“Why? Do you want to see the big bad monster too?”
“Maybe,” she said, rising from her seat.
Zeph grasped her wrist. “About last night. We need to talk.”
She stared at the window longingly before sighing and sitting back down. “You’re sick, and my job is to keep you from focusing on it. It’s a dumb solution, but if it means you’ll keep Lily safe and get her back home, I don’t care.”
He squeezed her wrist once and drew her hand toward him, locking his fingers with hers when she tried to take it back. Shehumphed.
“Not about that. The media and the EPED. Before you interrupted me, I was collecting information.”
She scrunched her face. “So?”
“We’re being hunted.”
“Good! I’m gladyou’rebeing hunted. Maybe they’ll even catch you too,” she spat but it didn’t stop her from glancing out the window with worry. “That guy with the face tattoos?”
“Gunner. And no, not currently, but he’s been sent by the same people who sent me to your father. We both work for a man named Nightheart, a very dangerous, influential Cyborg who has resources all over the known universe. He’s a fucking dick.”
“And you’re working for him because?”
Zeph shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
Janet rolled her eyes. “Of course it is.”
“He’s not a good man, Janet. He’ll kill me if he catches up to us, and he’s willing to take you and Lily out too if there’s no other way around it.”
Her mouth dried up. She slid her eyes to her little sister. “What did you do?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Lily was never supposed to be onboard that night…”
“I believe you. But she was and now we’re here…and I can’t tell you how much I want to hate you right now.” Part of her wanted to scream and tell him to turn himself in but she couldn’t because another part of her, the traitorous part where the safety of her family didn’t come first, wanted to help Zeph. She couldn’t kill him any more than she could hurt Lily.
If Lily ever found out the consequences of sneaking onboard when she’s older…or my consequence of playing with fire and getting burned.
Rylie had begged Janet not to charm Zeph, but she’d done it anyway, thinking he was just another guy. Another man who thought more with his dick than his brain.
It really was a wonderfully large, textured dick, though.
“Would they really hurt us?” she asked in a low voice.
“Look.” Zeph rolled up his uniform sleeve and triggered the wristcon beneath. A series of correspondences appeared in the air between them, each addressed from this Nightheart. She waved her finger to scroll through them, every word making her heart slip farther and farther into her belly.
‘Apprehend Zeph, model 403, dead or alive. A liability to all Cyborgs and cybernetic creations. A rogue creature who will kill anyone or anything who gets in his way.
Take out his ship if all else fails.
Females on board are expendable.’
So on and so forth...
Janet looked up at Zeph. “We are not expendable! Where did you get these?”
“My handler sent them, encrypted, directly to my personal internal IP address. Mia deals with the details and politics. Sending me this will have put her life in danger, too.”
“Can we trust her?”
“As far as I can throw her, which is impossible since she’s billions of miles from us. So… maybe?”
