Page 62 of Choosing Jenny
When I arrived, Jac said, “Take the guest chair and strap in.”
I did, and as soon as I was secure, the ship took off again. Sam stared up at him with a red face, eyes wide and still glittering with tears. But at least her hysteria had calmed.
Jac glanced at me. “I wanted to wait to interrogate Sam until you were with us.”
“Thanks,” I said, then turned to Sam and started the inquisition myself. “What the fuck is your deal, Sam?”
She gulped hard, but didn’t evade the question. “Justice Bateen figured out that I was working for you, as your double. I don’t know how. Might have been the donor registry, since it tracks the employment of donors. It’s not hard to see that you and I look alike. So he knew I was covering for you, which meant there was something to cover for. I didn’t tell him anything. At first.” Her eyes darted away.
I grabbed her chin to force her to look back at me. “At first?”
She nodded jerkily, her bottom lip trembling. “When I wouldn’t tell him anything, he had my family stolen from Earth.” She started to cry all over again. “He has them in the royal prisons, and if I don’t give him reports on time, or do what he says, hetakes.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jac growled furiously.
“Takes?” I asked her, frowning. “What do you mean, he takes?”
“That’s what Justice calls it,” Jac cut in, clearly aware of the tactic. “That means he pulls a tooth or lops a segment of a finger or toe off, or flays a finger’s worth of skin from someplace. He takes little bits of people, parts they can live without but are still excruciatingly painful, and sends them to whoever he’s blackmailing. The only good news is that means he’s keeping them alive for now, which means they get medical treatment for the injuries.”
The thought horrified me. “That’s what he’s been doing to your family?”
Sam nodded and looked just as sick as I felt. “I haven’t been able to contact him since we left Orhon. I…I don’t know how much he’s taken since we’ve been here.”
“And you’ve been his eyes and ears this whole time?”
Tears welled in her eyes, and when she nodded, they spilled over. “Yes.”
I narrowed my gaze at her. “So he knows we cheated at Illiapol because ofyou.”
She swallowed back a sob. “I didn’twantto tell him. I swear I didn’t…but he already suspected. I was just confirmation.”
“If you haven’t been able to contact him since you’ve been here, then he doesn’t know our war plans, right?” Jac asked her.
“He doesn’t,” she rasped. “At least, not from me.”
“Why attack Tiger and the others?” I demanded to know. “Why shoot me?”
Her reply came out in a distressed whisper. “Because for every one of you that I kill, Justice will spare one of my family. He said that if I can stop the war from happening, he would repair and replace the parts he cut off of them and send my family back to Earth with enough riches to buy Earth. I don’t care about the money, fuck that, but my family…”
She started to softly cry again, pitiful sounds that made me ache for her and intensified my hate toward Justice. It appeared even Jac couldn’t help but feel compassion for Sam’s situation since he released her from her restraints.
She buried her face in her hands, but not before I saw the genuine contrition there. “I can’t do this anymore…I’m so fucking sorry.”
“One problem at a time,” Jac muttered as he flicked some switches on the console, and the ship went faster. “We’re going to the Vulavi island, where you can prove how sorry you are by helping us rescue our friends. Then you can throw yourself at their feet to beg for their mercy, provided they still have feet.”
CHAPTER 20
Mal
If the message hadn’t come through that Jenny was okay, I might have mutinied and stolen Deacon’s ship.
As it was, I rocked restlessly on my heels in the cockpit next to Drift as he navigated out way to the island. I couldn’t stay in the lounge with everyone else. At least being in the cockpit, I felt like I was doing something, even though I was doing nothing.
Nothing but simmering in my rage.
“You can take the co-pilot chair, if you want to sit,” Drift offered.
“No thank you.”
