Page 7 of Taking Jenny (Planet Orhon #4)

Tiger

A s the uniformed men moved closer, I stalled to figure out a way to get Jenny out of the park safely. “Have I caused some kind of offense?”

The lead palace guard standing the closest to us crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t give the orders. I just make other people follow them. Come with us of your own accord, and we won’t have to make things hard for either of you.”

I stiffened, but didn’t move off the bench. “She has nothing to do with anything, so—"

“The order is for the both of you, Orne,” he snapped. “Whatever she’s done or hasn’t done, it’s not up to me to decide.”

Shit . I turned to Jenny and kept my voice low, but steady. “Just cooperate, okay? One word answers. They don’t need your life story.”

She met my gaze and nodded in understanding. “I’ll be okay, Tiger,” she said, trying to be brave even though I heard the touch of fear in her voice.

“Let’s go,” the lead guard barked, roughly pulling me to my feet.

Another yanked Jenny up, then they manacled us both and started to fit her with a gag.

“Hey,” I said, trying to stay calm despite the panic in Jenny’s eyes. “There’s no need for that.”

“It’s in the order.”

I glared at him. “Do you have a smaller gag? She doesn’t have a Ladrian-sized mouth.”

The lead guard only rolled his eyes and shoved one of the gags into my mouth.

Jenny whimpered when they finally forced hers in and my blood boiled.

I couldn’t do anything about it, and the moment of helplessness triggered terrible memories.

As they packed us into their onworlder’s rear pen, I flashed back to the day Kapok died.

We had gone with Jac and Wave to the mother conduit’s cottage in the forest to question her.

Things went from bad to worse in a flash, it seemed.

One minute we were talking, the next Jac had been swallowed by her floor, and Kapok and I were dragged out of her cottage by her magic.

We were bound and brought to our knees before the rest of the conduits.

I don’t even remember what was said, but before I knew it, the mother conduit had rammed her knife through Kapok’s back.

Inches of the blade shone red out the front of his chest and all I could do was watch as he bled out.

I’d felt helpless, the same as I did now watching them shove Jenny into their vehicle.

As soon as the onworlder pulled behind the palace, I knew where we were headed.

The royal prison. I had been there a few times before on missions with Kapok and Jac.

Our boss had become the man to call when you needed to spring someone from the royal prisons.

They weren’t particularly well-guarded. Jac always said Justice’s hubris stopped him from believing anyone could escape from the prisons.

Justice Bateen didn’t think anyone would have the balls to contradict him.

I wondered if spite against the Bateens was why Jac did the rescues for such low prices. A smuggler’s revenge discount.

We had broken several people out of prison, including Justice’s own daughter, Silence, who was pregnant at the time.

He had to have known it was us. No one else had Jac’s reputation for escapism.

Which means, that’s probably why we’re here.

I tried not to let apprehension sink in, and when I looked at Jenny, gagged and scared, I swallowed it down and let fury burn through me instead as the onworlder finally came to a stop.

The lead guard opened the pen door, dragged Jenny out, then slammed it closed. Fuck . I couldn’t stop myself from kicking the door, but it was locked. I watched through the window as they carted her into the prison, her eyes frantic as they took in her foreign surroundings.

I rocked on my seat, trying to calm my anger.

Kapok always said the reason he got into so many fights was because his temper ran too hot.

He was proud of the fact that I used my brain instead of my fists, and always called me The Smart One.

I had to think my way out of this. I couldn’t let him down. Not again.

So I rocked back and forth on the bench seat, doing anything I could think of to burn my energy while the onworlder drove to the next series of prison doors.

When the lead guard opened the back, I did not kick him in the face, much to my own surprise.

I kept my shit together long enough for him to escort me into the prison and shove me into an interrogation lab.

There, he locked my manacles to a hook on the floor, leaving me just enough chain to pace a small circle.

Through the window, I could see into the lab next to mine when they turned on the light inside.

Jenny was there, gagged and manacled, chained to a chair.

Without thinking, I ran to the window, kicking it.

But she didn’t seem to notice. She just stared wide-eyed around the room, her fear written all over her face.

She was alone, like me, and her oldest sister, Elizabeth’s voice and words echoed in my mind: “Because men…when they get a woman alone, sometimes they do…terrible things.”

I had never thought about it before she said that, but now, all I could think of were the horrific things the guards could do to Jenny.

My interrogation lab’s door opened. The lead guard sneered at me.

“Seems you have been up to quite a lot here on Orhon for a grunting Orne. Feel like sharing? I’d be happy to take that gag out of your mouth, if you want to talk.

” He reached for the gag, but I jerked my head away from him.

“Don’t want to talk, eh? That’s fine. I’m sure she will. ” He looked past me at Jenny.

Another guard opened her door and his voice came over the speakers in my lab. “No need for you to be so uncomfortable, human. I can take the gag out, if you’ll talk. I bet you’d love to tell us everything you know about that criminal you’re with, wouldn’t you?”

But when he reached for her gag, she flinched away from him, her gaze narrowing menacingly. He stomped from the lab and slammed the door shut behind him.

I smiled proudly around the gag in my mouth.

The lead guard released a threatening growl.

“You think that was smart of her? If she talks, she walks, you have my word. Our prisons weren’t made with humans in mind.

Especially not females . They have all kinds of weird biology.

If she were to get hurt, our doctors wouldn’t know what to do with her or how to help her. She’d die. And not quickly.”

I hadn’t thought of that and my stomach dropped.

“I’ve been told to encourage her cooperation. But she’s a fighter. Might take a lot of encouragement. Maybe from a few guards. Then boom,” he clapped his hands dramatically, “she’s in the infirmary. And our doctors? They’ll make it much worse.”

An involuntary snarl escaped around my gag and I lunged toward him, only to be brought up short by my chain.

“Or,” he walked to the window and stared at Jenny, “I could take off your gag, and you could encourage her to cooperate. Which will it be, Orne? My encouragement or yours?” He turned back to look at me, waiting for an answer.

I jutted my head at him to remove the gag.

“Good choice.” He unlocked the latch at the back of my skull, then removed the gag and I worked my sore jaw.

“I’ll walk you over there, and you tell her to be a good little human and talk nice to us, so we can get all of this sorted out.

We know what you’ve been up to, talking to Summer earlier, but we’re not sure how she fits into this. ”

“She doesn’t,” I said heatedly. “This is her first time on Orhon.”

“Great. Just get her to confirm it, and we’ll make sure she’s treated gently.”

“Treated gently?” I clenched my jaw. “You said she would walk .”

He smiled tightly. “Right, right. She’ll walk. She belongs to the Ladrangs, doesn’t she?”

My gut knew he was fishing, that he had no idea about anything. He was just shooting in the dark, hoping to get us to flip on the Ladrangs, Deacon specifically, and impress his boss. Which meant there was no deal for Jenny to walk, even if she talked.

I wasn’t sure how to play this hand, but I knew better than to let her say anything to this liar. He could spin her words into anything to further his career. Instead, I said, “On second thought, I think we’ll take our chances at a hearing.”

He scoffed. “You can’t be foolish enough to think a hearing is what she wants.”

“What she wants is immaterial,” I lied. “Only what my boss wants matters. I’m loyal to him.”

He clucked his tongue at me. “That’s a shame, Orne. But I’m not surprised. Your clan isn’t known for their wits.”

“Neither are palace guards,” I snarled back.

He backhanded me so fast, my head snapped to the side, blood blooming in my mouth. I spat it onto the grimy floor and gave him a feral smile. “As I said, we want a hearing. That is our right.”

The guard looked almost disappointed. “So be it, but what happens at the hearing might be worse than your fate here.”

“We’ll take our chances,” I said, and prayed that he wasn’t right.