How long can I keep this up? How long can we survive hand-to-mouth? How can I get Evie out of this?
There were only questions and no answers. Dawn started to creep slowly into the world, the curtain-less window glowing with the new day’s light. As Ally stared, Evie started to stir. Ally watched as her sister rose, heading into the small bathroom before getting dressed for the day.
As she re-entered the main room, Ally noticed how worn her sister’s clothing was getting. They’d had very little time to grab belongings when they fled the Rings in the wake of their parents’ sudden death and the unraveling of a lifetime of lies their father had built. The clothing they’d had—which was perfectly suited to a schedule of light lunches, shopping, and casual recreation—was not made for the dusty, harsh reality of Gamma-17.
They’d left the Rings with only the clothing on their backs and a meager bag of random possessions. That was whyrecovering the heirloom was so important. It was the only link to the past they had, the only real proof of a better life, a life lived in safety and comfort.
How quickly that illusion had crumbled after the transport accident. Their parents’ bodies weren’t even cold yet when the first debt collector had come sniffing around. That was when Ally had recognized that her father had built a house of cards out of debts and promises, and that precarious structure was now collapsing in his absence.
Those debts, outnumbering his assets three-to-one, had come due.
Ally had staved them off at first, giving excuses about an inheritance that she knew didn’t exist, but one night, a particularly nasty gentleman had shown up with a contract that appeared to have her father’s signature on it. He waved it in her face, saying he’d come to collect them.
She’d tried to convince him that he would be paid in full, that he just had to wait until her father’s will was read. Giving her a feral smile, the creditor had told her he’d heard plenty of excuses in his time. He’d whipped out a pair of electro-cuffs and headed in her direction.
Panic gripped her, and Ally acted on instinct. She’d grabbed the marble statue off the expensive antique table beside her and swung it at his head. It connected, and he’d tumbled to the floor with anoomph, knocked cold.
She rushed to Evie’s bedroom, telling her to grab anything she could, that they had to run, now. Evie, shocked by this sudden change of events, had tried to question her but Ally said there was no time to explain. Pack a bag. They were leaving.
Ally rushed to her father’s office and dug into his desk, looking for anything of value. A handful of credits were tucked into a drawer with a bottle of expensive liquor and a collection of random paperwork. Ally shoved the credits in her pocket andgrabbed Evie, and into the night, they fled, finding transport off the Rings.
Their credits had gotten them as far as Gamma-17. And now they were likely to spend the rest of their lives rotting on this rock.
If something bad doesn’t happen first.
There’d been rumors, whispers of women disappearing. Slavers. That was why Evie stayed locked inside and why Ally kept herself as disguised as possible. But making her younger sister a prisoner was no life for someone like Evie. She needed to be free, to roam, to sketch, to make friends, to fall in love.
Ally swore to herself once again that she’d find a way to make a real life for Evie. Somehow.
“We’re out of vegetables.” Evie was in the kitchen, stirring up the remains of last night’s stew. It was actually the remains of yesterday’s lunch and breakfast too. Basically of all their meals since they arrived on the desolate hellhole.
“Check my pockets. I think I have half a credit left from the last time I went to the market.”
Evie grabbed Ally’s coveralls that hung over the back of their only chair. Digging in the pockets, she came out with a wad of cash. Her eyes huge, she looked at Ally, dumbstruck. “Where did all this come from?”
Ally sat up, the memory appearing in her head like sudden lightning on a cloudless day. “That son of a bitch!”
Scrambling off the pallet, she let out a string of curses as Evie started to count. “There’s over a thousand credits here! Where did you get them?”
“The Raven gave them to me.”
Evie’s mouth dropped open. She looked her sister up and down. “For what?”
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Ally chastised. “He didn’t lay a finger on me. He said I could consider it payment, eitherfor the inconvenience of losing the heirloom or for the heirloom itself. It didn’t seem to matter to him.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Evie muttered. “Why would his gang steal a necklace only to have him pay for it?”
“Why would he pretend not to have it in the first place? None of this makes any sense.” Ally snatched the credits from her sister and began counting them herself. One thousand, one hundred and fifty credits. The crisp bills seemed to taunt her somehow.
“I should show that pirate that we can’t be bought.” Ally was pacing, her anger riding her like it was trying to break her. But she was a wild stallion. She could never be broken. “I’ll march right back up to him and shove this wad in his face, just before I set it on fire in front of him.”
“Ally, you’re being dramatic.” Evie grabbed the wad of credits back from her sister, holding it close to her chest. “You wouldn’t dare waste credits like that.”
“We can’t keep them!”
“Why not?” Evie was alarmed. “He gave them to you.”
“Not for the right reason!” Ally was trembling, her temper boiling over. “I won’t accept any price for that necklace!”
