Dalia whirled at the voice that barked at them over the speakers, looking up toward the viewing window. Reuel was standing at the window, looking directly at her, his expression almost a mirror of the last she’d seen--one of pure fury.
Chapter Fifteen
Fear and guilt hit Dalia a good five seconds before outrage. She jerked away from Pierce before the thoughts even connected in her mind. Pierce reacted almost identically, which only added to Dalia’s irritation when indignation finally hit her. Dalia jumped to her feet and turned to glare up at Reuel, her hands on her hips. “What? Is fucking not allowed among the prisoners?”
Dalia knew the moment the words were out of her mouth that she’d been spoiling for a fight and hoping to provoke one. She also knew, just from the look on Reuel’s face, that it would’ve been wiser to choose another point of contention.
Most of the hunters in the room merely gaped at her, but several of them snickered.
Reuel looked like he might explode.
Pierce, she saw when she glanced at him, was staring at her with his mouth at half cock. “Majia’s balls, Dalia! You want to get us thrown into solitary confinement or something?”
“Wait a minute,” the hunter, Kennedy, said, getting to his feet. “She’s got a point. If we’re not company men anymore, if we’re free men, then we ought to be able to socialize with our fellow hunters if we want to,anyway we want to.”
“We haven’t been told anything,” Rose put in, standing up and addressing the cyborgs in the viewing room above them, as well. “Dalia said we were to be part of the cyborg community. Why are we still being held prisoner if that’s the case?”
Dalia glanced at Rose and then around at the others in the room uneasily. She hadn’t intended to start a riot, but it looked as if one was brewing. “Because we’ve given them no reason to believe they can trust us, and every reason to believe we still see them as our enemies.”
The comment drew the attention of everyone near enough to hear. Rose looked at her curiously and finally spoke again. “Why are you here? With us, I mean? The company said you’d gone rogue. You fought with them, against us. It seems to me that that means they’ll never trust us, or accept us. And, if that’s the case, why take us at all?”
Dalia shook her head and lowered her voice. “It wasn’t like you thought it was.”
Rose glanced up at the viewing room and moved closer. “Then what was it? Why did you try to kill Jackson?”
“I wasn’t fighting for them, or against you. I was trying to help someone I cared for. It was against orders and they’ve no tolerance for mistakes, and no forgiveness.”
Rose glanced toward the guards again uneasily. “If that’s true, they’re no better than the company.”
Dalia shrugged. “And no worse.”
“She means, they won’t accept us, no matter what,” Kennedy said.
Dalia glanced around at the others a little helplessly. “Trust takes time. They’re willing to try or they would’ve simply killed you all and been done with it. They could’ve done it, easily. You saw the weapon they’ve developed. All they would’ve had to do was drain the ships of power and let them hit the cliffs. If you’re willing to try, then eventually, you’ll find a place for yourself.”
“What if we’re not willing? What if we don’t want to build a cyborg nation? Is this ‘freeing’ us going to still be an option? Or are we only ‘free’ men as long as we believe what they believe?”
Dalia glanced toward the man who’d spoken. “I don’t honestly know. They never said, but I got the impression that they meant to release anyone who didn’t fit in to go their own way.”
“As far as the company is concerned, we’re rogues now, not hunters. It looks to me like we can stay with the rogues or be hunted. That doesn’t give us much freedom of choice.”
Dalia drew in an annoyed breath. “That’s the only freedom of choice anybody’s ever had,” she snapped. “And it’s more than you had. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was inducted. I didn’t decide to be a hunter. I made the best of it because I didn’t particularly care for the consequences of failure, but it was never mychoice!”
Feeling a hand along her waist, Dalia glanced back sharply, and saw with relief that Pierce had come to stand protectively behind her. “Give her a break! She doesn’t know any more than we do.”
She was relieved when the others drifted off, returning to their own interests. She didn’t glance up at the booth again, but Pierce’s hand on her waist began to feel like a firebrand. After a moment, she moved away from him. Taking a seat on the couch once more, she turned, putting her back against the arm at one end and placing her knee on the seat between them. Pierce glanced at her, shrugged, and moved to the opposite end.
She couldn’t help but grin at him. He grinned back. “Somebody up there’s feeling damned possessive, Dally,” he murmured almost lazily, though something flickered in the depths of his deep blue eyes that told her he didn’t feel nearly as unperturbed by it as he was determined to pretend.
She frowned, but instead of addressing the comment, said, “I never told you, I know, but I never particularly cared for being called Dally.”
He grinned mischievously at her and chuckled. “I know.”
She stared at him in surprise, then started laughing. “I’d forgotten you were such a tease.”
His brows rose, something a bit warmer than friendship gleaming in them. “Now I’m hurt. When I think of all the hours I wasted thinking up things to do to aggravate the hell out of you!”
“Pierce!” she clamped a hand over her mouth, realizing she’d practically shrieked his name. “That was you that put peroxide in my toothpaste! You ass! I thought I’d been poisoned when I started foaming at the mouth.”
