“And my family?” she said, through gritted teeth.
Laksri and Trazen looked at one another over the table.
Jet felt the question in Trazen through his skin.
Laksri exhaled in a low sigh, hissing softly.
“Richter,” he said, equally soft. “Anaze is trying to get them out now.”
“Anaze is with his father?” Jet said, her voice still barely a murmur.
“No, Jet,” Laksri said, his voice softer than hers. “No, Anaze is not with him...he is trying to get inside. His father is actively working to raise an army now. Or perhaps to make active an army he had already raised...it is difficult to know with him.” Laksri’s jaw hardened briefly, right before he lifted a hand from the table in a vague gesture, meeting her gaze. “We do not even know if he is an ally again, given everything. I would have died on Astet, if not for him. Anaze too. Even so, Anaze thought it best to have your family away from his custody before we tested that relationship...”
Hesitating, Laksri seemed about to say more, then fell silent, swishing his tail in a more agitated loop behind his back.
“Jet...” he began, his voice pained.
That time, Trazen cut him off.
“Not here,” he said, his voice an open warning. “Do not say anything more here, Montan. We have already said too much...you especially.”
Jet pressed her lips together, her fingers coiling into fists where they rested on her thighs. She looked from Trazen back to Laksri, seeing from Laksri’s face that he agreed with the Ringmaster’s words. They couldn’t talk here.
They really weren’t going to tell her anything more.
“Why are we even here?” she muttered. “A note? A few cryptic comments?” She bit her lip, staring down at the table when neither of them answered her. “Is this just a head’s up that I’m about to die? A courtesy notice to send to my family?”
Next to her, she felt Trazen sigh.
“No,” he said, still speaking in English. “I did need to tell him what happened. But he also wanted you to see him, Jet. He wanted you to know he was alive...as soon as you could safely know. This was the soonest I could arrange such a thing. And I thought...”
Trazen hesitated when Jet looked up.
She stared him in the face, studying what looked like regret in his eyes.
“...I thought you would prefer to be coherent for it,” he finished slowly.
She continued to look at Trazen for a few more beats, trying to read the expression in his dark-blue face, in those black eyes with the pale gold flecks. Seeing nothing––nothing she could pinpoint with any certain––she shifted her gaze back to the wooden table.
She couldn’t make herself look at Laksri.
She felt him continue to stare at her, however.
“Jet,” Laksri began, even softer. “Jet, look at me. Please.”
He reached for her hands, which she now pressed flat into the wood. She drew her fingers away before he could touch them, shaking her head as she continued to stare down at where they’d been.
“No,” she said.
It was the only word that came to her. The only one that made sense.
Another silence fell over the fire-lit room.
In it, Jet felt her anger worsen. Not just anger.
She felt razor-clear suddenly, like every shred of the venom fog in which she’d lived for the past however-many weeks had abruptly left her system.
Laksri said Anaze was trying to get her family away from Richter. That meant Laksri might know where they were. He might know where Richter was keeping them.
It was the only thing she wanted from any of them now.
She didn’t really care what half-lying explanations Laksri wanted to give her. She wanted out. She wanted nothing to do with any of these damned lizard-skins anymore.
All she cared about was finding her family. She needed to find Biggs and her mother and get them away from these murdering bastards before they killed and raped and enslaved them, too. She wanted to get her family as far away from the Nirreth and the human rebels as she possibly could. She didn’t care whose side any of them were on anymore.
Anaze. Richter. Laksri...
Trazen.
She looked at the Ringmaster as she thought it, meeting his dark, gold-flecked eyes, only to find him watching her, studying her expression. She fought to make her mind blank, but knew he’d probably heard at least part of what she’d been thinking just then.
The part about her wanting out.
The part about her distrusting all of them.
The part about distrusting the Nirreth.
She wondered if Trazen would tell Laksri that, too. She wondered if he would tell Laksri not to give Jet any information about where her family was being held, because they couldn’t trust her anymore, because she was prejudiced against Nirreth as a species...and prejudiced against Richter for being, well, Richter.
As she thought it, Trazen shook his head perceptibly, pursing his lips.
It was a human gesture. Jet had no idea how he meant it.
Even so, she felt some layer of understanding filter through her. She fought against believing it, but it reached her anyway.
Before she could speak again, Trazen turned, looking back towards Laksri.
“I think this meeting is over,” the Ringmaster hissed softly, switching to Nargili.
After he said it, Jet glanced back over her shoulder. She glimpsed a shadowy figure by the doorway again and looked away, wondering who they worked for, if it was the new First Son Isreti, or someone else that they feared.
For all Jet knew, it could be Richter himself.
“The first challenge match is set for three weeks from today,” Trazen continued, his voice clearer now, louder. “If you want to run your own candidate against mine, then you will have to wait for two weeks after that. My decision is final.”
Laksri nodded.
Jet looked at him as he did, flinching at the grief she saw in his expression. Her flinch was followed by another flush of anger. Laksri didn’t look at the door, but Jet also got an even stronger sense of all of them being watched.
“Understood, Ringmaster Trazen,” Laksri hissed in the same language. “Are we in agreement about price?” He raised his eyes, focusing a harder gaze on Trazen’s tail wrapped around Jet’s waist. “Are the stipulations we agreed upon still in effect?”
Trazen returned Laksri’s stare with a frown.
That time, Jet got the sense they were talking about something specific. Not playacting some fake challenge match with Laksri’s fake Rings champion.
Even as she thought it, Trazen’s fingers tightened on Jet’s arm.
Before Trazen could reply to Laksri’s question, Jet did.
“No,” she said coldly, meeting Laksri’s gaze. “No, the stipulations are not still in effect.”
Laksri flinched, looking at her.
Jet got a dim satisfaction out of the shock she saw in his eyes. More than shock...hurt lived there, along with a more visible grief than she’d ever seen on him. It was enough to tell her that she’d guessed right about what Laksri and Trazen meant by “stipulations.”
“Jet...” Laksri began, his voice gruff.
“I want to go home,” she said. She jerked her eyes off Laksri’s face, looking at Trazen instead. “Can we go home now?”
Trazen’s fingers tightened reflexively a second time, even as she felt what might have been anger through the venom. She felt something else there too, but had no idea what it meant. Frustration? Regret? Did he want to tell her something too?
Or did he want to defend Laksri again?
“Of course,” was all he said.
Trazen rose smoothly to his feet, loosening his tail from around her waist. He released her arm with his hand in the same motion. Pausing then, he looked down at Laksri.
When he spoke, his voice came out as a near-warning.
“You will transfer the funds to me within the next three days,” he said
. “Or I cannot reserve the dates. And my people will want more information about your candidate.”
Laksri gestured his head in a Nirreth’s yes, his eyes still on Jet’s face.
“Of course.”
“Final scheduling and bet acceptance will not commence until I am satisfied.”
“That is all agreed,” Laksri said, his eyes still on Jet. He swallowed visibly as he looked at her, lashing his tail more violently behind his back.
He didn’t say anything to her, though.
Jet found herself thinking he wanted to speak. Seeing the cold sheen in Lakrsi’s black, star-flecked eyes, she found herself thinking he wanted to speak very badly. Maybe he wanted to do more than speak...particularly to Trazen himself.
But he only sat there, motionless.
Jet couldn’t look at him for long.
Too many things wanted to come out of her mouth when she found herself faced with his dark eyes, that faint whisper of accusation she could see in his expression. She could deal with the parts of her that were angry. Anger was easier to wrap her head around. It was everything else...the parts of her that weren’t angry, that were happy he was alive, happy to see him, even knowing he’d lied to her and that they’d all been playing her while she sat stoned in Trazen’s mansion for however many months. While she’d been in that prison on Astet.
He’d left her.
Laksri left her there...in that hellhole on Astet. She’d been so sure she would die down there. She’d assumed it, waited for it...even wanted it by the end. She’d thought she might meet him there, in the afterlife. The memory of that bringing her comfort infuriated her now.
She couldn’t think about this, though. Not now. Not when she still hadn’t reconciled her feelings in either direction. She hated herself for the wince she felt when she saw the grief in his dark eyes...how easily manipulated she was by the hint of human-like emotion in his angular face.
She couldn’t make herself not care. Not entirely.
So she just looked away.
Laksri, for his own part, didn’t say another word.
He sat there, silent, as Trazen led her out of the room.
“Jet!” the muscular Nirreth hissed, his tail lashing behind him as he met her gaze. “We cannot talk about this here! Even here!”
She opened her mouth, but Trazen gripped her arm tighter.
“You must be silent, Jet! Now!”
They were in another of those sailboat-like trolleys, or maybe the same one.
Jet found she couldn’t keep her mouth shut once she got back inside the vehicle, and the few whispers of information she could get off Trazen from the remaining venom in her blood simply weren’t enough, not after everything she’d just seen and heard.
Even now, with him glaring at her in an open threat, it wasn’t enough.
“Sting me,” she said, her jaw hardening as she stared at him. “Sting me!”
“No!” he growled, giving her a borderline disbelieving look. “You heard what I said in there!”
“I don’t care!”
“You will,” he said. “You will care.”
His words came out in a mutter, even as he looked away.
She’d felt that indecision in him before though, when she’d asked him to sting her in front of Laksri. She also felt Trazen’s resentment of her for wanting to use him as a direct means of getting back at Laksri. She had trouble caring about that, either, though.
She didn’t even bother to deny that end of things; she knew Trazen was right, at least in part. She also knew it wasn’t the main thing on her mind right then. Moreover, she knew Trazen knew that, too. She was tired of being in the dark. If she had to risk sleeping with Trazen to find out what was really going on, then so be it.
“No,” he repeated, almost as if he’d heard her.
He glared at her, his dark eyes reflecting light from the passing streetlamps.
She shook her head at him, incredulous.
“You damned Nirreth,” she said, her voice a harsh mutter. “You act high and mighty about this stuff, even as you use it to manipulate me and every other human you want, pretty much all the time.” She glared at him. “Why do you have to be such hypocrites? Why not just tell me you only enjoy doing it when we don’t want you to?”
Trazen scowled at her, but didn’t answer.
Without thinking, Jet turned away from him.
Hitting the nearest door switch with her hand, she moved fast, before the sliding door had even finished opening. She leapt once the gap was big enough even as Trazen lunged after her. The muscular Nirreth snatched at her shirt, his jointed fingers catching only the air between him and the open door. She heard him yell out for the trolley to stop even as she slammed into the cement road with her knees and palms. Her broken toe got bent back as she did.
The pain jarred her very bones...nearly made her scream.
It also snapped her wide awake.
Gasping, she was already dragging herself to her feet.
She shoved the pain back, out of her mind and away from her awareness as she jerked her body upright. Half-stumbling and limping on the broken toe, nearly falling again when one knee crumpled, she began to run anyway.
She didn’t know where she was...or where she was going.
She heard Trazen call her name but only pumped her arms and legs faster.
Crossing the lit road, she darted into the first gap she saw between darkened buildings. She touched the walls of the alley as she ran, still fighting to get her momentum going, to get up her speed from the fall.
It hit her again that she had no idea where she was.
She knew Trazen was likely chasing her or would be soon...so she didn’t let herself think about the where, not yet. For the same reason, she didn’t slow her strides when she reached an empty lot between buildings. Looking around in a few darting glances, she ran out into the relative open, crossing stripes of light from a smattering of nearby windows and the fainter glow of the dome’s artificial moonlight.
Reaching the next gap between buildings she sprinted harder again, only to barely slow a second time before running across another open space speckled by moonlight. That one had fewer lit windows overlooking the grassy lawn.
Something about the silence felt almost ominous now.
Jet reached the shadows of another building on the other side and breathed a sigh of relief as she once more broke into a full sprint.
She didn’t hear Trazen behind her any more.
He would probably call the Nirreth guard to hunt her.
She knew she probably wouldn’t get far, not when everyone knew her face. Not when she had no idea how to get past the dome, or even how far away the nearest edge of the dome lived.
Maybe she could find humans who would help her.
Something about this area felt like it might house humans as well as Nirreth. She had nothing to attach to the thought, just a feeling...but it felt true.
She knew finding humans to help her was probably a long shot too, though.
Every human she’d met in the Green Zone so far was being stung regularly by at least one Nirreth, if not by a whole bunch of them. Most didn’t even try to keep secrets from their masters, from what Anaze and Laksri had told her.
Well, assuming she could believe anything those assholes had told her.
Feeling a rush of anger at the thought, Jet ran harder, sucking air into the back of her throat. She fought to even her breaths now, determined to run far enough that Trazen would be forced to turn back and get help to find her.
Let him get the whole damned guard out here looking for her. Let him explain that to his new King...and anyone else who thought Jet Tetsuo was nothing more than yet another Nirreth’s tamed human house pet.
She knew the thought wasn’t entirely rational. She knew that revelation would probably hurt her more than it ever hurt Trazen...but she didn’t care about that, either.
She was tired of playing along.
She was tired of being
the obedient little pawn.
Her eyes skimmed past lit windows as she scowled. She tried to take in more of her surroundings, to make sense of where she was. She made it through more a few more open spaces before the scenery changed somewhat. She saw older-looking, more run-down residential buildings then, backed by cultivated food plants rather than open lawns or flower gardens. Each building seemed to have their own row of crops; she saw what looked like corn, wheat, tomato plants, carrots, even a few staked goats and cows. One of those cows lowed at her as she stumbled past, fighting her way between the fences that now separated most of the back yards. She ran through a larger grassy lawn peppered with trees, what might have been a communal space, before she found herself in a wide dirt lot between the row of homes and what looked like a long, warehouse-sized building.
Even in their slums, the Nirreth seemed to insist on a kind of order.
She didn’t see any trash out here, or even any dead plants.
The thought came to her bitterly.
She got past a few more of the looming, shadowed buildings before Trazen caught up with her.
She didn’t hear or feel him coming at all.
She let out a shriek when he caught hold of her...in surprise as much as fear.
He grabbed her arms from behind, tackling her to another of those moonlight-lit lawns, this one past the first warehouse she’d seen and behind another row of houses. Jet fought him, yelling, swinging at him with her fists and feet until he caught hold of her arms, pinning her to the grass. She swore up at him even louder, mostly in English.
For a few secnds he only looked down at her, breathing hard, his legs pinning hers under him where he sat astride her hips and waist, his tail making violent arcs.
“Jet! Calm down!” he said.
He sounded almost worried.
“Screw you!” she shouted.
“Jet! Be quiet! Please!”
She saw him looking around at buildings, at lights coming on in the upper floors, but she couldn’t make herself care.
She opened her mouth to yell at him again, but he clamped a hand over her mouth.
Shrieking against his fingers, she struggled harder but couldn’t budge him.
She was still fighting him when he regained his feet all at once, jerking her upright with him before he dragged her to the side of the lawn and back into a darkened space between buildings. She fought him the whole way, but couldn’t make him budge. Given that he was about four of her in weight, she knew she couldn’t hope to, but some part of her couldn’t stop trying. He didn’t loosen his hold on her, or take his hand off her mouth.
Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV) Page 70
