Chapter 45
KYE REACHED OUT, wanted to touch him, but there seemed no place that wasn’t damaged. And telling herself that he could feel nothing now didn’t help.
She would find Jakel. She would find the monster who had done this, and she would carve him into too many pieces to count with his own laser pistol. And if they killed her for it, so be it.
Her teeth almost chattered with the iciness that had overtaken her. She clenched her jaw. Made herself look, take in every detail. She wanted to etch into her mind the memory of what Jakel had done. She wanted it emblazoned there, for when she found him. But now . . .
She had to get Drake out of here. She could not leave him here, alone. She could not bear even the thought of it. She would get him out, and he would rest in that final peace on the mountain he loved. She had been too late to save him, but he would lie free, eternally. Somehow she would—
Her gaze snagged on his face, his cheek where the scars would have been, had he not shed the disguise. Blood there, as in so many places. It dripped slowly over his bruised face, bright, red, wet.
It finally got through the numbness.
Blood. Fresh blood.
He was actively bleeding.
Her fingers shot to his throat, heedless now of anything but the fierce hope that seized her.
Nothing. She pressed harder. Held her breath.
There. Faintly. Barely. But there.
A pulse.
He was alive.
Kye felt a shiver of joy ripple through her. He was alive.
With the greatest effort she had ever made, she tamped it down. All reason told her he was barely hanging on. If she could even rouse him, he might not be able to move. And she could not carry him.
She had to assess, she thought, forcing herself to logic. It hurt her beyond measure to inflict more pain on him, but she had to move him, had to see just how badly he was injured and where.
She eased him away from the wall with exquisite care. Only now noticed the lock dangling from the metal loop in the wall, where the chains that held his wrists had likely been fastened. Anger stirred anew, low and deep. She banked it. Time enough after he was safe.
That he would likely die in the process did not escape her.
“Live, Drake,” she whispered. “Live. I will get you out of here.”
She checked for broken bones first. His legs seemed intact, in fact almost undamaged, save the old scar, from his first encounter with Jakel’s laser pistol. That seemed an eon ago now, and she didn’t even waste a moment reproaching herself for not having guessed when she’d thought she’d seen Drake favoring that leg at the same time.
Jakel had apparently focused his evil tools elsewhere. When she got to his hands, those hands that had touched her, held her, stroked her, she found every finger on the left broken, and all but one on the right. She felt the wetness of tears hitting her own hands before she even realized she was crying.
Useless, she snapped at herself. Tears are useless.
She continued her inspection, guessing from the huge, dark bruises on his torso that Jakel had at some point resorted to a bat or club of some kind. He could have broken ribs, which would made even this much movement dangerous, puncturing internal organs. A row of raw, red burns across his chest, and the bloody X she found carved into his flesh over his heart, probably with that bedamned laser pistol, told her more than she would ever wish to know about the kind of torture Jakel had inflicted.
She could not carry him. But she would find a way.
That logic she’d forced told her there was no way he would survive being moved.
And yet he would certainly die if she left him. As if she could.
Yet in the end, it was never really a question. She knew as well as she knew her own heart that Drake Davorin would rather die free today than cling to another day of life in this dungeon. And that if she left him, he would find just enough strength to end it, dying on his own terms rather than Jakel’s.
And suddenly, the chains binding him were too much. She pulled out the obliterator, still on low, and aimed it at the metal links, as far away from Drake as she could get them. She hesitated, but Brander had sworn that while it couldn’t take out anything large, it made up for that by affecting only what it hit.
She fired.
The chains vanished without a sound. Drake did not even react. She quickly looked away from his bloody, ruined wrists.
“You will be free, my love,” she whispered, touching his battered face with only a finger, all she dared.
She gasped as one Ziem blue eye fluttered open. Her breath jammed up in her throat and she couldn’t speak.
His swollen lips moved. Barely. She heard a whisper of sound. Her name?
All the things she wanted to say hovered, and yet she couldn’t find the words for any of them. She had a mission now, and unless she achieved it, nothing else mattered.
“Drake,” she said, “We have to get you out of here.”
He made a low, despairing sound. “Seem . . . so real.”
“I’m here, Drake. Can you move at all?”
That eye—the other was swollen shut—seemed to narrow. Then closed.
“Vision . . . again.”
She could barely make out the mumbled words, couldn’t imagine what it took for him to talk at all. Some part of her mind registered that he’d brought up her image here before, and she thought later she would be pleased by that, but now she bent over him, speaking urgently. “Drake, listen to me. I’m here, I’m real, and we have to get you out of here before Jakel comes back.”
That eye opened again. Stared at her. She could almost see him fighting back waves of what had to be agony. “K . . . Kye?”
“Right here,” she said, trying to smile.
“No. Can’t. You . . . must go.”
“We’re getting you out of here.”
“Kye . . . please . . . save you.”
“I will not leave you here.”
“Must.”
“I must,” she said, “get you to Mahko.”
The eye closed again for a moment. “Too . . . late.”
“No!” Her cry was ill-advised, but she could not stop it.
“Dying, Kye. Feel it.”
“No.” This time it was barely a whisper.
“Love you. Get out.”
“Drake—”
“Give me . . . that much. Live.”
His eye closed again, and his head lolled to one side. For a moment, she feared the worst, but that same weak pulse beat in his throat.
It was as well he was unconscious. She stood abruptly, looked around the foul room. In a corner, she saw what appeared to be a long, heavy coat or smock of some kind. So Jakel didn’t get blood on himself? Her stomach curled, and she promised herself later contemplation of how the man would die, slower and longer than any of his victims.
She grabbed up the heavy cloth garment and brought it back. She laid it out next to him. It took longer than she had hoped, for she feared hurting him further, but eventually she had him lying on it. She swiftly tied a knot in the end of each sleeve, then grabbed them up. And pulled. Pulled harder. Leaned into it so far that had the stitching given way she would have careened across the room.
It took much of her strength and all of her weight, but he began to slide across the floor. She heard him groan, but kept on. It became easier as she gained momentum.
At the door she stopped, listening. Then opened it. Still silence. She peered outside. It looked the same as when she’d come in. She pulled the door wide, propped it open. She raced over to the lifter, hit the button. Once they were upstairs, she could call one of the Sentinels with the diversion group for help moving him.
The moment the lifter arrived and the doors slid open, her heart sank. She could hear, down the lifter shaft, the sound of shouts, and heavy thuds. And then blaster fire. Something had gone wrong up there, and this path was cut off.
A light lit up on the lifter panel. It was being called back up. The doors began to slide closed.
Instantly, she grabbed up the guard’s chair and slid it in the door’s path. It creaked as it tried to close, and for a moment she feared it wouldn’t stand the pressure. The metal bent, but held. A warning light activated on the panel and all motion stopped.
She spun around and ran back to Drake. He lay frighteningly motionless, but thankfully unaware.
There was only one option she could see. Back the way she’d come. But while she thought she could get him through the old utility tunnel, and Maxon could help her lift him out, the size of the twins’ hand-dug passage was something else. It was just too small for a man of Drake’s stature. And even with help, digging it out would take too long, for Drake’s sake if not for the risk of discovery. If things had gone badly wrong up top, the Coalition could be already searching the grounds for intruders.
But there was no other choice.
She began to move, thinking she would have a long, hard pull to think of what she would do at the end of it. And it was longer and harder than she’d imagined. She was more than fit, but her hands hurt, her back was tight with the strain, her legs wearying too soon.
It is nothing—nothing—compared to what he has been through.
She pulled on, and on. When she reached the narrow spot at the wall, it was a close thing, and she had to leverage him up over the small lip. It would be difficult, but she began, chanting inwardly that they were almost there. They were nearly through, and she stepped over him to pull from the other side, banging her hip on one side and the holster on the other.
The holster.
She froze as a thought slammed into her.
She turned it over in her mind, and then nearly laughed aloud as she realized she had the solution literally at hand.
She would blast the tunnel larger with the Coalition’s own weapon.
The weapon Drake had stolen, in the guise of the meek, cowardly taproom keeper.
How fitting, that in the end, he would save them both.
She began with the lowest setting, not wanting the passage to cave in, but it was taking too long. She upped it and it was better. She carved it out carefully, marveling rather warily at how the material just vanished.
She had just judged it wide enough when she heard footsteps approaching. She darted back into the shadows, appealing to all the mountain gods she didn’t really believe in, even to the Spirit, that it wasn’t the Coalition, not now. Not when they were so close.
When Maxon’s face appeared, she nearly went weak with relief. She said his name, keeping her voice to the lowest whisper she thought he could hear.
“Kye?”
“Yes. I need your help, and Mara’s. I have him, but he’s badly hurt. You’ll have to pull him up.”
She shuddered to think what tying that rope around his battered ribs would do to him, and tried to pad it as best she could with the coat. He did not stir at all, and she thought of checking to see if he had survived the long drag through the tunnel but it didn’t matter now. Nothing did except getting him out and away from here.
Once it was done, they hauled him up easily enough, then threw the rope back down to her. She scrambled up, closed the hatch, and hastily covered it as best she could, given that the hole was larger now; she doubted they would ever use it again, but the Raider had taught her never to discard an asset that still worked—they had too little.
She fought down her dread; she could not afford that luxury. Could not afford any feelings right now.
They carried him with great care. Now that she was outside, she could hear shouting coming from all over the compound, heard the sound of rovers whooshing through the air and large transports in the distance, heading for the mountains where Brander had clearly created such a commotion with his rail gun that the Coalition was responding in force. And drawing all their attention, as planned. It was a dangerous game he was playing, but she had faith in her scapegrace cousin; he would manage.
She knelt on the deck of the air rover beside Drake’s too-still form as they raced for the ruin, and safety.