Page 29 of Rescued By the Convicts
“It’s personal. And in the past. It won’t affect your precious unit, Ivan.”
Ivan straightened as if his authority were being challenged. Perhaps it was.
“I didn’t mean to start a fight,” Melina added.
“Sure you did, hon,” Jayce said, rising from the bed. “Like everyone else, you’re trying to control the game.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“You’re talking about what you did for Danning, aren’t you?” Ivan guessed.
“Fuck you, Ivan,” Jayce said, jumping from the bed without kissing her. He’d always parted with a kiss, somewhere on her body, even the first time he’d come to her when he’d just wanted sex.
“I don’t need your judgment. You weren’t there.”
“No, I wasn’t. But I know the shit Danning was into, and I know your talents. You survived three years with him, and that wasn’t because he enjoyed your ass.”
Jayce paled a moment as he shoved his pants on, telling her that Jayce had more secrets, and he probably always would. Trust took time. She knew that as well as anyone. She hadn’t told them everything about Namir and never planned to. It was unrealistic to plant those images in another person’s mind and expect they’d look at her the same way as before.
Which is likely how Jayce felt.
She jumped up and grasped his face in both of her hands until angry green eyes shifted from Ivan to her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything, but you need to forgive yourself, Jayce, for whatever happened. You were in a terrible position with no good choices.”
Jayce opened his mouth to say something, and then shut it, glancing toward Ivan.
“You’ve never hidden anything from Ivan before, have you?”
“No,” he said softly. A moment later, his forehead tipped against hers, and he exhaled a long-held breath. “I just don’t want to remember it anymore.”
“Then let it go,” she whispered. “The only one holding on is you. You’re forgiven, Jayce.”
Jayce pulled away, eyes searching her face. After one last look at her, he left the room without a single word.
Chapter Seven
ZEV
Zev followed Ivan to the entrance to one of the larger serilium pits. The volcano, live but not active, rested a few miles to the west and could be seen from the caves high above the pits. Reece kept a cache of supplies up in one of the caves, which had proven handy in recent weeks.
While the ground in the area was mostly flat, during the last eruption thirty years ago the volcano had spewed large chunks of lava rock that now dotted the area. Zev slipped between two such boulders, near the tracks that had been laid from the processing plant to one of the larger pits.
Streams of molten lava wove through the area, feeding into the pits. Some of the pits filled up with lava and bubbled over, but most drained below ground into the thermal fissures. That’s what the scientists who first discovered serilium on Veenith claimed. The pits had become a dumping ground for much of the prisoner’s garbage as well as slag from the processing plant where the serilium was extracted from the rocks the prisoners mined.
Unlike the rest of Veenith that was presently covered in snow and ice, this area glowed red amid a black surface. The heat in the area was unbearable in summer, but tolerable in the dead of winter. Either way, the prisoners avoided slag duty like a plague. The work was dirty, grueling, and backbreaking.
And there Ivan stood, pulling the slag cart, focused, controlled, and not the least bit upset with the duty. Zev studied him while he debated his next move. A million questions surfaced. Mostly how Melina was doing. And if Reece had continued his reading and writing lessons. Hell, Zev was even curious if Jayce was still struggling with the concept of being in a unit. Zev missed them. Despite Ivan’s faith in him, Zev would not be returning to the unit.
Ivan’s thick leg muscles dug into the earth as he pulled the slag cart behind him. Even on rails, that cart had to weigh hundreds of pounds. When Ivan reached the lava stream that was no more than three feet wide, he shoved rocks under the cart’s wheels, removed the harness he wore, and pulled the shovel out of the cart.
Zev knew he shouldn’t be anywhere near Ivan. He couldn’t be caught making contact with the soldier, not like this. But if he was going to succeed in finding his target, he had to risk it.
With the sound of the shovel striking the slag, Zev scanned the area, looking for any sign that he’d been tailed. He waited for an hour, continually debating if he should confide in Ivan. Zev had never been so conflicted. Then again, he’d never had reason to trust another man on a mission, especially one who could turn on him if he saw the advantage in doing so.
The stroking of the shovel hitting the slag pile bounced off the nearby lava pillars as Ivan dumped shovel after shovel of slag into the lava. The work was grueling, and it showed as Ivan straightened his back, the pain reflected in his sweaty face.
Zev emerged from his hiding spot between two boulders. Ivan turned sharply, his knife already in hand. The man was on edge, as he should be after what happened at his mine.
“Is this punishment for the fighting at your mine?” Zev asked.
