Kayson called out a warning. I heard the snap of the whip before I felt it, the sharp sting, a slice of pure fire across my back. The pain was excruciating. Should have been debilitating.
My entire body flooded with rage. Raw, animalistic rage. I turned on Amok, ignored Kayson pulling himself on his elbows toward the discarded blaster. Amok was pulling his arm back to strike me with his whip a second time.
No you fucking don’t.
“You’re going to die for that.”
It was too easy. Or maybe I was just moving in a different time and space dimension for a few seconds. Somehow, the world went into slow motion. I saw the whip arc toward me. I stepped in front of it, the loud crack sounding on the floor where I’d been standing less than a second before. I ran toward Amok. Jumped in the air to land a sidekick but a flash of light made me pull back as Amok’s body flew backward.
Just as quickly as things changed, time was normal again. I turned to see Kayson holding the blaster that had ended Amok. He turned slowly, took aim and fired.
“No!” Master Gee’s denial rang through the room like he was a child who’d just has his favorite toy taken away.
But instead of a toy, it was Mal he’d lost control over. Mal stood over him looking at the rather large, burned section of Master Gee’s face and neck. He turned to Kayson.
“Thanks.”
Adrenaline coursed through my veins and I knew my entire body was trembling with aftershock. The lash on my back was on fire, but Kayson had turned shockingly pale. The wounds on his legs were horrific, burned to the bone on both thighs. But at least they weren’t bleeding. If they hadn’t instantly sealed, he would be dead already.
I leaned down and put my hand on his cheek. He looked at me but there wasn’t much more than the glaze of agony in his eyes. “Safe?”
“Yes. I’m safe. Thank you. You saved me.”
He seemed to fade a little after he processed my words.
“Stay with me, Kayson. We need to get you into a ReGen pod. Okay. Just stay with me.”
He closed his eyes but when I place my hand in his and squeezed, he held on.
I looked up at Mal. “Are you alright?”
He had his boot heel on Master Gee’s throat, just in case the asshole decided not to stay down. “Are you?”
I nodded. “A bit of a headache from master-squeeze over there—” I indicated Gale’s now dead body. “But I’ll live. I’ve had worse.”
“Not again.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what he was referring to—there were a lot of options here—so I let it go. We had bigger problems. “Kayson is hurt really bad.”
I looked at the bastard who had shot Kayson, conspired to kill a four-year-old and tried to kill Mal.
“The mark on your back. I failed to protect you. I am sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“You are in pain. You were nearly killed.”
What’s a girl to do when the man you think you might be in love with looks at you with eyes that sad? That full of self-loathing and shame for something that was not his fault?
I lied. Which I hated, but I wasn’t going to break down, cry my eyes out and sob like a baby because one of these assholes tried to kill me. Wasn’t the first time. So why was it so much harder to deal with here? With them?
That hope bullshit. That’s why.
“I am not in pain. The sting has faded. We won today, we took him alive. That was the goal, our mission, and we did it.”
Count on them? Rely on them? Love them? No. Doing that and then going home would hurt worse than dying. At least with dying, I’d be dead. At least, I thought it would. And if I weren’t, if some version of heaven or hell did exist, it’s not like I’d come back and tell anyone.
Mal slipped his communicator from his pocket so he could contact Geros. All according to plan.
