar powered, so a few hours outside should charge it right up. Do you know how to use it?”
My mother takes the device from me and stares at it in something approaching wonder. “It’s newer than anything I’ve seen in years, but I’m sure I can figure it out.”
“I’ll tell my dad I smashed it, to keep him from tracking me, and he’ll get me a new one. Keep this one charged, and we’ll be able to send each other messages. At least while I’m still on-station.”
“So you’re going to leave?” A smile haunts the corners of her mouth. “Please tell me you’re going to leave.”
“I am. Just as soon as I can get a proper ID number.”
“Good.” My mother pulls me into a hug, t
ouching me for the first time, and there are tears in her eyes. “I mean it, Rayla. Don’t look back. Promise me.”
“I promise.” But the words catch in my throat. I know there’s nothing here for me. But I also know that everything I have and everyone I’ve ever known is either on this planet or in orbit.
“Okay. Go, honey, before he comes in after you.”
Finally, I let her go. But on my way through the doorway into the lobby, I turn for one more question. “What were you going to name me? I mean, I know you never planned to keep me, but surely you thought about that…?”
She shrugs. “I had to call you something, at least in my head. So once I found out you were a girl, I called you Rosalie. After my grandmother.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“Yes, it is. But Rayla is beautiful too. That’s your name.” She gives me a smile, and for a second, though she’s every bit of forty years old, half of which she’s spent under very difficult circumstances, she looks young and happy. “Now, please go before I’m forced to interact with your father again.”
Halfway through the lobby, I hear the shuffle of feet on concrete and I turn, my heart pounding, to find Jai standing in the shadows of the hallway to the left. “How did you get in here?” I whisper as I head toward him.
“I never left. Rayla, princess, I just…” His gaze holds mine, but his tongue falters.
“You know I can’t leave the gun with you. I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t do you any good.”
“I know. That’s not what I… I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. You should have had more time with your mother.”
“Yes. But I forgive you.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“Because if I’d gotten here sooner, I’d have had less time with you.” I slide my pack off my shoulder and pluck my gun from inside, then I hand him the bag. “For what it’s worth, you can have all this. And maybe, if Wendy lets you hang around, I’ll be able to sneak something for you into the Settlement B supply drop every now and then.”
Dirty Lies Page 14
