Page 35

Tanin

T anin was determined to stop comparing his life on Rik-Vane to the one he lived now. He also refused to tell Garnet all the terrible details of what it was like growing up there. She didn’t need that touching her, and he didn’t want to dim her light with his shadows.

But she wasn’t asking about that part of his life. She was asking about his crew. About what led him here. And that, honestly, was something he didn’t want to distance himself from.

“All of them, my crew, were… infamous,” he finally started carefully. “I knew of them before I ever met them. Most people knew of them. They were some of the most powerful and deadly people on the station. I needed their skills to get out. The twins had the wealth I needed to buy the Humility. Trove had the connections to make it happen. Vytln could operate the ship. Sway could navigate it. Rok was strong enough to actually get us out and helping him got rid of the last barrier for our escape. Alred was my key to bringing it all together and making it happen. I needed all of them for our escape to work. So, I offered them a way out. I had to convince the twins. I had to save Rok. Alred was really the only one I didn’t need to barter with in some way. He understood what I wanted, and he wanted out too. Probably more than I did.

“All of us, in our way, wanted out. I offered them that escape, and they followed me because I was the only one who could bring them all together.”

“How?” Garnet asked, watching him carefully. Absorbing everything he was saying.

Tanin began moving his hands over her again. He wouldn’t say that these were happy memories. There were many times when he came uncomfortably close to death. Escaping that place wasn’t easy for anyone, but the males Tanin needed to do it happened to be the worst males to try doing it with. They were all lethal in ways that, like his own past, he wouldn’t let Garnet know about.

But he could at least tell her the broad strokes of it.

“Alred and I found each other first,” he said, focusing on her soft sweetness. Proof that he wasn’t living in those days any longer. “I was alone then. I was doing whatever it took to survive…”

Tanin had been hunting down the gang that desecrated his mother’s body. After she killed herself, they’d come upon her and harvested from her before she’d even grown cold. He’d made it his favorite pastime to kill their members. Punishing all of them for a crime that most didn’t even know about, much less had been involved in. Two stray members had come upon her by happenstance, then raided their meager possessions because it was easy. That was really all there was to it. A senseless, pointless act of greed that only led to senseless, pointless deaths. Such was life on Rik-Vane.

Tanin never claimed to be a good person.

One day, he’d pushed his luck to its limit and broke into the leader’s base, killing indiscriminately. Just because he could. Because he hated them. Because he had nothing better to do and if he didn’t kill, he’d be killed. That’s how things were there.

Tanin walked through the remains of the base, tracking blood through the now silent halls, viscera dripping from his knuckle claws. Back then, he didn’t have his ribbon yet, but he carried a long blade he didn’t like using. Why bother when his fists did more damage?

The gang was silent now. They’d been screaming at first. Calling out to each other in fear. They recognized the shadow that had fallen upon them. His crew weren’t the only infamous faces. Tanin himself was something of a horror legend.

Just a shame that no one knew his real name or face. If they had, they might not have touched his mother’s body. He might have been able to burn her properly. Maybe with the flower she loved so much.

But the same skills that hid him from the peacekeepers constantly watching from beyond kept anyone from knowing that the s’skree from the back streets was the deadly shadow that descended upon those he decided to kill.

It was the first time Tanin had done so without gaining anything. Usually, he was more careful. He liked his anonymity most times. Infamy came with certain protections, but it also came with challenges. Until his mother’s body suffered the consequences of it, he’d preferred being incognito.

It was curious though, how little he felt while he massacred the gang. Destroyed their headquarters. Just another group that didn’t last a year on this void damned station.

He was going through the leader’s room, seeing what he could pillage, thinking maybe he could at least gain something from this rash act, when he heard Alred’s voice from above for the first time.

“ He keeps the good stuff in a safe in the ground. ”

Tanin, not understanding initially that Alred was a computer, had turned, ready to fight. He tried to hunt down the male that was watching him from afar, ready and willing to kill him too. Alred had to convince him of what he was. That he wasn’t going to kill him. Even that part of the reason Tanin had been so lethal that day was because Alred let him.

The gang had been using Alred as an AI, similar to how Tanin used him now. But Alred hated them and wanted nothing more to escape. However, with no physical body, he needed someone to entrust with his core, and trust, in that place, was rarer than a white flower. He took a chance on Tanin and made his path through the base easier by opening doors and disabling security for him.

It was a believable story. Tanin had already recognized how easy it had been, but he didn’t really question it until this new, unknown program explained what he did, and why. But that didn’t actually stop Tanin from trying to hunt him down and destroy him too. No one could know his face. His name. If his mother was gone, then his anonymity was even more important. There was nothing left he needed to worry about protecting anymore.

That smug, annoying AI had to be destroyed.

Alred asked him then, “ What do you want? What can I do to make you trust me? I’ll make anything happen for you. Tell me. ”

Tanin scoffed, sneering at the ceiling as he paused in the blood stained halls, “Anything? Then, get me off this shit station. I’d trust you then.”

It was a ridiculous request. Similar to saying he’d believe him when he could fly. It was impossible and, therefore, a promise that nothing he did could make him trust him.

But Alred had chuckled. “ It seems you and I have a similar goal in this life. As it happens, I have an idea for that. If you’re willing to work with me. ”

Tanin almost didn’t do it. The promise was a fantastical, and therefore ludicrous, one. Tanin was one person, and Alred was a computer program that just betrayed the people he was working for.

But something about the way Alred spoke gave him pause. There was sincerity there that Tanin couldn’t help but notice. Maybe because no one on Rik-Vane was sincere. Maybe because that longing in Alred called out to a similar desire in him. Because he did want out of that place. Though the challenge had been a futile one, that didn’t mean he didn’t actually want it.

And besides, he’d just destroyed the gang that killing had been his only real purpose in life. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

That day, Alred entrusted him with his core, and Tanin entrusted him with his future.

As it turned out, Alred did have a plan for getting out. He’s the one who identified the males with the skills he needed, as well as laid out the steps necessary to make it happen. It was a blueprint that Tanin needed his own skills to follow, nothing more.

But it was solid, and seeing it laid out before him, Tanin actually felt it might be possible.

The list of potential allies Alred provided had included about fifty people. And from them, Tanin was the one who narrowed it down to the males currently on his crew. Tanin was the one who figured out the best way to communicate with them. Tanin was the one who had to get them on their side.

One by one, he gathered his allies. Starting with Sway. He was the easiest. Sway’s people, the farasie, were natural pacifists, and living on that station forced Sway to survive in a way that went against his instincts. He promised Sway that, if he followed Tanin and escaped, he’d never have to raise his weapons or fists against someone ever again.

Vytln came next, following Tanin after a demonstration of his power. Then the twins, who he protected from their enemies, earning their loyalty. He saved Rok after that. And, finally, he convinced Trove to follow him.

Their names were all different then, of course. And it wasn’t so easy as just stating it outright. Convincing all of them, preparing everything they needed, took years.

With them all together, he bought the Humility, and they all escaped, using each other as unlikely and strange allies. None of them had been involved with each other before – aside from the twins, who didn’t even consider themselves to be separate people anyway. Alred identified their abilities and Tanin chose them. That was the only thing they had in common.

And maybe that’s why it was easier for them to come together. Not only did they all have a goal uniting them, but they didn’t have any history that would make them more likely to turn against each other along the way.

Tanin, following Alred’s plan, keeping everyone together as they escaped. It hadn’t been easy. They were all strong-willed, hardened criminals. Convincing them to follow his rules had been a test in patience and his own strength. Sometimes daily. They had agreed to work with him, but their unerring loyalty had been fought and won slowly over time. And every day since.

“I was the one who chose to make us a delivery company,” he said, finishing the story he was relaying to Garnet – cutting out a lot of the death that occurred along the way. His rule about killing only with permission had been in effect since the beginning, but he had been a lot more lenient about giving that permission back then. Anything to progress their goals. At least until they escaped and made it away from that place. “I’m the one who set up everything. This ship, our licenses, everything is under my name because my name is the only one that is still real. It’s what keeps us together even now.”

Garnet had been listening to him talk without a word. Watching him without a single change in her expression, so completely focused, she seemed to even stop blinking.

But as he finished the story, she cocked her head and said simply-

“And you’re friends.”

He frowned at her. “We’re not friends.”

She snickered, giving him a look like he’d just said something foolish. “You don’t think so?”

“It’s not a word I would use.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Okay. Let’s go with that for now. So, if you’re not friends, what are you?”

He thought about it for a moment before saying, “A gang. I suppose.”

“That’s what you’d be on Rik-Vane. Is that what you are here?”

“No. We’re a crew out here. We’re closer than family, in that way. Trust is hard won, but we have it amongst each other. That’s not something we will ever surrender. They’ve been following me because I gave them promises that I’ve always kept. And we remain together because we are the only ones we know we can trust. In a way, they’re dependent on me. But I am also dependent on them. I need them to keep our freedom. And they’re relying on me to guide them into our future.”

“Your future?”

“Yes.” He reached up, stroking her face. “My future.”

She leaned into his touch, barely smiling. “You’ve come a long way, huh?”

“Doesn’t seem far enough sometimes.” He brushed his fingers back through her hair. So soft. “But yes. I think we’ve risen far enough above it that we can have more.”

“Like what?”

“Like a mate.” He ran a hand down her chest, pressing against her heart. “Like young.” He kept going, pressing his hand against her belly.

“Tanin…” She shivered but leaned into his touch. “You… I mean, do you really want me?”

“You’re asking this now?” He asked, smirking.

“You know what I mean,” she chuckled, cheeks delightfully pink. “I mean, permanently. You’re asking me for forever, aren’t you?”

“I’m not one to go back on my word. If I make a commitment, I stick to it. I’ve decided I want you.”