She and Jax pulled me up to standing. I balanced on my left foot and grabbed the platform railing.
“This has to be the worst heist ever.” My knees knocked together. I only felt one of them. It was like an out-of-body experience—not that I’d ever had one.
Tess pursed her lips. “I don’t know about that. We finished the last heist in a black hole. So far, this is better.”
“True.” It was all relative. But at least they’d had something to show for that one: a lab full of enhancers.
Tess holstered her empty weapon and ground her right thumb into the center of her left hand as she turned toward the vacuum-seal control panel. She mashed her fingers together in a tight triangle and then held her left palm up to the locking mechanism. Within seconds, the control panel beeped, and the doors slid open.
Jax, Frank, Caeryssa, and I were all right there, watching. They had to know, or at least suspect. How could they not? Unless they believed in magic, they had to know there was some kind of illegal tech involved. They simply didn’t care. They had Tess’s back and kept her secrets—didn’t even ask about them. They were family in the way that had been missing from my life for a decade.
But maybe that void was finally filling up again.
An ache shot through my heart. The blazing pain from the two stun blasts had given way to numbness, and that one beating muscle was pretty much all I could feel in my body. I couldn’t even lift a hand to rub my chest, so the tightness simply stayed there.
Tess sprang out of the way when the door panel slid open. Frank helped Caeryssa stumble into the accordion-like passageway of the vacuum seal, propelling her toward the other side of the air lock. Jax got a shoulder under my arm and half dragged me through after them. Once we were in, Tess closed the door and changed the code. It was hard to tell, but I thought she typed outGabrielon the number pad, and I scowled.
“We could leave it open,” Caeryssa said. “The space between the shells will depressurize when we detach. An emergency like that would distract the whole station. They won’t have time to come after us.” Her cold pragmatism should’ve surprised me but didn’t. It was a good idea, in fact.
Tess pushed past us to get to the far lock and repeated the process with her hand and fingers. She shook her head as she held up her palm to the control panel. “If I get you guys in this one, I might be able to run up to the next level and snag that one, like Sanaa said. Between both our ships, they can pick us up quickly.”
“By yourself?” I frowned at her. “We don’t even know what’s in the next cargo hold. Not worth it.” Goons’d be here any second, despite Tess having shot out the locks on the next five levels. They could still come down the stairs and would—unless they were in danger of being sucked out into space. “Leaving a gaping hole right here sounds like a good plan to me.”
Caeryssa nodded.
“We don’t know what’s in this one, either,” Tess said.
“Our escape, for one thing.” That was what mattered.
Numbers started scrolling across the small rectangular screen. Tess kept her hand up, watching the blur of combinations go by. “I don’t know. We’ll see what’s in this one. There’s usually similar stuff grouped together.Whyis this taking so long?” She glared at the control panel and shifted from foot to foot, her agitation growing.
This lock was definitely different from the one built into the outer shell of the spacedock. Much more sophisticated. Maybe there was something of real value in this container. Cure-alls? Weapons? I almost hoped not, because Tess wouldn’t listen to me then. She’d go for another.
“I’ll go with you,” Jax said. With his agreement, I sensed a losing battle and bit down on a curse. “Frank can steer this one while Shade and Ryssa recover.”
I wanted to howl at the idea of being separated, but Tess just nodded, all business.
“Actually…” Frank lifted his hand from his side. It came away bloody.
“Shit! Frank!” Caeryssa hopped backward on one leg, taking her weight off him.
“I guess a goon got lucky,” Frank said through a grimace.
“What’s going on?” a female voice asked sharply over the com. Macey? Nic? I couldn’t tell. It wasn’t Fiona or Mwende.
“Frank has a bullet in his side!” Caeryssa nearly shouted.
“I think it went through,” Frank said. “No big deal.” The black material of his stolen goon gear clung to his side, now noticeably shiny and wet under his fingers.
No big deal?What was over there? The spleen? I couldn’t remember.
“Let me be the judge of that when you get back here,” the woman from theStenchsaid.
“Sure, Mace,” Frank answered.
“And make it quick, you stupid idiot.”
Frank just nodded, even though she couldn’t see him.
