Page 125 of Throwing Fire

Erin gives me a lazy grin. “Time’s a-wasting.”

“I’ll go,” Kez whispers to me.

“No.” I turn to Erin. “Take me instead.”

The Überbitch rolls her eyes. “Sorry, darling, you have nothing I need.”

Kez shifts in my arms and looks up at me. “Please. Be there at the other end.”

I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, trying to think of any way I can keep her from getting on that ship. Anything I can say. She promised me she’d never put her ass on the line for her brother again. I could throw that at her. But this is more than her brother. This is everything she loves and making her choose between them and me is just another way of breaking her.

I promised I wouldn’t let Tyng break her.

“I will, kitten.”

Erin rolls her eyes. “Sure you will, Manny. See you there.” She takes Kez’s arm. “Come on, sis. We don’t want to be late.”

I don’t release Kez, but when Erin tugs her towards the door, we move together. Up through the lobby, across the wind-whipped dock, out to the waiting ship, where I finally let Kez go. She walks up the ship’s vibrating ramp without a backwards glance, with Erin’s claws sunk deep in her arm. It’s only when the ship’s ramp begins to fold closed that Kez looks back at me. I see the flash of her blue eyes.

Then my fierce, frightened kitten is gone.

I turn to Exeter, who is standing a step behind me on the dock with Payton and Mech Tyng. “Can we beat them back to the Clouds?” I ask, forcing the words out between my teeth. My jaw’s locked tighter than my gut.

“I’m trying to get clearance, bear with me,” he says, before dropping his voice to murmur into his comm again.

Payton puts a hand on my arm. “Mister Snow, please, think for a moment.”

“What?”

“I know ... I know you must be upset.” She don’t know the half of it. “But please hear me out. Even if you can get clearance through the Cloudline on such short notice, we don’t know where that ship is going. It could dock in Tiv. It could dock anywhere. There are hundreds of commercial ships in and out of the Clouds every day. It will be difficult to find.”

I grunt. I was planning on following the ship in the merc’s Red Shift, if Exeter can get clearance fast enough, but a bowship might be able to outpace the merc’s craft. “Yeah, and?”

“I’ll admit I don’t know Miz Agosante as well as you do?—”

I shake my head. “I don’t know her at all.”

I had no idea she hated Kez enough to hand her over to Jaxon.

“I know enough of her to know that this is not her end-game. One shipment of Hex? Getting whatever twisted revenge she thinks she’s getting by turning Miz Kerryon over to Mister Mereia? That’s not what she’s after. Whatever she’s doing, there’s more to it than this.”

Makes sense. “Agreed.”

Payton lets out a breath she’s been holding. “Chasing them to the Clouds is futile. The answers are in Hemos. In Xec Office C.”

“You heard that,” I say.

Payton nods. “And I know who they detained.”

“Who?”

“Myhre Hata.”

CHAPTER 41

It’s thirty minutes to Hemos in the mercs’ Red Shift.

Thirty minutes too long. I try to put those thirty minutes to good use. While Payton calls C.P. and reports the big skimmer hijacked, I see who I can reach. I don’t plex Kez, because Erin might see her viewie light up. That’s my only ace-in-the-hole and I’m going to keep it up my sleeve as long as I can.