Before we headed back out into the noise and commotion of the nightclub, I stopped. Jado cast a wondering look over his shoulder. “What's up?”

“Thank you for what you're doing for us. I know it’s a risk for you.”

He laughed. “Man, you're handing me a kingdom.” He lightly socked me in the shoulder. “I may not have always made the smartest decisions, but I'm no idiot.” He headed back through the curtains. “Besides, my babe would feed me my own balls if I didn't help Zayda.”

Jado picked four of his guys, broad and burly, with the flat look of killers in their eyes.

“Nobody but me or Ardelle gets through to the back room, period. You keep this guy and Zayda safe, you're going to like the reward.”

His grin was wolfish, almost familiar. Certainty struck me. I'd known someone else who gave orders in that easy, confident way. Maybe once we were out of this place I'd find him.

“Talk to you tomorrow,” Jado said as Ardelle slipped out from the back room.

“Jado honey, would you go on for just a bit. I need just a couple words with our new friend here,” she purred.

The minute they were out of sight, her easy smile fled and sparks flared in her eyes.

“Don't you hurt her,” she hissed, her finger prodding my chest as if to punctuate each word. “I'm not fussy about what people did before they got here, that's pretty obvious. But you take care of her. Or so help me I will find a way to get to you, and you’ll regret it.”

At any other moment it would've been funny, the sight of her threatening me. But right now we were talking about matters of life and death.

More importantly, we were talking about Zayda.

“If I hurt her, or allow her to be hurt, I'll let you.” It was the only possible answer. And the truth.

“Good.” She turned and marched away. I watched her catch up to Jado, snuggle into him as his arm wrapped around her.

I shifted the flimsy curtain behind me, wishing for something a hell of a lot sturdier. Three or four layers of permasteel would be nice. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the guards Jado had set take their positions.

But I’d still rather have the permasteel.

Zayda still sat in her chair, playing with a long strip of fabric, weaving it back and forth between her fingers.

I dropped onto the floor beside her and she jumped as if she'd been lost in thought. Tension wrapped around her, tight as any binding.

“What's wrong?”

“Other than we’re planning to break out of the prison that isn't designed to ever let anyone go unless they’re hustled off in the middle of the night by ghosts? And that I might have just put the one true friend I've made up here in terrible danger?” She threw up her hands. “Nothing, why do you ask?”

I rubbed her arm with light strokes. Her muscles were taut under the skin, as if tied into knots.

“I think your friend is tougher than you realize. And she'd be hurt if you didn't let her help.”

A small puff of laughter met my words, just a little, but it was enough to make me wonder what it would sound like, what it would take to make her laugh for real.

“You’re probably right.” Her face sobered again. “But we need to talk.”

Her eyes went back to the little piece of fabric. She folded and unfolded it in tiny pleats between her fingers.

“Let's assume everything goes to plan. We survive the shuttle trip, they unload us somewhere on Orem, and we get out of the warehouse with nobody noticing.” She pulled the fabric tight. “Then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do we do after we reach the station,” she spoke slowly, as if trying to work through a problem, lay the issue clear.

“Once we’re back on Orem, there's a,” she paused, and once again I wondered how much she wasn't telling me. “There's a package I need to pick up. And then I need to take it somewhere. Alone.”

I sat back on my heels and rubbed the back of my neck. Her tension was contagious. What would I do when I got back to Orem? If I could go anywhere, do anything...

“There's a place I need to go,” the words spilled out of me before I realized they were on my tongue.

Zayda sat up straight, grabbed my hand. “Does that mean you remembered something, do you know what happened?

“No, it's just a feeling. There's someplace I need to go.” I could almost see myself at the controls of a ship, plotting in a course for… I shook my head. I couldn't remember anything further, it wouldn't come. But as soon as I had the chance, I was going to figure that out.

“So, sounds like we’re in agreement.” Resignation tinged Zayda's voice. “Once we get back to the station, we’ll go our separate ways.”

She headed to the privacy booth behind the screened-off bed.

“The bed certainly looks large enough for both of us. I'm not going to think about what Jado and Ardelle get up to in here.”

“Good idea,” I called after her, but my mind was far away.

Go our separate ways.

The leaden words sunk into my gut. I had assumed we would stay together after we made it to Orem. No reason for it. Maybe it was just because Zayda had been a part of my new life since waking up. It was hard to imagine going on to something else without her.

I stood up, shaking myself out of the melancholic mood. And that was stupid. Obviously, I'd had a life before her. And she’d had a life before me. We both would be fine.

Even if I hated it.

By the time I came out of the privacy booth, she had stripped out of her outer layers and curled onto the far side of the bed.

“I still really don't want to know the details, but, I promise you, this is much more comfortable than the deck floor we were on last night. Come on in.”

I folded my shirt and draped it carefully over the back of one of the chairs before climbing into the bed.

She was right, this was better than the deck, hell, it was even better than the bunk in the dorm.

In the dorm. Oh, hell.

“Gozer,” I muttered.

“What?” came the sleepy reply.

“Gozer, a chemhead, but in his own way he tried to be kind to me. He found a bunk in the dorms for me last night. I said I'd be back, and I haven’t given him a second thought since.”

“See if you can find him tomorrow at mess, easy peasy.” She reached across the expanse of bed that separated us to rest her hand on my shoulder. “Tell him you got a better offer.”

“Good plan.”

She rolled over, her back to me. “Good night, Mack.”

Zayda’s touch still burned on my skin, her presence in the bed was almost unbearable. I remembered how she’d felt in my arms, the smell of her neck, the groans she’d made when I tasted her.

And through will alone I stayed perfectly still. “Good night, Zayda.”

The dream began as it always did.

A blank room, walls of gray dimly lit from no source I could see. I lay on my back with my arms and legs outstretched, strapped down, immovable.

I had to get out. I had to get out. I had to get out. The refrain beat in my mind louder than my own heartbeat.

If I didn't, they'd be back. And, no matter how much I fought them, one day, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day I would tell them what I knew.

The door slid open and I stopped straining against the bands. Too late.

As the tools powered up, I forced my mind blank, refused to hear their questions.

Where did they go? How do we find them? What message will call them all back?

I didn’t fear the knives, or the shocks, or the torch.

The fear of telling them what they wanted to hear was far more terrible than anything they could do to me.