Atrophy (4 page)

As he started to take a step forward, frigid fear crashed through her limbs and she turned, taking off at a sprint back along the corridor. Halfway there, he grabbed her from behind, half tackling her and putting them both off balance. They careened into one of the walls and Zahli turned on him, aiming to catch him offside before he could get his bearings and a better grip on her. Having Rian Sherron for a brother came with some benefits, not the least of which had been him teaching her how to fight.

She half spun, bringing her leg up and catching him in the side with her knee. It forced him back a few stumbling steps. Before he recovered, she stepped in with a full round house kick. Because he was taller, she couldn’t quite reach his head, but she got him in the upper torso and laid him out.

Not waiting to see whether she’d knocked him unconscious or not, she launched into a run, making it all the way to the end of the corridor. But the door was locked from the inside, flashing for security clearance codes to open.

She pounded a fist on the door and yelled. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed the officer hauling himself to his feet, looking even more infuriated than he’d been before.

He reached for the P-Mk-2 on his belt—a modified type of pulse pistol issued to select IPC officers and military. It was a stun-only weapon designed for maximum pain to incapacitate its victims. She palmed her own pulse pistol but it was too late. She’d only brought her gun halfway up when the officer let off two rounds that hit her in the chest.

She slammed back against the door behind her, but that was nothing compared to the agony twisting through her body, radiating out from the middle of her chest, cutting off her breath and making all of her muscles contract.

Everything went black for a long moment, and by the time she could suck in a cutting breath, the officer had picked her up and was carrying her back along the passageway toward the open door.

The room seemed to be a small holding cell of some kind. There was a toilet, a tiny sink, a chair, a desk, and a slim cot with a bare, cardboard-like mattress.

As the officer dropped her down on the cot, she tried to get her limbs to move, but it was like the shot from the P-Mk had interrupted the neural pathways from her brain to her extremities. She was paralyzed, couldn’t do anything as the officer leaned back with a satisfied smirk on his face, his gaze traveling up and down her body.

“Usually I don’t have to pulse the prison bitches, but I have to admit, taking you down was more fun than I’ve had in a while.” He leaned down, bracing a hand next to her head. “I might have to kill you when I’m finished though, otherwise I suppose you’ll blab to someone. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the risk, but I saw all this honey-gold hair and couldn’t help myself.”

He sifted his fingers into the hair at her temple, gentle at first, but then wrapping his hand in tight and yanking. She clenched her jaw against crying out, but couldn’t do anything about the sting making her eyes water. The pain made her fingers curl, however, telling her that she was only moments away from regaining full control of her muscles.

As the officer leaned in to inhale a fistful of her hair, making her stomach churn like after the
Imojenna
had dropped out of void-space, she shifted her arm in difficult, gradual degrees until she could wrap her fingers around the hilt of her knife.

When his fist at last untangled from her hair and his fingers started a rough trail down her neck, instinct had her yanking the knife from its sheath before his hand went any lower. She braced herself and heaved, rolling both of them off the cot to hit the floor with the officer below her. He reached up to grab her wrists, but with a two-handed grip on the knife, she plunged it downward, right into the middle of his chest.

The door banged just as the knife rammed home, and she glanced up from the shocked officer’s face to see a prison inmate standing in the doorway.

Jerking the knife free and surging to her feet, she held the weapon up, blood dripping off the end as she backed into the corner.

No matter how many of these bastards she had to take out—prison officer or inmate—she would walk out of here untouched, or she wouldn’t walk out of here at all.

Chapter Three

T
annin pulled to a stop in the doorway, the scene in front of him not the one he’d expected to burst in on.

He’d been standing in front of the meat cool-store in the marketplace trying to decide what cut of beef he wanted for dinner, when he’d noticed the woman from Sherron’s ship, the same one he’d seen just inside the hatchway on the docking bay. Getting a close up look at her hadn’t helped his guilt over stowing away and totally distracted him from thoughts of dinner. He’d taken in the deep blue eyes and curvy figure, not the least bit hidden inside the faded black cargo pants and fitted green top she had on. Like Sherron, the woman carried weapons, though not nearly as many as the major captain had displayed.

Just as he’d decided his guilt and apprehension at going through with his escape plan left him with no appetite, an officer approached her.

He would have left, but he knew this particular officer. The man had a reputation of taking advantage of female inmates, though none of his victims ever reported him—who would believe a woman who’d done something terrible enough to deserve a life sentence on Erebus?

But surely the scumbag wasn’t brazen or dumb enough to try something with one of Rian Sherron’s crew. Everyone knew Sherron’s reputation. So this officer was either an idiot who thought he’d get away with it, or a moron who thought his ranking would offer protection against Sherron taking action. Either way, the guy was a total imbecile.

Tannin abandoned the few groceries he’d picked up and followed them at a distance. When the officer led her into a block of vacant holding cells, he was pretty sure he had his answer about the bastard’s intentions.

He debated. Go find Jase or another officer to intervene? But by that time, it might be too late. The easiest and fastest way of getting to her would be to hack through the security system. But if he got caught, it would mean the end of his escape. He’d be detained and questioned for who knew how long, possibly ejected out into the general population and lose all of his privileges. Was saving one woman he didn’t know worth wasting twelve years of planning, worth giving up the rest of his life?

However, when he’d heard her banging on the door, yelling for help, his decision had been made.

He yanked his commpad out of his pocket and glanced around to make sure no one was nearby. Things had gone silent on the other side, making his heart pick up speed as he hurried to the door. Damn it, why had he stood there arguing with himself?

He secured the commpad to the small crystal display screen, quickly tabbing up a program to override the lock. By the time he jacked into the system and circumvented the lock codes, long minutes had passed.

Once the door clicked open, he disengaged his commpad and ducked inside, hearing the murmur of the officer’s voice drifting from one of the many closed doors along the corridor. It took him a few stops and starts before he found the right room, and then he had to go through the same steps with his commpad again, though he was faster this time.

Just as the lock gave way, a shout sounded from inside the room. Tannin shoved the door open, causing it to smash into the wall behind it, but froze as he took in the woman kneeling over the officer, both hands wrapped around the knife in his chest.

Her head snapped up, a wild gleam in her eyes as she jerked the blade out of the officer’s chest, lurched to her feet, and backed away from both of them. Glancing down, he saw the officer fight for his last breath and go limp.

Jezus. She’d killed him. Well, he supposed that was far better than the alternative.

“Come on. I can help you get out of here.” He looked back up at her, but she hadn’t reacted to his words, still standing rigid in the corner with the knife thrust out in front of her. Pointed at him. Crap, she was beyond spooked and probably thought he would attack her as well.

He took a careful step forward, holding out his hands so that she could see he had no weapons.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I saw him bring you in here and came to help.”

Her shoulders dropped a fraction, the knife point drooping a little.

“How did you know?” Her voice came out a little thin, as though her vocal chords had been strained.

“He’s got a reputation. I didn’t really think he’d be dumb enough to try something with you, but I thought I should check. Seems like he picked the wrong girl to mess with.”

The knife lowered at last and she seemed to take a deeper breath, some of the wildness leaving her gaze. “Thank you.”

Her words had been almost automatic, her gaze bouncing from him to the dead body between them. Okay, they really needed to get out of here before she either went into shock or someone discovered them. The second option was a little less likely, given the building was currently decommissioned for upgrades. It also meant maybe no one would find the body until well after Sherron’s ship had departed.

“Are you all right?” The question came out a little awkward, because he didn’t know if it was his place to ask; he just felt like maybe he should. Maybe in other places that weren’t a hellhole of a prison world it would have been the polite thing to do.

She nodded, gaze dropping back to the body for a fraction of a second then returning to him. “He shot me with his modified pulse and it hurt like a frecking mother, but he didn’t get a chance to do anything else before I— Well, I stabbed him.”

Her tone over the last few words went up a notch, as though she was actually surprised by the fact that the scumbag had ended up on the pointy end of her knife. Truthfully, the guy had deserved that and more, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate him telling her so.

“Come on,” he repeated, sidestepping around the dead officer. “We should get out of here.”

She started to nod, but then looked down at the weapon in her hand. “Maybe I should just—”

Instead of finishing the sentence, she turned to the small sink and tabbed the faucet on, washing the knife and blood streaked on her hands. Though she seemed dazed, her movements were still efficient and easy. Maybe this wasn’t the first time she’d killed someone. She didn’t look old enough to have fought in the Assimilation Wars, but in some regions of space, killing was the only way to get by. Or so he’d heard.

When the knife and her hands were spotless, she slipped the blade in a sheath on her belt, took a deep breath, then stepped around the body and walked out of the room. Tannin paused to shake his head before following after her.

Out in the corridor, she waited for him while he swung the door closed. He used the same program that unlocked the doors to totally screw the security protocol, so that if someone tried to get in, it should delay them for a decent amount of time.

“You’re an inmate.” The words somehow manage to hold equal amounts of surprise and suspicion.

He nodded. “Twelve years now.”

“How did you get into this building?” They started making their way back along the corridor, and he tried not to take it personally that she kept an obvious few feet between them.

When they reached the outer door, he held up his commpad to get them through.

“I hacked my way through the security system.”

“And you can do that without setting off any kind of alarm?” she asked as the door clicked open.

“Most people couldn’t. I can.” He motioned for her to wait and ducked out to make sure the coast was clear. He stepped out and held the door for her.

“So you’re some kind of hacking genius. Is that how you ended up on Erebus?”

He shook his head, though it would have been easier to claim a more minor, less brutal crime. “No, I learned all of my hacking skills after I got here.” He pointed. “The marketplace is that way. You’ll find signs to guide you back to the docking bays from there.”

For a long moment she stared at him, something going on behind those dark blue eyes. But then she simply nodded and turned away, hurrying along the building before disappearing around the far corner.

Tannin shoved a hand through his hair, took a deep breath, then walked off in the opposite direction. As if he needed any more excitement before he set out on what probably amounted to a suicide mission. About the best thing he could do now was bunk down in his apartment for a few hours until the time came and hope no one found the body he’d just helped to hide.

Z
ahli sat in the middle of her bed shivering, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her eyes heavy and aching. But she couldn’t close them. Tonight, sleep wouldn’t be her refuge.

After escaping that building with the help of that prisoner, whose name she hadn’t even thought to ask, she’d intended to run straight back to the ship, but found Lianna stepping out of the marketplace, hovercart full of the items she’d earlier discarded. Of course, Lianna had wanted to know where she’d gone and why, and she’d rattled off some excuse about needing to check something with Rian, because she’d left her comm on the ship. It wasn’t a stretch, Rian was always complaining about how she forgot to take her comm with her at the most annoying times.

Lianna had eyed her with just a hint of suspicion, maybe because she was out of breath and definitely on the jittery side, but if the nav-engineer thought anything of it, she hadn’t said so.

The rest of the day had become a pantomime of pretending she was fine and that absolutely nothing had happened to her. That she hadn’t been attacked and shot with a pulse pistol. That she hadn’t sunk her knife into the middle of an officer’s chest and then walked away. That there wasn’t an Erebus inmate out there with knowledge that could destroy her life. If the truth came out, maybe the authorities would believe it was self-defense. Or maybe they’d simply throw her out into the violent streets of Erebus, where mob justice would decide her fate.

She shuddered, tightening the blanket around her shoulders. No matter that she’d showered, had two stinging hot coffees, and tabbed up the environs in her room, she couldn’t get warm, but she was beginning to sweat, making the cold chills deeper.

The officer’s shocked face kept popping into her mind; she’d force the image away, but it would creep back when her tired mind let her guard down. She didn’t feel bad about killing the bastard, not when his intentions had been clear.

Sure, she’d seen dead bodies before—she had Rian Sherron for a brother—and more than a few of those bodies she’d either helped hide or tidied up the evidence after her brother had snapped. But she’d been able to disconnect from those deaths because they weren’t her responsibility. This one was all on her

While she refused to feel one moment of guilt for a man who’d preyed on women already in a vulnerable position, she did feel queasy and deeply unsettled by what she’d been forced to do.

Another shiver rocked her, sweat dampening her entire body. Dropping the blanket, she went into the privy, tabbing on the shower for the second time in a few short hours, hoping she could wash the ice from her veins.

She did feel remorse, however, for that inmate who’d helped her. When he’d burst into the doorway, she’d been sure he’d come to join the bastard she’d just knifed. It had taken a wild few moments for her adrenaline-dazed mind to comprehend he didn’t intend to hurt her, but had been there to help. Then, she’d seen him in a whole different light.

She hadn’t really thanked him. Okay, she’d blurted out an automatic platitude, but it hadn’t occurred to her until well after she’d returned to the ship that he’d taken a huge risk in coming after her, especially considering she was a total stranger.

As the image of the dead officer tried to resurface in her mind, she forced herself to picture the inmate instead when she stepped under the heated water and washed away the cold sweat.

Though he’d worn the colors of an inmate, his black pants and green-and-black shirt had been neat. His intelligent green-gray eyes had been almost the exact same color as Erebus’s atmosphere, his short hair a pure black. Her erratic heartbeat settled as she concentrated on keeping his likeness in her mind. She should have asked his name, and wished she had a way to make sure he knew she appreciated his help. Though it wasn’t like she could send him a thank you card.

He hadn’t been anything like she expected of an Erebus inmate. What could he have possibly done to earn himself a life sentence on this hellpit of a world? And what would happen to him now? When the authorities discovered the body, what if they connected the crime to him because of how he hacked through the security screens? He’d take the fall for her, and she’d never know. Since he was already serving a life sentence on Erebus, she hated to think what punishment awaited prisoners who got caught killing officers.

The guilt pushed more heavily on her conscience, making her want to help the mystery inmate. But without a name, she had no way to—well, what would she even do? Send him care packages? She shook her head and then splashed warm water over her face. It was better if she pretended the whole thing had never happened, that they’d never met, and didn’t have this deadly secret hanging between them.

Which would be easy to do, because it wasn’t like she was ever going to see him again.