Page 6

“I want you, more than I’ve ever wanted anyone,” I admitted. “But I won’t do it here on the street. You deserve a bed, you deserve to be able to shout and scream if you want. And there’s so much I want to show you, teach you.”

Daisy nodded quickly.

“Alright…where?”

“I have an apartment through there,” I indicated to the left of us, down the corridor. “After your work, I’ll take you there.”

“I’ve thought about you like this,” she said with a shy bite of her lip. “Wanting to be with me, touching me.”

I smirked with pride.

“Oh really? And what did you do to yourself when you thought of me?”

Her cheeks pinked and she shook her head.

“I’ll show you later since a picture is better than words.”

The breath stalled in my throat and I slammed my mouth to hers. The thought of Daisy touching herself, getting off right in front of me, because of thoughts of me? It had me so hard I was leaking and sore.

“No more,” she turned, gasping for air, “or I’ll say fuck the job and run to your apartment.”

I didn’t really see a problem with that.

In fact, I’d tried to talk her out of doing the assassination a dozen times.

I hated the thought of Daisy carrying around the weight of killing someone, even if they were a piece of shit.

But she’d insisted that what she was going to do would save lives, and that made it worthwhile.

Somehow, she still believed that the work she was being trained for was noble, even though I’d been disabused of that notion from practically day one.

I wondered why the Commander let her think like this, but quickly banished such thoughts.

After today, he’d be a distant memory if we thought of him at all.

“Alright, let’s get you to the spot then.”

The way she looked up at me was intoxicating, like I was something more than a piece of trash that had been thrown away.

No one had ever looked at me like I was something other than a burden or an instrument to use.

But Daisy made me feel special, important, if only to her.

It warmed me, and I already craved more.

She had been irreplaceable to me before, but now I would be obsessed, greedy for her attentions.

I’d have to be careful not to drive her away with that.

“What?” she asked, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” The back of my knuckles brushed against the cheek with the cyber unit.

“Like I’m a treasure.”

“Because to me, you are everything.”

I waited for the recoil, for her become afraid or unsure. Instead, her smile bloomed wider and relief nearly took my knees out from under me. I pressed my forehead to hers and let out a shaky breath.

“Were you scared to admit that?” she asked.

“Yes. I thought it would be too much too fast. I don’t want to scare you but I…I want to keep you, forever.”

“That doesn’t scare me.”

“No?”

She shook her head and framed my face with her small hands.

“No one looks at me as anything anymore,” she answered, tears glistening in her eyes. “Not even…not even the commander. I like being important to someone in this galaxy.”

“You are.” I kissed her soft, my lips lingering on hers, memorizing her.

“I have to go,” she breathed, “or I’ll be late.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“I told you, I’m ready. I want to do this.”

“Alright, I’ll take you through a short cut to the building.”

She picked up her case, which looked like any other for a weekend away, but I knew it carried a specialized sniper rifle inside.

I checked the street, which was starting to get busy with people looking for drinks and food after work.

Nothing was out of place, no suspicious being milling about.

But the hair on the back of my neck was prickling.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Something feels off.”

She closed her eyes and when she opened them, her cyber eye had changed from brown to yellow.

“Scanning area…no signs of anyone carrying weapons…no one with forged IDs.”

“That’s new. I’m a little jealous.”

She snorted.

“Don’t be. The damn thing took forever to calibrate, and it still gives me…wait…Get down!”

Daisy might’ve been small, but she was strong. She shoved me out of the way and to the side, taking a phase bolt to the upper chest. It happened fast and yet every second was viciously clear to me. She fell onto her back on the pavement, a smoking hole in her right shoulder

“Daisy!” I screamed, covering her with my body as I dragged her further into the dark of the corridor.

Her eyes blinked, shock and then pain causing her face to contort.

“Oh god, just hold on, I’ve got a portable med bed at my place.”

I picked her up and started to run as the sound of feet began to pound behind us.

“Jacen,” she gasped. “I…”

“Don’t you dare die! You can’t, you understand, I won’t let you go.”

Her cyber hand came up and grazed my cheek as she smiled weakly.

“Stay awake,” I ordered, “don’t make me press on your wound to keep you awake because I will.”

“D-do it.”

Causing her pain was the very last thing I wanted, but I did it anyway. She bit her lip so hard it bled to keep from crying out and revealing our location. Her real eye was becoming glossy with pain, but her cyber one had gone yellow again and she was staring behind me.

“Give me…gun,” she breathed.

I did without hesitation and she steadied her aim on my shoulder. Even though we were running and it must’ve been a pain to steady the gun, my Daisy was a crack shot and the man went down if the cry behind us was any indication. Daisy fired two more shots but I didn’t hear anyone else hit.

I ducked around a corner and set her on the ground before taking my gun back.

My inner ear mod clicked on at my silent command, optimizing my hearing and I detected two sets of footsteps approaching slowly.

My CPU gave me an estimated distance based on the auditory information and when they were close enough, I ducked from around the corner and shot.

They were surprised by the move, obviously anticipating that I would be more concerned with getting her to safety than killing them. When they fell, I walked to where they were and emptied three bolts into their head and chest just to be sure.

The anger and terror running through me had all my senses on heightened alert, though I was also trembling with the adrenaline. I’d lost count of how many people I’d killed at this point, but these two I would remember for the rest of my life because they tried to take the woman I loved from me.

With a last look, I ran back to Daisy, who I found pressing on her wound to stay awake, sweat on her face.

“Come on, sweetheart,” I said, bending down to pick her up.

“Jacen!”

I turned around just in time to get a punch to the face that sent me falling into the wall.

Spots dotted my vision but I was coherent enough to tackle the man who was reaching for Daisy.

We fell onto the filthy ground, grappling with one another.

He was a Talosian, built and tall. In any other fight he’d have the advantage, but I was fighting to protect Daisy, and that gave me a tenacity he wasn’t expecting.

I was able to straddle him and I punched his face twice before he tossed me off him like I weighed nothing.

Adrenals, has to be.

I hated adrenals as a rule, but I had to even the playing field so I ordered my mods to inject me.

The heat of adrenaline hit me first, then testosterone and cortisol raced until I was shaking for an entirely different reason than fear for Daisy.

Spittle flew from my mouth as I roared and ran toward him.

We traded blows that would’ve sent me to my knees without the adrenals, my cyber hand cutting the Talosians face so that blue blood flew onto my skin.

I barely noticed it as we traded punches to the face and torso.

In some distant part of me, I knew that I was badly wounded in a matter of minutes, but the adrenals kept the pain at a far distance. I just needed a little more time to…

The bastard got me in the gut with the hardest strike yet and the air was driven from my lungs.

I coughed, desperate to get air that refused to fill my lungs, and bent over. The fugue I’d been in for the fight was lifting and suddenly agony started to spread through my battered body.

“You stupid boy,” the Talosian hissed. “You should’ve just let me have the bitch. Now you both have to die.”

My one flesh and blood eye was swelling so that I was having trouble seeing him out of it, and my jaw felt strange, like I couldn’t quite move it.

Blood trickled out of my nose, as well as my mouth mixed with saliva.

Each time I tried to breath, it felt like I was inhaling glass and my flesh and blood hand was hanging useless by my side.

“Jacen…” Daisy said, trying to crawl to me.

I shook my head at her and fell to my knees.

Her hand captured my cyber one and she lost consciousness.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as the knowledge that I had the first good thing in my life in my grasp and she was dying on the filthy pavement.

I bent over, trying to cover her body with mine as I heard the purring hiss of a phase bolt gun being charged up.

“Nothing personal, kid,” the Talosian said, his speech a bit muddled from his swollen lips and bloodied cheek. “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that, but I’ve got a job to do.”

I looked up, wishing I could tell him off and couldn’t move as his fist flew toward my face. Oblivion snatched me away and I was falling…

I woke with a start and then nearly passed out from the agony ripping through my body.

“That’s what happens when you break half your ribs, your jaw, your nose, your cheekbone and your hand,” growled the commander. “You stupid fucking…here, drink this.”

He shoved a cup into my cyber hand since my other one was splinted. I was able to open my mouth just enough to sip the bitter liquid.

“All of it.”