Page 69 of Freedom Mine
“You finally brought me something I can use. Does Kayo know yet?”
Kayo? She focused, trying to force her brain to pay attention.
“I doubt it. I took her after midnight.” She recognized the voice as one of Kayo’s men. Her stomach sank. She’d been betrayed by one of Kayo’s men!
“Good. Let him stay distracted for a while. Go, see Yasen for your payment.”
As the man behind her released her, she turned, only for him to strike her across the face and send her sailing into Garitt’s legs.
“You really aren’t very smart, girl,” Garitt said as he clamped down on her arm and pulled her to her feet. “First you don’t kill Kayo when you have the chance, and now you try to sneak a peek at who took you. Did you think he’d let you see him and risk his life for you?”
“Why do you want me?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
“I don’t want you, but I will enjoy you.”
She withdrew the knife from her pocket, only for Garitt to seize her by her wrist and squeeze, much as Kayo had done weeks ago, except Garitt continued squeezing long after she dropped the knife. She screamed in pain as his gloved fingers dug harder into her flesh, forcing her to her knees.
She cradled her injured wrist in her other hand, the angry marks already deepening to bright red as Garitt scooped up the knife. “Chain her,” he said to the shirtless man and left without another word.
* * *
KAYO
The box had been sitting buried in his closet since the day he moved into Mac’s room. He hadn’t ever planned on opening the red lacquered case again, let alone using the Bakadian throwing knives Mac had gifted to him. They only served as a reminder of home and a people who had abandoned him.
“Go on the net, track her chip,” Jace suggested as Kayo placed the set of five knives on his person, two in his boots, three on his belt.
“No. If they see me searching, they’ll think she’s run, and then they’ll track her and take her.”
“Not everyone in the Department of Registries is dishonest.”
“I don’t trust them. Never will.”
“Then what are you going to do? Fly over the entire planet in the hope of spotting her from the air, when she could be in any building, under any tree? Even gone by now?”
“She can’t get off-planet without my retina scan permitting it.” Kayo slammed the wooden box closed with a thud. “At least a search by air is a shot.”
“Most of the men have volunteered for a grid search.”
He paused for a moment, shocked at Jace’s words. Kayo had not expected the men would want to help him. They’d resented the fact that he’d spent so much money buying Alli, and now that she was missing, well, he’d thought some would be happy to be rid of her.
“Have them search our property, in case she’s here. I won’t stop them from searching off my property if they insist, but remind them they’ll be as vulnerable as Alli without you or me along.”
Kayo pulled his shirt out of his pants, to hide the knives. “And before you remind me that several of them went to Qasig, I had his word he’d protect them.”
“Funny how you trust Qasig because Mac did.”
He wasn’t going to let Jace draw him into another discussion of how Mac was wrong to force this property, this mission on him.
“Do you think she left willingly?” Jace asked, realizing this wasn’t the time to rehash old arguments.
“Gods, I hope so,” Kayo said as he headed to the landglider. “I don’t want to consider the alternative.”
Before heading to the landglider, he entered the longhouse, looking for Masher. The man had keen eyes in the air.
The place was empty, but as he turned to leave a very familiar knife caught his eye. A gray, spear-pointed, single-edged blade folding knife. Alli’s pig sticker. He yelled for Jace to get in there.
“Who’s bed is that?” Kayo pointed to the third from the end.
