Beloved Bodyguard (9 page)

“Please, can’t you at least un-tie the tether
keeping my hands down? It’s so uncomfortable, and as you said, I’m
not going anywhere.”

Danje paused then nodded. “I guess it won’t
hurt.” As he pulled out a knife and sliced the industrial strength
tape connecting her wrists to her ankles, he added, “You know, I’m
not a violent person at heart, and I hope we can get through this
together, and with you unharmed.”

Okay, Mr. Naïve. If you think your group
will let that happen, you’re a bigger idiot than I imagined.

He helped her sit and offered her the water
again. Although her wrists were still bound, she could take the
bottle between her hands. Leelah drank deeply, then gave the bottle
back.

“So, I guess this means you don’t really have
that Kingset vid,” she teased, intent on keeping things light even
while her stomach was in knots.

“Actually, I do.” Again that creepy smile. “I
happen to have it on me. Do you want to watch it?”

“Sure.”

While Danje took the chip from his vidlibrary
and popped it into the old-fashioned vid machine, Leelah scanned
the room for any possibility of escape. The place definitely
appeared to be a motel rather than a room in someone’s house. All
the furnishings were outdated, including the ancient vid screen.
Danje was puzzling over the buttons, trying to figure out how to
make the machine run.

Leelah swung her bound legs off the edge of
the bed. She couldn’t hop past him and make it out the door without
being caught, but there was an antique halo-lamp she could bash him
over the head with if she got a chance. She calculated the distance
as the Kingest vid finally appeared on the patchy screen.

A wave of sound blasted through the small
room. Danje instinctively yelled, “Sound down” at the vid. Of
course, the old machine didn’t respond to a vocal command. He bent
over, fiddling with the controls.

Leelah rose on shaky legs and hobbled a few
steps toward the lamp. Danje was completely focused on the machine.
With Kingset blaring, he didn’t seem to hear her.

She crept toward the halo-lamp on the table.
Her body was drenched with sweat, and she wiped her palms against
her dress so they wouldn’t slip on the lamp, assuming she ever
reached the damn thing. She prayed she could wrap her hands around
the base with her wrists still bound together. How she’d manage to
get behind Danje with her ankles tied together and a full-length
gown hobbling her was another problem. For now, she must
concentrate on getting the lamp.

Just as Leelah reached the table, Danje
adjusted the sound to a moderate level.

“There. That’s better,” he said.

Before she could reach for the lamp, the door
of the room burst open, and Ja-hun lunged inside. He fired his
zynpher
at Danje, a flash of light pulsed from the weapon.
For a moment, Danje was illuminated in blue as the force field
surrounded him. His eyes opened wide, one hand still clutched the
old-fashioned remote device for operating the vid screen. Then he
dropped like a stone to the floor, landing with a soft thud.

Leelah froze with her hands on the
halo-lamp.

Ja-hun crossed to Danje’s stunned body and
crouched beside him. He checked his pulse and searched him for
weapons before rising and turning toward Leelah. His dark eyes were
hard and his face stony again as he stalked toward her. “Are you
all right?”

She nodded, frozen in the act of reaching for
the lamp. “You’re here!”

“Yes.” He scanned her from head to toe, no
emotion in those fathomless eyes. “He didn’t hurt you?”

“No. Just held me hostage. He’s part of some
crazy group that wants Anuvian domination. They want to take over
the Worlds.” Breaking from her spell at last, she held her bound
wrists toward Ja-hun.

He made a sound in his throat that sounded
like a growl and pulled a knife from an inside pocket. Slicing
through her bonds, he muttered, “Damn
zynpher
s. I should cut
his throat.”

For just a second, Ja-hun was scarier than
Danje. Leelah had no doubt he’d kill Danje without hesitation if
the man wasn’t a vital link to the Anuvian terrorist group.

The moment her hands were free, she started
to throw her arms around Ja-hun, but he seized her wrists. “No.
Letting myself get distracted from my job is what brought us
here.”

“Ja-hun…”

“Come on.” He pulled on her wrist, and she
fell toward him.

“My ankles, too.” She lifted the hem of her
skirt to show him.

He crouched at her feet to cut through the
tape. The cold blade of the knife brushed her skin and his warm
hand gripped her calf.

“Don’t be angry,” she pleaded. “This
kidnapping was
my
fault. I’m the one who trusted Danje and
went with him. You couldn’t have guessed I’d do that. This had
nothing to do with you being lax about your job, or with us hooking
up. This wasn’t because of a distration.”

Leelah caught the shadow of movement in the
open doorway a second before a man entered. The Kingset vid covered
the sound of his footsteps. “Hey!” was all she had time to say,
before another
zynpher
flash flared through the room
directly at Ja-hun’s back. He sprawled at her feet.

“Don’t shoot!” She held her hands up and
dropped to her knees.

The man in the doorway was followed by a
woman. Both were Anuvian. They glided into the room as gracefully
as dancers. The woman called out Danje’s name and ran to him,
dropping down by his side and cradling his head in her hands.

In the brief moment the man looked toward
them, Leelah grabbed the knife Ja-hun had dropped. She had a moment
to decide whether to conceal the weapon or act immediately. But
instinct told her playing for time wouldn’t help Ja-hun. The
bodyguard was expendable, while she, the hostage, was not. Likely
the man would kill Ja-hun and move Leelah to a new location.

She launched herself to her feet and across
the room toward the man with the
zynpher
. She tripped on the
hem of her gown but regained her balance and raised her hand with
the knife.

The Anuvian caught her movement and spun
around to deflect the blow, but it was too late. Leelah drove the
blade deep into his arm. Blood gushed in a red fountain over her
hand still gripping the handle.

The force of her blow made her enemy drop his
weapon. He reached for the knife embedded in his arm with his other
hand.

Leelah let him have it, and dove for the
zynpher
instead. The gun was more lightweight than she’d
expected as she pointed it at the terrorist. Now, how the hell to
trigger it? She’d never fired a weapon of any type in her life.

Meanwhile, the woman by Danje’s body sent a
flash in Leelah’s direction. Her aim was off, and the magnetic
field encompassed the wall where the vid screen still played. It
froze the molecules of the electronic device, making the screen go
black.

Shenje
, why couldn’t she have ever
learned anything useful in life, like how to shoot a damn weapon?
Leelah finally found the trigger on the smooth handle of the
zynpher
and pressed. She shot a bolt at the male intruder,
who had just pulled the knife blade from his arm.

He toppled to the floor and lay still. There
was no twitching or spasming after being hit by a bolt from a
zynpher
.

Leelah dropped to her stomach and shielded
herself behind the man’s body. She fired at the woman again. The
bitch shot back and this time two magnetic fields met in midair,
creating a sizzle before canceling each other out.

Leelah gripped the trigger, firing bolt after
bolt at her opponent. Surely, one would find its mark. Could a
person die from too many
zynpher
hits at once? And how long
did it take to regain consciousness? Danje might awaken soon.

At last, she stopped firing. The woman lay
half across Danje’s body, unconscious or perhaps dead. Leelah rose
on legs trembling so badly they could hardly support her weight.
She collected all the
zynphers
and the knife, then gazed
around the quiet motel room: four silent bodies and her.

She stooped over Ja-hun. Dark lashes rested
in lush crescents on his cheeks. She knew he was merely
unconscious. His chest slowly rose and fell. But his stillness
frightened her and she had to check his neck for a pulse. The
steady beat reassured her.

With her comset out of service and the rest
of them programmed only to their owners’ voices, Leelah had no way
to call for help. She didn’t feel she was out of danger yet. More
terrorists might be coming. She didn’t dare leave Ja-hun while she
went for help, but she couldn’t drag his heavy body with her.

For a moment, she stood shivering and
undecided. After everything she’d just been through, this little
problem felt like one hurdle too many. She couldn’t think. And then
she saw a comset on the table by the halo-lamp, an old-fashioned
set, not an implant. She wasn’t certain how to use the device, but
picking it up, she said, “Comset on.”

There was no response. Then she noticed a
small button and pushed it. A ridiculous robotic voice asked how it
might help her.

“Nigeri Stedman.” Her father’s name and
comset connection wouldn’t be available on a public set, but their
head of household security would be.

As she waited for the slow connection to go
through, Leelah brushed her hand idly through Ja-hun’s hair,
reassuring herself of his living, breathing presence.

A moment later, the familiar voice of the
security director came from the comset. A rush of relief swept
through her, and she nearly wept.

“Nigeri, it’s Leelah. I’ve been kidnapped,
but I’m safe now. Can you come get me?”

Ja-hun sat staring at the
jabarta
pieces laid out in front of him. “I can move this piece sideways
but not straight?” he confirmed.

“That’s right.” Leelah sighed and rested her
chin on her hand, gazing across the board at him. “You know, you’re
making this more complicated than it has to be.
Jabarta
is
so simple children play it.”

He frowned and considered his options. “I
don’t want to make the wrong move and lose. It’s a game of logic,
not chance.”

“You’re leeching the fun out of this by the
second.” She collapsed back into her chair and rolled her head
against the back. “Make a move why don’t you?”

“Excuse me if I’m a little slow. Try to
remember I’ve never played this game in my life. Besides, I was
recently zapped by a
zynpher
, which tends to scramble one’s
thinking for a while.”

“Ooh, my poor baby. I’m too hard on you.” She
leaned forward again and reached across the game board to stroke
the side of his face. “You’re supposed to be resting, and I’m
making you strain your brain.”

Her hand felt cool against the side of his
face. For some reason the zap with a magnetic scrambler had
heightened all his senses so that every touch, smell, sound, and
sight seemed magnified and vibrant. The experience was very
strange, like finding out he’d been blind all his life and was only
now seeing clearly. A medic had assured him the effect couldn’t
possibly be caused by a
zynpher
blast and suggested he might
be having some emotional reaction to being shot.

Ja-hun knew the idea was ridiculous. There
was nothing emotional about him, which was why he was able to pull
Leelah’s hand away from his face. “None of that. I agreed to play
your silly game, but there will be no other interaction between us.
Any physical relationship we may have had is over.”

“You mean sex?” She dropped her voice to a
stage whisper, although they were alone in his room. “Because you
think you can’t be my bodyguard and keep me safe while you’re
involved with me?”

“Yes. I thought we established that.”

“Good thing you’re fired then, isn’t it?” Her
eyes sparkled. “That’s right. Daddy says you’re no longer in his
employ. So you can feel free to fuck me all you want.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Fired. After the fiasco at the
ball, did you think he’d keep you on?”

“He didn’t inform me.”

“Because I asked to do it,” Leelah said
gleefully.

Ja-hun felt like he’d been punched in the
stomach. Whether killer or guardian, he’d never been fired from a
job in his life. He set down the playing piece he’d been hesitating
over for several minutes. “That’s it then. I may as well pack.”

“No. I don’t think so.” Her smile widened,
and she wiggled in her chair like a kid with a secret to tell.
“Because you’re being
hired
in a different capacity. By me!
I’m hiring you to be my personal gigolo-bodyguard. Which means you
basically have to be here and satisfy my every sexual whim and keep
me safe by sticking close to me at all times. That’s right. I’m
hiring you to be my gigo-guard.”

She laughed as if she’d actually said
something funny and only stopped when she realized Ja-hun wasn’t
smiling with her. “What?”

“You know I’m not going to work for you.”

“Why not?” She sat up straight, staring at
him. “It’s perfect. You’ll have a job and we’ll be together
constantly. I’m not even fussing about being watched all the time.
See how I’ve changed?”

He shook his head. “You can’t keep me
like…some kind of pet.”

“Oh, hell. I was just kidding about being a
gigolo. Seriously, Ja-hun, I
do
want your security
expertise. And meanwhile, we’ll be able to spend a lot of time
together to find out how we fit.” Her expression was serious at
last. “I think we could really have something. But if you leave,
we’ll never know.”

“You’re talking about a relationship.” He
struggled to switch tracks from being fired to being hired to being
in some sort of romantic entanglement.