Page 77 of Stealing Mercury
The men still seemed tense.
“It’s true, guys,” Samantha assured them. “You’ll be safe here as soon as we get rid of those trackers.”
A young boy stepped up to Moira, who greeted him by name.
Sometimes Samantha was struck by how fortunate they were—how different Haverlee was from the camps she’d seen on the Alliance side of the border. “Mom, the guys need clothes. Could you send a messenger to the market, too? I’ll give you my account number.”
Moira shook her head. “I have plenty in my account from what you last sent.”
Samantha swallowed to wet her throat. “You should hang onto that. I’m out of a job for a while.”
“Don’t worry,” her mother soothed as she glided back across the room and took Samantha in her arms. “Things will work out.”
She hoped her mother was right, but there were so many obstacles in their way. All she could do was take it one thing at a time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
HaverleeRefugeeCamp,Krena
GollerraSector
2210.170
Mercury walked beside Samantha as she navigated through the warren of lanes with ease. He’d liked her mother’s home. Textures and colors filled the space like a sensory feast. The cloth walls blocked the heat of the sun but were easily pushed aside. Any wall could become an exit. He found the freedom of that appealing.
The large building ahead of them had to be where she was taking them. It dwarfed the much smaller structures crowded into the area around it and the homes beyond it looked hastily built with many types of building materials, all in bad repair.
He didn’t recognize the hard material that formed the walls of the larger building, but he didn’t like that it only had one way in and out. A half dozen bright red symbols hung over the solitary doorway. Samantha led them into the cool and well lit interior. The smell of the place raised the fine hairs on the back of his neck.
He wrapped a hand around Samantha’s arm to still her movements. She looked at him with concern. “Something wrong?”
“This is a medical facility.”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh.” Her face fell. “I didn’t think. I should have explained.”
Behind him, Lo and Carnage had gone on alert. He could tell without looking that Lo had gone up on his toes and his claws had slipped free.
“If this is where we must be to remove the trackers, then this is where we must be.”
He made the words loud and firm for Carn and Lo, but he knew he wasn’t on firm ground here. He was on edge. They needed to do this and have it over.
While Samantha spoke with the Cerrillian female that seemed to be in charge, Mercury studied the colorless cloth drapes that hung from the ceiling to divide the space. The place looked too much like the staging area at the arena. If the medics were going to drug them before a match, it always happened there.
Instinct urged him to put as much distance as possible between them and this place, but he had to trust Samantha. So, he let Samantha walk away to speak with Felzaf and followed as the female led them to a three-meter square section where they were to wait. Whispery voices came from all directions. They swirled around them and wound him tighter and tighter.
When Samantha walked into the room with a human male, Lo lunged for the man. Mercury had to hold him back, and it was that need alone that saved him from being the one to tear the man apart. If it hadn’t been for Lo, Samantha would have seen a demonstration of his true nature—primitive, animal, barbaric.
To his credit, the brown haired man with the round features atop a slender frame held his ground.
Samantha jumped between them. “This is Felzaf.”
“My patients don’t normally want to kill mebeforetheir treatment.” Felzaf tried to chuckle at his own joke, but the man’s voice shuddered as he tried to breathe normally.
“Everybody calm down,” Samantha urged.
Lo snarled, but let Mercury push him back. His eyes flashed as he spoke. “You expect me to allow this human to cut into me?”
“We must trust Samantha.” He believed the words, but his instincts roared in complaint.
