Page 36 of Taking Jenny (Planet Orhon #4)

Tiger

“ W here are they taking her?” I grabbed Discord’s arm and pointed after the guards, trying not to panic.

“Stop acting like a tourist, Tiger,” she hissed, shoving my hand down, cool as ever. “You know where they’re going.”

But I ignored her calm composure and sprinted after the guards carting Jenny away. Mal could take care of himself. He didn’t need me the way that she did. The fear I’d seen in her eyes was enough to bring me to my knees.

I turned a corner, heart hammering, only to slam into a wall of muscle. Two more guards blocked the corridor, hands on their weapons, their eyes dark and threatening.

“ Halt ,” one of them said in a harsh tone.

“Where is she being taken?” I demanded, fists clenched.

“That is none of your concern.”

“It is my concern,” I argued, ready to battle my way through any obstacle in my way. “Where—”

“Thanks for finding him for us, gentlemen,” Surge cut in, clapping a hand on my wrist in a surprisingly strong grip as he laughed, loud and easy. “Excuse his erratic behavior. He’s imbibed a little too much this evening. You may carry on guarding this empty space for no good reason.”

“They took Jenny,” I said furiously. “And Mal. We can’t just—”

“Yes, and if you keep babbling about that, they’ll take you, too,” Surge said in a reasonable tone. “And then you won’t be able to help either of them, so let’s go.”

He tried to nudge me away from the guards, but I stood my ground and didn’t budge, not understanding why Surge wasn’t as worried and upset as I was over the situation. “Someone has to save Jenny!”

Longshot and Discord caught up to us just in time to hear me losing my shit.

Longshot said, “Come on, Tiger. We need to go.”

I whirled on him. “You too? You just want to leave? You’re all cowards,” I shouted at them, my hysteria rising. “I thought you were our friends, or at least Mal’s friends, and you want to leave him behind, like he’s—"

“This is what happens when you let the youngsters drink too much.” Surge grimaced at the guards, as if he were embarrassed at my outburst. “Longshot, I could use your help here.”

Longshot sighed. “Very well.”

He abruptly pitched me over his shoulder, like I weighed nothing, knocking my equilibrium off. I tried to kick, but with my head near Longshot’s tail, my neck was in range of Surge. The magician touched my pulse point and everything went black.

When I woke an hour later, I was in my room at Mal’s place.

I was still in my suit and my mouth felt like I had swallowed a cina.

I downed a glass of water on the nightstand before I remembered what happened at the ball to Jenny and Mal.

I jumped up from the bed and ran for the door, only to discover it was locked from the outside.

I slammed my fists against the wood. “Let me out!”

“I will let you out, when you calm down and swear you will not return to the palace like a man with a vendetta,” Surge said from the other side, his voice maddeningly calm.

“I can’t promise that,” I snapped, pacing like a caged animal. I studied the windows in my room, but I already knew that none of them would open. “Why did you knock me out?”

“Couldn’t take all the damn whining, Tiger.”

“I wasn’t whining,” I refuted angrily. “I was worried. Still am. Jenny was taken, dragged away like she didn’t matter. You saw that, right?”

“Of course. We all saw it. But I’m not dumb enough to try to face Justice Bateen and his guards on his own turf. That’s suicide. Are you suicidal, Tiger?”

“I’m not suicidal. I’m pissed off!” I kicked the damn door. “Let me out!”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that until you swear you won’t do something crazy.”

I exhaled loudly, making sure he heard it. “Fine. I won’t do something crazy. I swear.”

A low, sizzling sound vibrated near the door, and then it opened. Surge stood there, not wearing his suit like I still was, but a camouflage bodysuit instead.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Freedom is for the sane , Tiger. It can easily be taken away.”

I shoved him aside and bolted down the hall. He didn’t try and stop me, which should have been my warning. On the way to the front door, my foot slipped out from under me and I went down hard. I landed flat on my back, the breath knocked out of me. A marble rolled by my head as I gasped for air.

Longshot loomed over me, infuriatingly calm. “He told you not to do anything crazy.”

Discord joined him, her lips pursed as she peered down at me. “Where did you think you were going?”

“Palace,” I wheezed. “Jenny and Mal. I have to…”

She gave me an impatient look. “What could you possibly do for them inside the palace that you can’t do better outside of it?”

“Get them out…get them safe.”

She grabbed my hand and helped me to my feet. “That’s why we’re going back to the palace. Together .”

“What?” I asked, confused.

Surge strolled past, already on the move, followed by Discord and Longshot. “Come on. You’re making us late.”

That’s when I realized they were all in camouflage bodysuits. I jogged to catch up. “Well, where’s my bodysuit?”

“In the onworlder,” Discord said, giving me a sly grin. “I get to watch you change.”

“You can watch whatever you want,” I muttered. “So long as we fix this.”

We left the mansion for a different onworlder than the one we’d taken to the palace for the ball. This one was mottled, like the ones the army had driven to my clan’s compound before they’d slaughtered our elders.

“We cannot fix this,” Discord said on the way to the distinctively beaten-up onworlder. “But we are going to help them.”

“Call it whatever you want,” I grumbled. “I’m going to get them out.”

She gave me a side-long look. “And then what, Tiger?”

“We’ll…” I ran through the options in my mind, but Mal’s words rang in my head, about how we would be hunted if we ran. “Okay, so what’s your plan?”

“We go to the palace,” she replied.

We loaded up into the vehicle and I found my bodysuit in the backseat as I scoffed, “Your plan sounds suspiciously like my plan, so far.”

Longshot manned the controls. Surge did something with his hands that made golden arcs glow between his fingers.

Discord said, “Yes, well, our plan might not get us killed. Your plan definitely would. Either way, you do understand being added to the Illiapol menu might be the result of what we’re about to do, right?”

“Of course.”

She looked pleased. “Mal’s right about you. Get dressed.”

I started to pull at my clothes in the confines of the backseat. “How is Mal right about me?”

“That you’re brave.” She paused, then continued. “I knew Jenny was, but that’s largely because she trains with me—”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” I shucked my pants off.

Discord glanced over the backseat and blatantly ogled my naked body, smiling her approval. “Mal’s right about a lot of things when it comes to you. Hmm.”

I rolled my eyes as I pulled the green and brown splotched bodysuit on. “Why would Jenny need to be brave to train with you? It’s just a form of tutoring.”

“With what little you know of me, Tiger, do you really think I’m a gentle trainer?”

“So, you’re some hardass?”

“My ass is firm, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said with a straight face. “Though I don’t know what that has to do with my training style.”

“No, it means…” I shook my head. “Forget it.”

“Forgotten.”

Longshot slowed the vehicle to a stop. “Surge, see you there,” he said.

“Good luck, everyone.” Surge opened the door, and in the cover of darkness he ran through the hayfields near the prison.

I frowned. “If Surge is going to the prison, then where are we heading to?”

Discord pointed to the other side of the palace. “The mountain.”

“We’re going to the hunting ground?” I asked, confused.

Discord blinked at me as if I were daft. “Where else could we go to help, Tiger?”

I huffed a breath. “I thought we were breaking them out, since Surge is heading that way."

Discord merely smiled. “What is it that you do for the Ladrangs?”

“I’m a deckhand, so ship maintenance, cargo, whatever needs done on the ship. Why?”

“That explains why planning is not your strong suit,” she mumbled under her breath, before she spoke more clearly.

“When you intend to perform any questionable deed, it is best to take a multifaceted approach. That way, if a portion of your party is arrested, you know whether to continue or abort the mission.”

I frowned. “Wait…Surge is bait?”

Both she and Longshot laughed like I was a child who’d just said something precious.

“No,” Longshot said with exaggerated patience. “Surge is not bait. Moons above, boy. Surge is recon, to see if we’ve been detected. If he trips an alarm, we will know the path is compromised.”

“And if he doesn’t, we proceed,” Discord chimed in.

I crossed my arms, remembering many pranks similar to this with Kapok. “I’ve been bait before, and that sure as hell sounds like he’s bait.”

“Were you gathering information, while testing alarm triggers?” Discord asked pointedly.

“No, I—”

“Then yes, you were bait,” she said, cutting me off. “Reconnaissance is not bait.”

I slumped back in my seat. “I still don’t like it.”

The distinction might matter to them, but not to me. Either way, Surge was alone. Small. Even with his strange magic, I couldn’t stop the gnawing urge to protect him. He was my friend, and he was walking straight into danger.

“If he gets caught, then what?” I asked, my voice tighter than I wanted.

“Then we take a different tactic.” Discord’s gaze locked on the palace as we circled around it. “If it makes you feel any better, this was all Surge’s idea.”

That caught me off guard. “Really?”

Discord nodded, her gaze sharp and calculating. “We leave that sort of thing up to him. Strategy, risk evaluation, planning…Longshot and I are capable of doing it, but Surge has a gift for it.”

“So, what are you looking for?” I asked curiously.

“Any sign of alarms. Lights, noise, any kind of disruption.”

I considered that before I asked, “Have you ever broken anyone out of the royal prisons before?”

She laughed. “Of course not.”

“There won’t be alarms,” I told them confidently. “Not if Surge does his job right.”

“Oh?” Discord arched a brow at me. “And you know this because you’ve broken someone out of the royal prisons?”

I didn’t miss the sarcasm in her tone. “Not one . Several.”

She stared at me in disbelief. “What?”

“I’ve broken many people out of the royal prisons, Discord.” Including Justice Bateen’s daughter, Silence, I thought, but kept that information to myself.

“Really?” Longshot asked.

“Yes, really,” I said, letting my aggravation surface. “And if you would have told me the plan, I could have helped Surge get in and out of there unseen. So tell me what is next and stop dripping the information to me.”

“Very well,” Longshot said calmly. “We’re going to commit treason.”