Page 13

Roslyn

The captain of the show’s security team sizes me and Zandrel up with naked suspicion in his gaze.

I don’t know the history between these two, but if Zandrel’s face is anything to go by, they’re not each other’s biggest fans.

God, if looks could kill.

I thought I was the only thorn in Zandrel’s side on this planet, but I can honestly say he’s never looked at me like that.

Black gaze sharp as a blade, a sneer of disgust on his lips like Brivik is shit stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

Even when I’m at the height of pissing him off, I’ve never seen that look.

It snaps my spine straighter, sends a shiver of foreboding through me, but I make myself lean back into him. I make myself relax when he snakes an arm around my waist and pulls me into his side.

His skin is warmer, I think, when he gets worked up like… well. Like how we were just a minute ago. And between the surprise of that warmth and the weight of his heavy, muscled, plated arm keeping me in place, I’m not going anywhere.

My lips still taste like him. My body still tingles in every place he touched me. My mind’s still reeling with the visceral physicality of Zandrel and that kiss we just shared.

That kiss .

Fuck.

I can’t think about that kiss.

At least not beyond what a giant mistake it was.

Standing this close makes me way too aware of what an idiotic game I was just playing. What an idiotic game I’ve been playing for the last few days.

Continually pissing Zandrel off is beyond stupid.

Especially if one of these days I end up pissing him off enough to earn a look like that.

Brivik wilts a little under Zandrel’s glare, his shoulders hunching forward, a sneer of his own twisting his reptilian lips.

“What do you want, Brivik?” Zandrel asks, and that sneer grows sharper.

“I can’t just be checking in on my favorite former subordinate and the human female who stole his heart?”

“I don’t particularly care what you do, and if that’s all, we’ll be headed back to—”

“I also need you to come to my office. Now.”

Beside me, something rumbles deep in Zandrel’s chest. Something that might almost be a growl as I feel it vibrate through every place we’re touching.

“Why?”

“Because you didn’t complete your off-boarding in all the… excitement earlier this week. We’ll need you to turn in your staff credentials, hand over your crew-issued supplies, all of it.”

Another low rumble, though this one sounds more like annoyance. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

He drops his arm from my shoulder and reaches for my hand, but I take a step back.

Inspiration, desperate and reckless, strikes like the lightning that’s threatening in the low rumbles from the storm-clouds above.

Like he can smell that desperation and sense what I’m about to say before I say it, Zandrel reaches for my hand again.

But for once, I’m too quick for him, stepping lightly back and giving what I hope reads for Brivik like a teasing smile.

“You’re not going to make me waste my time coming with you to take care of paperwork, are you?”

“Roslyn,” Zandrel warns. “I—”

“Will see me later at the bungalow. I know you’re devoted to me, babe, but even we can take a breather every once in a while.”

He has nothing to say to that. Or, at least nothing he can say that won’t give us away.

Brivik’s still looking at us like he’s well aware of the lie we’re trying to uphold. There are still three hovers swirling slowly around us, capturing the scene, and there’s nothing Zandrel can do without tipping his hand.

Maybe he doesn’t care.

Maybe I have pushed him too far, and he’ll decide that none of this is worth it, that he’s done playing this game.

Idiot. I’m an idiot.

A riled up, pissed off idiot who’s been letting panic and desperation get the better of me since that night by the pool.

A hopeless, reckless idiot who knows I’m about at the end of my rope. All out of options.

Except this one.

I know it, and Zandrel knows it, and even if he can’t say a word to stop me without exposing us, the galaxies in his eyes do the talking for him.

Don’t , his hard stare says. Don’t you fucking dare.

Well, how about that? I earned one of those looks for myself, after all.

I take another step and give him a cheeky wave. “You boys have fun. I’ll see you later.”

And then I’m off down the path.

It takes everything in me not to break into a run. Thunder cracks louder and more insistent as the approaching storm draws near, and I swear I can feel the electricity of it firing through every synapse.

This is it.

If the last time I tried to break out of this place was my one best chance, then this is my lottery win, my pardon from the prison of being under Zandrel’s thumb.

Back at the bungalow, I bound up the front steps and unlock the door. I’m across the room and into the bedroom in a few quick strides, and even knowing I don’t have access to the fancy tech Zandrel has to keep the security system from tripping when I leave, I don’t slow down for a second.

Either he’ll stick to his guns about not wanting to turn me in by rigging the security system and keeping the cameras off me, or he won’t, and I’ll be cooked. And while I can logically recognize testing those possibilities might not be the smartest move here, logic really isn’t in charge right now.

Desperation is.

Desperation and fear and an out-of-control, self-destructive instinct that has me throwing open the bedroom window and hauling myself up and out of it.

I hit the soft ground behind the bungalow and take off. Keeping low and staying away from the main pathway, I pick my way through the jungle toward the pool and the perimeter fence. There’s no one else around, no hovers tailing me, and my confidence in Zandrel’s need to control the situation, to keep this game going so he doesn’t lose his way back to the Aux, grows by the moment.

And yet, with each step, I’m also plagued by the same nagging thread of doubt that’s been tugging on me since the night we made our deal with Marva.

It’s the doubt that whispers maybe it still would have been a better bet to trust him, to partner with him, to use whatever skills he could offer to help me find Savvie. The doubt that warns I’m going to push my luck too far, that there’s no way I can pull this off all on my own.

But I can’t think about that right now.

I can’t think about anything but Savvie and the mission in front of me.

Step one, get up and over the fence, outside the production zone, squarely into restricted Eritin territory.

The pack I brought with me last time—filled with some food, a canteen, and extra clothes, the only sparse supplies I could bring in my luggage without rousing suspicion from the production team—still waits in the bushes where Zandrel pulled it off me and tossed it aside. It’s a little soggy and sand-crusted, but there’s nothing I can do about that now.

I scoop it up without breaking my stride and lunge for the fence. Grip steady, feet sure, I haul myself up, up, up, with only a slight twinge in my bad shoulder as I heave over the top and scramble down the other side.

Again, my feet hit soft, sandy earth, and again, a shot of reckless confidence floods through my vein.

Onto step two.

Moving faster now, bolstered by that recklessness, I break into a run.

All the time I spent studying maps and satellite images and every bit of information I could learn about Eritin II comes into crystal-clear focus in my mind. I know this jungle. I know where I’m headed beyond a shadow of a doubt, and after a couple of short minutes of moving through the trees and underbrush, I find my target.

I reach the edge of the yard where production keeps their hovers, and the sky finally opens up. Lightning cracks, thunder booms, and pelting sheets of rain coat the world in silver.

Not that it bothers me, not in the slightest.

Rain is another mark in my favor. Production always slows down while everyone heads inside to wait out the frequent afternoon storms, and with any luck, I’ll be long gone by the time this one passes.

Darting across the yard, I spot my target.

A small hovercraft just big enough for one or two people, used to transport the crew around the beach to different production locales. I’m sure they keep the keys somewhere in the production offices, but that’s not a problem, either.

I sink to my knees in the sand beside the hover and dig into my pack. A metal nail file won’t do as well as I’d like for popping the control panel open, but it sure as hell raises fewer questions than bringing some other tool in my luggage.

It takes a few minutes of poking and prodding around the panel covering the ignition mechanism to get it to pop off, and I feel each passing second all the way down to my marrow.

Wherever Zandrel is, I’m sure he’s stewing, monitoring whatever he’s hacked into on his fancy ass watch, and no doubt ready to come after me as soon as he’s able to do so without blowing his cover.

Maybe he’s already on his way here.

I’ve got no idea how long his meeting with Brivik will take, and knowing I might have mere minutes to pull this off spurs me on.

Panel open, I carefully study the craft’s internal workings, trying to remember what goes where to get this thing hot-wired.

It took hours and hours of watching old episodes of Mate Match to get a glimpse of a similar-looking craft in the background of a shot, and even then, it was from a season filmed five years ago. There was no telling whether or not they’d still have the same hovers in rotation today, and even though this one definitely looks to be an updated model, the general layout of the controls seems to be the same.

I close my eyes, drawing on memories of the dozens of schematics I’ve studied.

All the while, the rain is unrelenting, soaking all the way through my clothes and making a slippery mess of the control panel.

But after all that study, I know this tech like the back of my hand. My fingers falter, but don’t fail as they connect the two circuits controlling the ignition mechanism, and the hover rumbles to life.

Step two, complete.

All that’s left is to climb on and head north from the beach, into the deeper, undeveloped wilderness and toward the only permanently inhabited settlement on Eritin II. I have no idea what I’ll find there, but I’m so close to knowing whether my sister is here, and I send up a silent prayer of thanks for the storm’s assistance in covering the hover’s sound as I climb on.

But the rain also muffles any other ambient sound on the landing strip, and that’s my undoing.

I don’t hear the heavy booted footsteps approaching. I don’t hear the rustle of clothing or what might have been panted breath from how far and how fast he must have had to run to get here and intercept me.

I don’t hear anything but the roll of thunder and the pounding rain as two muscular arms close around me, yanking me off my feet and tossing me over a hard, plated shoulder.