Page 66

My name is Angela Kelsa. I have something that belongs to Elliott, though I don’t know if he’ll want it.

You’re familiar with those files, so you’ll probably know my name.

I don’t have any other way to reach you but this.

I was one of Uru Taal’s victims too, a year and a half after Elliott and Cleo Kestrel had been.

Attached was a photograph that left Niko breathless. A delicate, golden ring sat in a human woman’s open palm. It had a tiny opal and asymmetric floral engravings on it. Niko knew that ring. It had been used to ruin Elliott’s life. Several more surprisingly long messages followed.

He gave it to me. Put it on my finger. It was a sick joke.

He said it belonged to a dead woman. Someone who he’d done the same things to that he’d done to me.

I wanted to throw it away, but something in me made me keep it all this time.

I guess I wanted that woman to never be forgotten.

I’m glad I know her name now. She had a name.

Cleo. She felt like a sister to me too in some ways, though I never knew her. We’d both had to endure… him.

They think I’m dead. Everyone thinks I’m dead.

It’s better that way. I never went back to my life.

I was terrified they’d figure it out. That they’d come for me.

But like Elliott, I’ve been watching them too.

And when I saw your broadcast, I rejoiced.

His files showed me whose ring this was all along.

Let me know if you want help with those scumbags. I have a few unique and useful skills. You and I aren’t so different in that.

If anyone could hate another person more than the seething disdain I have for every one of these Honeybliss bastards, I would be surprised, believe me. To say they’ve ruined my life would be a gross understatement.

Every time the galaxy has one less of these assholes in it, it’s a better place for everyone.

Niko glanced up and around the empty room, its four metal, sterile walls giving no answers.

Above him, a single fluorescent light buzzed softly.

He hesitated. Should he talk to Elliott about this?

But showing him the ring right now made Niko a little wary.

Bringing anything up like this right now might not be the best idea.

The last thing he wanted to do was set off his trauma all over again when he was still recovering from having gone there.

Instead, he went to Zann.

“Niko,” Zann greeted him. He’d been sitting on his bed in his own room, one long leg stretched out, a cluster of research and news holograms scattered in the air around him.

They cast the entire room in a spectral glow.

Beside him on the bedside table was an ashtray full of spent cigarette butts.

The room smelled of a combination of stale smoke and Zann’s typical aftershave. “Come in. You hear about your bounty?”

“Yeah.”

Zann sat up fully now, swinging his legs so they draped over the side of the bed, and waved the holograms away.

“How’s it going? I tried texting you a couple times, but I think your phone is full and didn’t wanna bug you guys.

Is, uh—” he hesitated, genuine worry filling his eyes.

It made his face softer than it usually looked.

When he looked like that, Niko couldn’t help but see the resemblance between him and their father.

“Is Kestrel, uh, doing okay? Seemed like that was kind of some big shit.”

Niko appreciated that he cared. Zann hadn’t always been the greatest at showing warmth, but underneath it all, he was someone who cared a lot about the people close to him.

And it seemed Elliott now fell under that umbrella, even if it was at its very edge.

Gone now were the quips, jabs, and little nicknames.

All that remained in this serious moment was concern.

“Yeah, he’s, um. He’s alright. He’s just taking some time. ”

“Yeah?” Zann eyed him. “How the fuck did you get this far without knowing about that, Niko?”

Niko glanced away, shame crushing him tighter than the gravity of a gas giant.

He hated the question. But it was a fair one, nonetheless.

“I—I actually don’t know, Zann. I watched every one of those videos, but I just couldn’t see hers.

I figured I had a pretty good idea how they were going to go, you know?

And then after that, he’d just never really talked about it much, or in detail.

He just said he was saving Uru Taal for last, and that Taal had been there when Cleo died. Things like that.”

It had gone like that… hadn’t it? Niko tried to wrack his brain, tried to remember, tried to see if there was any detail he’d missed along the way.

Maybe Elliott had told him. Maybe someone else had, and he just hadn’t truly heard it.

It was lost to him now, if so. He’d thought he’d known, so any hints given otherwise simply hadn’t soaked in.

And he’d been so focused on surviving the complexities and challenges that always lay ahead of them.

“Shit,” Zann said, shaking his head. “Hers were actually the first I watched. I wanted to know what made that guy tick, you know?”

“Yeah,” Niko mumbled. He didn’t want to talk about this right now, and it wasn’t why he’d come here, anyway. “Hey, uh, so I was trying to clear out my messages, when I came across a pretty interesting one. I wanted to see what you thought.”

He wheeled over to the bed and showed Zann the message history from Angela, including the photograph. Zann read the details quickly, his dark eyes darting back and forth, a glint of blue reflected in them from the light.

“Huh. I’ll be damned.”

“Right? So, like, do you think it’s legit?”

“Hard to say. The tone of her messages seems pretty personal and legitimate. And that’s definitely the ring from that old video. Could be a knockoff. Are there any specific details about it Kestrel might know that we could ask her about? Hidden engraving, that sort of thing?”

It wasn’t a bad idea. Though, it would involve bringing Elliott into this after all. Niko sighed. “Yeah. I can talk to him.”

Zann thumbed through his own phone for a moment, before bringing up his copy of Uru Taal’s files from Elliott’s research.

Sure enough, there was a folder in it titled ANGELA KELSA.

He opened it, bringing up several photographs of a human woman with pale skin, fluffy, deep brown curls, and dark eyes.

Her visage was familiar to Niko. He'd just struggled to match visuals to a name before.

Zann let out a whistle, looking impressed. “Damn. Worked as a skip tracer. That must be what she means by ‘useful skills.’ If this is legit, then she might be our new best friend.”

“Huh,” Niko marveled softly. A skip tracer.

They weren’t so different from bounty hunters, though focused more on information gathering and locating fugitives in the first place.

In Angela’s case, it seemed she’d worked for the Internal Revenue Regulation of Kaalan-10.

Her specialty had been in tracking down fugitives of tax evasion and other financial crimes so that Kaalan-10’s government—or hunters like himself—could sweep in and bring them in once they’d been found.

Galapol had employed a few skip tracers of their own, though at this point, Niko wouldn’t trust them as far as he could throw them. They were probably earning their current paychecks by diligently trying to track Elliott and himself down.

“Probably what got her taken, actually,” Zann hypothesized. “She might have been investigating one of Taal’s friends, so he decided to make her not a problem anymore.”

Zann had an excellent intuition for those sorts of things. Niko figured he probably wasn’t wrong. Or if he was, that he wasn’t far off from the truth.

Either way—if she really was Angela Kelsa, and was willing to help, this could be a massive boon in finishing off Honeybliss once and for all.

Zann started playing her victim footage from Honeybliss.

Niko flinched away, casting his gaze to the corner of the room.

He’d seen this multiple times already, had it imprinted into his brain.

He’d had nightmares about it. Her screams were familiar.

She had been defiant, more angry than afraid, spitting curse words in several languages at Taal, even actually spitting on him once.

That last offense was what had proven—or so Niko had assumed, until now—a fatal mistake. Uru had shortly after thrown some concoction that was likely acid or watered-down bog-theun corrosive on her. It was gruesome.

After that, Angela Kelsa had never resurfaced again. It only made sense to assume she’d, like almost every other one of Honeybliss’s victims, died from their treatment and had been discarded afterward.

“Sorry, Niko,” Zann said, closing the video out again. “Go get him. He needs to know about this. This could change everything for you guys.”

Niko returned shortly after, with Elliott in tow. The other man looked sleepy and a little disheveled, still in pajama bottoms and a plain white t-shirt. His feet were in socks. Cowlicked waves hung in his face as he folded his arms across his chest.

“This room smells awful,” he said.

“Yeah, hi to you too. Good to see you’re still your usual sunshiny self,” Zann quipped.

“I just can’t help but be inspired by you.”

Niko sighed, realizing their weird rivalry had been resurrected. Maybe it was a good sign, though, if Elliott was now up for trading jabs.

“Anyway,” Zann continued, “come here. Look at this. This is the same one, right?”

Elliott grudgingly leaned in and eyed the image of the ring that Zann had now zoomed in on and expanded.

Niko was intensely aware of him, his gaze fixed on the blond man’s expression.

Elliott’s brow drew into a subtle frown at the sight of the ring, though it was something that felt more wounded than angry.

“Yes, that’s it.”