Page 29 of The Captain’s Bounty (The Collectors #2)

CHAPTER TEN

Lissa sat on the heap of pelts gathered from the far corners of the galaxy that presumably was a bed in this small cluttered room and stared at the vidscreen that mimicked a window, tapping each star as it drifted by, like a planet-side child collecting wishes.

If she didn’t know better, she’d think they were barely moving, but they were, in fact, hurtling through subspace at many times the speed of light.

Although she’d traveled in space many times over the course of her career, this view never failed to transfix her, and right now, she needed the time to not think.

She didn’t look up when she heard the door to her new room open.

There was no point. They might be on a different ship, but she was still in a prison.

No one had said specifically that this was the cabin Bruwes had claimed for his own, but on some level, she’d known it and hadn’t tried to leave.

The entity wasn’t in her anymore, but she still wasn’t free.

To be honest, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be.

The desire to make one great contribution to science and restore her family’s honor in the process was still there, burning hot and bright as a sun, while at the same time, dim and far away, like the stars that seemed to pass her by.

All of them were suns, too. And with distance came a kind of new perspective.

After what she’d been through, grand quests for fame and redemption felt a little silly, the fantasy of a child.

Even thoughts of Martin had no sting anymore.

For the first time, she found herself wondering why he’d done what he did without any of the anger or betrayal such thoughts had always brought before.

it was hard to imagine going back to her old life, finding another dig site, another patron, pretending as if nothing had ever happened to her and she was just like anyone else she might encounter. Just a normal person.

Her eyes shifted from the stars on the vidscreen to her bruised and blistered hand.

She slowly closed her fingers into a loose fist, then opened them and stared at the red glow deep in her palm, brighter in the blisters.

As she watched dully, that buried light grew brighter, rising up from within to form a bubble on her skin, like another blister, only this one continued to grow, becoming a perfect sphere that lifted away from her palm to hover in the air, connected to her by a thin, crackling thread of red lightning.

A hard greyish hand clamped onto her wrist, breaking her concentration. The bubble popped soundlessly, but although she couldn’t see it anymore, she could still feel it, ready to emerge again at her command. Slowly, she closed her fingers into a loose fist…

“Stop that,” Bruwes said sharply.

She looked up into his frown. It was hard to imagine going back to her old life without ever being subject to that censuring frown again, either. Or all the wonderful things that frown was likely to lead to.

“Why?” she challenged. “Use it now or later, at some point we both know a situation is going to arise that will force me to do something eventually. It’s not like either one of us can just pick a planet, step off this ship, and go back to pretending everything is normal.

I don’t have a normal anymore. From now until the day I die, I will forever be the girl who can do this! ”

She forced the next ball of energy up through her arm, to build on the tips of two fingers. It burst when he knocked her hand down.

“Do not!” he ordered. “It is not infinite.”

If anything, that made her angry. Or maybe she was already angry, and that just added fuel to what was already a bubbling fire.

“Afraid they’ll knock my price down when they find out I’m not all powerful anymore?”

His frown turned as dark as his black eyes, the whites bleeding into red with startling quickness.

He abruptly let go of her arm, backing a sharp step away. “I do not like hearing you say such things.”

“Tell me which part isn’t true,” she snapped back. “You can’t, can you? Because for all that we escaped that last bunch, nothing has changed. I’ve still got a bounty on my head...”

“And now so do I,” he snapped back.

“So, what? You’re not going to turn me in now because you suddenly know how it feels to be hunted for something you didn’t do?”

He turned his back, walking a short distance away. His hands found his hips and he glared at the floor. “

“I am not innocent of the crimes for which they hunt me.”

She glared at his back for almost a full minute before she realized what he’d just said. It shocked the anger right out of her. “I’m sorry... what?”

“My entire race is guilty of the crime for which they hunt me. Unlike you, we are not innocent.”

She blinked at him. She wasn’t stupid. Those who made their living off-world did so on the fringes of the law, and that was just a fact.

There were always goods and people waiting to be transported to somewhere, and something was always illegal in someone else’s airspace.

There was no such thing as universal law.

Every planet had its own. Every solar system or galaxy was claimed by someone, either rightfully or not, and all of them had something they considered taboo.

Almost everyone in shipping started out by trying to obey every law, only to find out how slippery that particular slope really was.

Inevitably, each captain had to decide for themselves which laws were the most pressing, and once one started to compromise one’s morals, it was hard to stop.

Eventually, everyone came to the same conclusion: The only laws that mattered were the ones enforced by people with ships faster than yours.

Besides, black market items would always fetch the best prices, so…

for Bruwes to admit to some minor wrongdoing didn’t exactly bother her.

Hell, she’d once spent three months digging on a planet that characterized her profession as little better than grave robbery.

Fortunately, the Weuawe didn’t believe in money.

She couldn’t imagine anyone pursuing her across entire galaxies in order to collect on a bounty of five goats and a concubine, no matter how well-trained she might be.

“What did you do?” she finally asked.

“Enough wrong not to want to hold yours against you,” was his reply.

“Does this mean you’re not going to turn me over to Corporate for the bounty?”

Heaving a sigh, he sat down beside her on the bed.

“I took your bounty because I needed ship repairs. That no longer being the case, I no longer consider it an option. It never sat well with me to sell anyone, especially when they haven’t deserved it.

The question now remains, what to do from here. ”

Sitting up beside him, she looked at her hands, not drawing up the power she could feel swirling inside of her like a minor storm, so far diminished from what it had been when it had been inside her, but very much feeling every nuance of it churning eagerly to be used.

“I don’t know.” No longer angry, now all she really felt when she looked at him was tired.

“Run, I suppose. Try to get as far from here as I can. Find someplace to hide, maybe. You’d think the universe a great big place, but I can’t think of a single colony without a Corporate presence or at least regular communications with people who have a Corporate presence, and I can only change how I look so much.

Eventually, I’m going to get caught. No matter what I do, no matter where I go.

The only hope I’ve really got is that Corporate no longer believes it’s inside me, and lets me go. ”

He looked at her, and that look on his dour face mirrored what she already felt.

“Yeah,” she said, “I know. The only reason they’d believe that is if they’ve already caught it.”

“And even then, they will not let you go. Ever.”

“Because they can’t afford to have anyone outside themselves who knows what they’ve got.” She nodded. “I know.”

“I would offer to let you run with us,” Bruwes said, facing the wall ahead of them rather than her. “But we have bounties now too.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

His jaw clenched once, then he faced her. “I am not going to run. They think they can silence us, but they are every bit as guilty and I think it time the rest of the known worlds know it.”

“You’re going to expose them?” She blinked twice, her admiration for the resolve she saw on his chiseled features tempered by that tiny voice of wariness that kept whispering, what had he done?

Was it that serious? Obviously, it was serious to command a hell of a bounty, more had been offered for any of the others.

“Yes, I am. And in doing so, I am going to destroy whatever chance my home world has of surviving. I am going to destroy them, send those who can fleeing into hiding, with targets of their own upon their backs.” He looked down at his hands. “What kind of man does a thing like that?”

It was completely rhetorical, but in that moment, she admired him so much she couldn’t help but put her hand on his, squeezing for comfort.

“Someone who doesn’t have a choice. Someone who’s standing up for what they think is right.

Or someone who has hit the end of how far they’ll be pushed by someone who has more to lose and no right to be bullying anyone else. ”

He stared at her hand and didn’t respond for a long time. She almost gave up that he ever would when she felt the light caress of his thumb across her knuckles.

She looked down, the pit of her belly warming the way it always did when he got near her.

“I should not have touched you the way I did,” he said, and she looked up from his hand.

The darkness of his gaze captured hers, and though his words should have left her gutted, that tiny half smile curling at his mouth only made the burning heat unfurling in her belly that much hotter. “You were impossible to resist.”