Page 48 of The Interstellar Rake's Irresistible Kiss
Chapter 14
Blackworm was hunting her.
Again. The first time, she hadn’t known it. She’d been snagged—clueless closed-worlder—off the streets of Sunset Falls with no idea what had happened to her.
This time, she knew.
If he caught her, he’d shoot her into the black hole as he’d done to the others.
Her whole body wanted to crumple into a tiny ball, crushed by fear and hopelessness beforethe singularity even got the chance. But the blue drug wouldn’t let her stop running, her heart pounding even faster than her boots.
And she couldn’t stop running because of Nor.
He’d been hurt, bad, but he had the med kit. Surely that high-tech first aid would save him.
In the meantime, she’d just have to save herself.
At least the intruders wouldn’t shoot her dead, she mused, since theywanted to sacrifice her to the black hole. Her mind, which seemed to be floating approximately seven inches, give or take, outside her frantically fleeing body, ticked over her options idly as she pelted down the corridor away from the hangar and the shuttle.
Away from Nor.
No, she couldn’t think about the shattered look in his blue eyes when she’d stood up as he lay injured. She knew howtender he was inside, broken by old abandonment and stitched together with bravado. But if she’d stayed to patch his wounds, Blackworm’s intruders would’ve likely killed him and taken her anyway.
With her brain roaming outside her body, she couldn’t even count the turns that were carrying her away from him. But it didn’t matter. She knew all the careful counting didn’t matter now, hadn’t matteredback then either. None of it had ever been her fault.
Weird to realize that while fleeing for her life and Nor’s.
She cornered hard, her boot soles squeaking like a fear she couldn’t voice, and found herself…
In the glass-domed atrium with that damned black hole pulsing overhead.
Of course.
Stupid scared feet, carrying her here of all places. So that ugly hole eye could watch her hungrilywhile she was caught.
She ducked behind one of the concrete planters, out of reach from the glow of the supplemental lighting recessed into the columns that supported the domed ceiling. The filtration panels she and Nor had tested were tucked into restricted slots. As much as she’d tried to reduce herself over the years, shrinking and shrinking until she was almost invisible even to herself,she still wasn’t small enough to hide there.
And maybe—despite these desperate circumstances—she didn’t want to hide anymore.
She checked the charge on the blaster she’d taken from the injured lieutenant. She’d expended a lot of energy already, though she’d kept her shots short and efficient as Nor had told her. Would she have enough time for an ambient recharge?
The echoing clatter of chasingboots wasnotthe answer she wanted to hear.
There was no way out of this atrium. She knew that from the map she and Nor had been using. By not sticking to her lifelong habit of knowing her escape route, she’d backed herself into a corner. But she couldn’t regret it, not if she’d saved Nor.
If she could get the intruders to bunch up, come for her, maybe she could sneak around behind them. Ifthey were close enough together, maybe she could catch them all with one blaster shot. Yeah, maybe she’d just fly to the stars.
Although really, she had done that, so maybe there was hope after all.
She dodged toward one side of the circular atrium to draw her followers with her. Maybe she could come around on the other side… As she wriggled between two towering purple-fronded trees, she peeredbetween the trailing lines of the pepper spice, and her heart sank. There were a dozen of Blackworm’s crew streaming through the far doorway. There was no way she could take them all. Already, they were fanning out from the doorway, creating a living net to catch her.
To her surprise, instead of fear freezing her blood, a rush of hot fury pulsed through her. She hadn’t come all this way justto end up back where she started.
Drawing back into the fall of vines, she glanced up at the black hole barely visible through the lavender undersides of the alien trees. Did she have enough juice left in the blaster to strike a hole through the windows holding space at bay? With one shot, she could end this threat. She’d show them what it was like to be sacrificed to the stars.
But even asshe raised the blaster, sighting on that malevolent radiating eye, she paused, her fingertip poised on the trigger.
As bad as things had ever gotten, as scared as she’d ever been, in the blackest moments of hating her own weakness, she’d never given up. She might not be an astrophysicist, but she knew until she crossed that event horizon, there was always hope.
