Final Protocol (8 page)

Chapter Nine

Caz. It’s you…

Me. I swallowed around the ache in my chest. Yes. It was. My name
was
—or it had been—Caz.

Everything slowed around me.

“Caz,” he said, his voice soft, almost reverent.

My blood thundered in my ears.

He said it again and I spun away. “Stop saying that,” I said, shoving the blaster into place at my hip. Blood roared inside my head, a whirl of confusion and noise. I didn’t know what to do, but one thing was certain. The longer I stood there, the clearer it was that I couldn’t just kill him.

I don’t know why. Perhaps it was the voice in my head, in the hollow pit in my chest where my heart should be. I kept feeling…
No
…echo through me.

Perhaps if he had attacked, I could have fought, but he hadn’t.

He just stayed there, on his knees, staring at me.

Fuck this. Fuck him. Fuck Gold.
All
of them can just fall into a frozen hell
. I was panting and an icy sweat broke free all over me. There was too much going on inside my head and things I couldn’t even make sense of.

I had to get away.

Reflexively, I touched the blaster at my hip. I had my weapons. All I had to do was walk away.

“If you’re going to do it, you need to do it fast, before the Hsainiens follow the trail. If you do it fast enough, you can take my transport and get offplanet and out of the system.”

“Do what?” I demanded. My voice shook as I spoke.
I
shook.

“Kill me.” Orion cocked his head, staring at me. His gaze was no longer cold or furious.

The expression in his eyes made me want to weep. Made me want to sob.

“Do it,” he said, his voice all but throbbing with intensity. “Do it and get out of here!”

“Shut
up
.” I backpedaled and ended up on my ass in the dirt. I
should
kill him. It was the only thing between me and freedom.

Except…

I swallowed as I let myself accept the truth of it. Killing Orion wouldn’t set me free. It would just cast me into a different sort of hell.

I’d never again be
me
—Caz. The longer I stared at him, the more I remembered her…the innocent girl I’d once been. She was gone and there was no getting her back.

She’d died so long ago. Maybe not the minute Gold had stolen me from my home, and maybe not the first time Gold had raped me, maybe not even the second time, or third. But somewhere along the way, Caz had died, and she’d taken the very essence of the woman I’d once been into her cold, miserable grave.

“You deserve to die,” I said thickly.

A sad smile curved his lips and he rose.

I tensed as he knelt in front of me. His hand moved toward me and I couldn’t even retreat. He took the knife from the sheath on my thigh and put it in my hand. He lifted it to his neck and
pushed
, the tip of the knife actually piercing the golden skin of his neck. “I do. So do it. Then get away.”

Get away…

I jerked back, breaking free of his grasp and scuttling backward. A few feet from him, I shoved myself up onto unsteady legs. My throat felt like it narrowed down to nothing. I couldn’t get enough air in. “You just let him take me.”

There was a soft, tired sigh behind me. “Just get this done. Do whatever you need to do and leave here. Kill me or don’t. But get free of him.”

“I can’t!” I shot him a dark look and then turned, catching a fistful of my hair in my hand. The mark was faint, mostly hidden by my hair. But by the sound of his harshly indrawn breath, he knew what I was showing him. “He’s got a bioseal in my brain—I’m a walking time bomb and he can kill me in a blink, turn me into a mute, mindless shell with just a wish. My only chance to be
free
of him is to kill you.”

There was a whisper of sound behind me and then he touched me. I tensed, ready to bolt, ready to attack. I didn’t know which one sounded more pleasant. But before I could do either, his hand closed around the back of my neck and I could feel his eyes, all but cutting into me as he studied me. “He finally figured it out,” he murmured.

…What?

His hand probed the area where the seal was and I flinched, half expecting it to explode inside my head. It would solve so many problems. No more worrying. No more deaths. But Gold would still live. That didn’t seem tolerable at all.

“You know what this is,” I said woodenly.

“I should. It’s my design.”

Bile churned up in my gut and I laughed sourly, the sound so broken and brittle I was surprised it didn’t cut the air. “Cheers to you—it works spectacularly.”

“No,” he said softly. “It doesn’t. It wasn’t intended to be a tool used
against
people—but to help them.” He paused and then asked, “Gold used this on all of his people?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged and pulled free of his grasp, turning to look at him. “You designed this device.”

“Not that one, no.” He inclined his head. “I was…”

He hesitated and then continued. “Gold’s men hired me to research the various uses for the bioseal. I wanted to continue my research. But the idea they had in mind wasn’t intended for healing. It was built solely for harm. I never finished the project. What…how much do you remember?”

Curling my lip, I said, “Being his weapon. His whore. Having this time bomb in my head. Do you know…he always told me he took me because you owed him.” Fury flared to life inside me. Taking a step toward him, I demanded, “What did you owe him?”

Orion half-turned. I caught his arm, my nails cutting into his skin as the rage exploded. “I’ve spent ten years in hell because of you. I deserve to know
why
.”

He caught my upper arms in his hands, jerked me onto my toes. “Because I wouldn’t finish the design!” he shouted at me. His breath was a heated rush over my skin.

Sensory memory rolled over me. I had memories of him against me, moving over me, under me. Memories so powerful, I almost shuddered. Some of it must have shown on my face because he let me go like I had scalded him, moving away as though he couldn’t get enough distance between us.

“Explain that.” More memories twisted, shifted and solidified in my head and I had a bad, bad feeling I understood.

“Even if you don’t
remember
, surely you can figure it out.” He shook his head. “Once I knew what they were wanting from me, I stopped my work. I…I thought I’d destroyed all of the research, all of the prototypes. But he had been watching—somehow sharing my designs with another specialist. He started trying to make his own bioseals.”

“Then what?”

“If you haven’t remembered, then I shouldn’t tell you,” he said softly. “It’s a knowledge
I
don’t want.”

He moved to his transport. I grabbed the blaster at my hip and leveled it at his head. It emitted a low, distinctive hum and he paused to look back at me. A faint smile curved his lips. “Put it down. I’m not going to try to…escape. I have a peace offering.”

“You have nothing I could possibly want.”

“Yes, I do.” He laid his palm on the side of the sleek, long-distance transport. There was a low hiss and then a panel slid up. He reached inside and pulled out a long, narrow bag, followed by another. It took him roughly ten minutes to set everything up, and when he was done, I saw what looked to be an emergency medi-station. “Lie down on your belly.”

I eyed him with acute distrust. “Not on your life.”

“I designed the seal he put in your brain. To be honest, I designed a
better
seal.”

“How do you know?” I curled my lip. “You didn’t even
know
about it.”

In response, he tapped something, and I watched as a holo came speeding at me. I gaped, seeing the brain readout in front of me. I knew what I was looking at. More than once, I’d hunted down a few off-the-grid specialists, hoping to find somebody who had the experience and knowledge to remove the seal without killing me. It hadn’t happened. The brain pulsed, red where the vessels fed blood, the brain matter itself pink. The seal, roughly the size of the nail on my smallest finger, was located just above the medulla oblongata, a strange, dull shade of brown. It also looked different than the last time I’d seen it. “It’s corroding in your brain,” Orion said. “He used cheap materials and, if I’m right, you have maybe one or two years before it kills you. Even if he deactivates it, you’ll be dead soon enough. Or you can let me deactivate it here and then we can move you to the embassy starship and I’ll take it out in the medical bay.”

“I’m going to die.”

Somehow, saying it out loud left a hollow ache inside me. Swallowing, I looked over at him. “Does he know this?”

“If he is keeping track of you and the state of the seal, then yes. He knows. The feedback from the seal is likely becoming erratic as it deteriorates. He’s too smart not realize there’s a problem.” An icy smile curled his lips. “He had a plan in mind when he decided to make…a tool out of you. He wanted to make sure he got the full use of you before he no longer could. That’s why you’re here, I imagine.”

I believed him. Maybe I was a fool, but I believed him.

Despite the skin-melting heat of this horrid planet, I was cold. Wrapping my arms around myself, I stared out over the drifting sands away from the capitol city tucked up against the sea. The jagged collection of rocks and small copse of stunted trees seemed galaxies away from the hell I’d known at Gold’s hands—it was, but I wasn’t talking distance.

“He likely expected me to die at the hands of the Hsainiens anyway.”

“No.” Orion’s voice was soft. “He knew you’d at least find your way to me. The rest would take care of itself.”

I wondered what that meant, but when I went to ask him, he gestured to the table. “If I’m going to deactivate the seal, we need to move now. I have only a small window to get you to the starship and then return to the scheduled meetings. Those cannot be delayed.” His brow arched and he added, “I saw you racing across the sands, you know. You knew there were refugees in the caravans. You know why the embassy sent me here. Would you truly throw those meetings into jeopardy? Throw away your chance to be free of him? Over a personal vendetta?”

“Over the chance to kill you?” I tightened my grip on the blaster, bombarded by memories of a decade of abuse. “I don’t know. Revenge is such a temptation.”

“Killing me isn’t much of a revenge,” he said, looking away. His voice was hollow. “I’ve longed for death for longer than you can imagine and it eludes me. You’d end a pain. Seeing your face after ten years…”

He let the words trail away as he turned, presenting me with his back. “I’m scrubbing. If you aren’t on the table when I’m done, I’ll assume you want to kill me. Be prepared to do it quickly.”

As he turned, I lowered the blaster. Shooting a man in the back was something even I didn’t have a taste for. “What happens to the negotiations without you?”

For a long moment, I didn’t think he’d answer.

Finally, he spoke, without looking back at me. “They stop.”

I don’t know what drove me to the table, that flat answer or the promise of a life free of Gold.

I didn’t trust Orion. How could I trust the man responsible for putting me in the hands of the monster who’d destroyed me and remade me into a killer?

But it was more than clear that I couldn’t trust Gold, either.

Gnari told me once of a saying they had on his home planet—
It is better to confront the known evil than the unknown.
I wasn’t so certain of that.

If I knew that Gold would honor his promise, that I would live long enough to go back and kill him, exact a bloody revenge for what he’d done to me, then perhaps I would have chanced trusting him.

But I couldn’t trust him.

Whether I could trust Orion to honor
his
word any better, I didn’t know.

But I lay facedown on a table already hot from the sun and braced myself. His hands worked through my hair and then there was a pinch. “Probes,” he said quietly, his voice brisk, confident. “They’ll connect to the seal and relay my commands.”

A moment later, there was a slight pressure. “Local anesthetic. It only takes a few minutes, but this is painful without it.”

The numbness hit fast and I didn’t start to panic until the pressure started.

A hand touched my shoulder. My bare shoulder. He’d told me to strip off my tunic and I’d long since lost all sense of modesty. But the feel of anybody touching me was a harsh, startling shock. “Relax. This takes just a short time.”

I wasn’t worried about how long it took. If it freed me, it could take years. I was worried about whether or not he was going to kill me.

This is your best shot,
I told myself, trying to calm down. My best shot, maybe my only—

Abruptly, I realized his thumb was stroking my skin. Closing my eyes, I tried not to think about that, tried to go back to the moment before I’d noticed.

He was speaking orders to his data-sys and I tried to block out the sound of his voice, the feel of his thumb, everything. The pressure at the base of my skull increased.

Then I knew darkness.

Chapter Ten

“You have to run.”

I stared up at Orion. “No.
No!
I’m not leaving you!”

“You have to.” A pained expression crossed his face and he leaned in, cupping my chin and lifting my face to his.

“I’m not leaving you,” I said again, shaking my head. Terrified, I caught his wrist and squeezed. “We’ll run. Together. Just like we planned. I’ve got everything ready.”

His hand fell away as I turned my back and went to the storage unit tucked into the wall of our home. I hit the button and at my touch, the door slid open.

“You were gone for days—you said it would only take until nightfall, but I got everything ready,” I said, grabbing my pack and tugging it out. His was heavier. I had to drag it out, but I managed. “Why were you gone so…”

I’d turned as I spoke, but the words froze inside me when I saw him.

He’d stripped open his shirt and stood with his back to me.

A device barely larger than my thumb ran down the heavy, ridged muscles of his neck.

“What…” I swallowed. “What is that?”

“It’s the bioseal he hired me to make. They were waiting for me, Caz. They abused me and stuck this bioseal inside me.” Turning back to me, he pulled the tunic on. “Or at least a cheap imitation. Somebody sold me out, told him where I’d be, and his men captured me.”

The bioseal—I gasped and shoved the back of my fist against my mouth to stifle the sound. Orion had studied to be a doctor before turning his attention to science and development.

The bioseal had been intended to save dying patients.

“Orion…?” I hesitated, fear turning me cold. “Why do you have one? You’re not ill.”

“Aren’t I?” His laugh was a bittersweet echo as he moved toward me. “It’s
his
design—not mine. This…thing is intended to be used as a weapon, a tool. And he’s got it inside my head. You need to get away before he catches up to me. I’ve managed to modify some of the mechanisms, but he’ll track me down, sooner or later. I want you gone before either he gets a hold of me and undoes what I did or he finds us here.”

“No!” I caught his shirt in my hands. “You come
with
me. You got away.”

Whatever he’d been about to say froze on his lips as we both heard a sound.

“No.” Orion’s harsh whisper was almost inaudible.

My heart thundered as he shoved me behind him. “Get to the skimmer, Caz. You have to go—now.”

“Wake up, Caz.”

The hard, flatly delivered words drew me out of a dazed, dark stupor.

Caz
…

For a moment, I smiled, stretched—

Painfully bright light seared my eyes and I jerked upright.

Large hands caught me, steadied me before I could fall from the table to a white floor.

Floor?

“Where am I?”

“On the Embassy’s ship,” Orion said shortly. “Once you were safely under, I had you transported. The seal is deactivated and gone.”

“Gone?” I parroted the words back to him, uncertain if I understood what he meant.

He flicked a look at me. “Yes. Gone. You’ll need a few days to heal. We’ve already started you on the synthetics you’ll need to amplify your healing—as well as given you nutrients and a calorie booster. You’re malnourished, underweight, and our scans show that you recently dealt with space sickness so we’re addressing that as well. But in a few days, you’ll feel normal—physically.”

He was no longer looking at me. Instead, he focused on information on a comm panel in front of him. He sounded like a damn automaton, some bit of artificial intelligence crafted in the form of a human. A very desirable human.

I closed my eyes. There was a dull ache at the base of my skull where the bioseal should be.

“You mean…you were…it worked?”

He glanced at me. “Of course. As I said, the design was inferior to mine. Now…”

He turned to face me fully. “If you’re going to kill me, please do it.”

Orion’s warm, green eyes had turned to ice.

I remembered when they’d been soft and full of love, laughter and light.

Now there were only shadows in those jeweled depths. “What happened?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I don’t have time for that story. I must return to the city if you’re not going to kill me.”

So blunt and to the point, he was.

Absently, I brushed my hand against my hip. My blaster was still there.

“I didn’t touch your weapons, Caz.”

“Silence.”

He frowned at me.

“My name is Silence. Caz…that’s not who I am anymore.” I shook my head and looked away. “Whoever that girl was, Gold killed her.”

“Then why do I still see her when I look at you?”

I didn’t answer.

And when he began to pack up his gear, I remained where I was.

“Come.” Even when he slid out of the room, leaving me alone, I didn’t move.

Alone, I drew my knees up to my chest and fought the urge to cry.

I stood there, frozen, as Orion flew away into the golden light of the planet’s myriad suns.

He’d done it.

I’d left the Embassy vessel, unmolested and with nobody even attempting to stop me. They all noticed me, but I had the feeling Orion had told them to let me pass. When I disembarked, a black-furred quadruped had met me and, using a translator, told me that he had a transport that would take me back to my vessel.

And now, here I was, staring at a holo of Gold’s face as he tried to communicate with a bioseal that no longer existed.

“Are you having troubles, Gold?” I asked. The impassive sound of my voice unsettled me. I sounded…dead.

Gold’s eyes flashed to me. “You don’t want to defy me this way, Silence.”

“Actually, I’ve wanted to defy you in
every
way for longer than you can imagine.” It was the truth. So why didn’t I feel…
pleased
? Why did the sight of his fury and frustration—his
impotence
—cause absolutely nothing inside me?

He rose, leaning in closer to the cam, his eyes slitted on me. I waggled my fingers at him in a cheerful little wave. It should have made me laugh to see his eyes light with rage.

“I can do anything I want now,” I said softly. “I can fly my speeder off to one of the sin resorts a few systems over, hire three or four pleasure givers to indulge me for hours, or I can disappear, go to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and
you can’t stop me
.”

“I’ll find you.” His voice was a silken whisper. “You know I will.”

That broke through. My apathy died and
finally
, something real moved inside me. An emotion. Hot and ugly and bright, the savage joy caused a smile to split my face. “Goldman, I’m
planning
on it.”

His eyes flickered. “What did you call me?”

Oops. Shrugging, I said, “I think you heard me.”

As his face slowly went red with rage, I rolled my eyes. “Come on. What do you
think
happened? Do you think I merrily tinkered away on the seal on my own? That I discovered that it was
corroding
on its own? Nooooo…I had help.” Serenely, I smiled at him. “An old friend, you might say.”

I expected another sign of his fury, but to my surprise, amusement snaked its way onto his face, worked its way into his voice. “An old friend…Caz? Really. Don’t you remember what he did? What he’s responsible for?”

Out of his line of view, I gripped the armrests of the small seat. Tucked into the small cockpit of my dark-speeder, I faced him as a shiver tripped up my spine. “He’s responsible for far less than
you
, Gold.”

I leaned forward, intent on ending the comm, but Gold’s laughter stopped me.

“Really? I
saved
your life, Silence. Orion
ended
it.” He brushed a finger across the cam’s eye and I went still, imagined that I could feel his touch on me again, across the miles and planets and systems that separated us. “Tell me again what he’s responsible for.”

I ended the comm.

Slowly, I rose.

I didn’t make it to the personal facilities before I hit my knees and started to puke.

If I were smart, I would have powered up my speeder and disappeared, just like I’d told Gold.

I had options.

I could call in a few favors, get a new face, alter my body type so that I looked nothing like the assassin known as Silence.

Out of all my options, though, what was I doing?

I leaned against the sol-glider and studied the single dwelling. I was in the small area set up outside Jiral for offworld delegates. Bless their self-righteous, bigoted, evil hearts, the Hsainiens had made it very easy for me to find the man I needed to see.

Most of the Embassy’s crew would stay on the ship, but the security team and the delegates themselves would stay here.

It was longstanding tradition with the Embassy, I knew, to accept any hospitality extended. There was less chance of offending anybody, and while I didn’t see what it mattered if they offended assholes like the Hsainiens, the Embassy wouldn’t think along those lines.

I’d recognized Orion’s glider and I was going by my gut feeling that this was the place he was staying in. I’d followed my gut on bigger things, although for some reason, this felt like the biggest gamble of my life.

It had been hours since I’d emptied my stomach, but I could still smell the stink of my own sickness and my stomach continued to twist. There was nothing left for me to vomit up, but my body still tried.

Really, though, this was a much better option than any of the others.

I had to see him one more time.

I had to know just what it was I hadn’t remembered.

Specifically, one thing—or one day, to be exact.

The last day.

I remembered the pain in my throat when I screamed. I remembered the terror and the despair.

But I didn’t remember
all
of it and I needed to.

I don’t know how long I’d been waiting for him, but I knew immediately when he was approaching.

The long, slim glider came to a stop in front of the dwelling and he was the only one to disembark. A couple of voices from inside the transport drifted to me, and he nodded with what seemed like only the vaguest interest.

He remained there on the pathway, staring after the fading lights of the glider for what seemed like forever.

I was just about to announce myself when he softly said, “Silence.”

I stiffened.

How had he known I was here? I’d been cloaked ever since I left my speeder, hidden outside the compound. Too far away for my comfort too. It would take me ten minutes of flat-out sprinting, using the boosted speed my suit gave me, to reach it. Those ten minutes could spell life or death.

When he turned to look at me, or in my direction, I hesitated. I didn’t want to let my cloaking drop out here. I didn’t sense anybody and my tech hadn’t alerted me to the presence of others, but that didn’t mean I was ready to risk it.

“We’ll talk inside,” he said, his voice so low I barely heard it.

As he started for the entry, I pushed away from his sol-glider and fell into step a few feet behind him.

The door slid open at his approach and he lingered there as he flashed on the lights, giving me a chance to slip by him. I heard him take a deep drag of air into his lungs, and for some reason, it made me shiver.

Once I was inside, he moved out of the doorway and the panel slid back in place, sealing us inside.

“I should have known it was you. Before you even said anything, before I really looked into your eyes,” he said.

When I deactivated my cloaking, he was staring straight at me, looking me dead in the eyes.

“Yeah?” I curled my lip at him. “How?”

“Because…nothing and nobody in the entire universe has that particular scent. It’s…” His lids drooped. “It’s intoxicating. I’ve missed having it on my skin.”

I lifted my blaster. Until that moment, it had been hidden by my body.

He didn’t look surprised though.

“Are the talks done?” I asked.

“Do you care?”

“No.” In retrospect, I should have. But after ten years of hell, there was so little of
me
left, how could I care?

“Then what does it matter?” He held out his hands. “End it, then.”

My hand started to tremble and I steadied it through sheer will alone.

Blood roared in my ears.

“Tell me about that day.”

Orion closed his eyes. “No. You don’t want the knowledge that lies at the end of that road, Ca— I’m sorry. Silence.”

He corrected himself, but I still heard the echo of my name—the name of the girl who’d suffered so much because of this man.

“I’m a big girl now, Orion.” I gave him a tight smile. “I get to decide if I want to know or not—and I want to know. Now.”

I emphasized that point by squeezing down on the trigger hard enough to make it power up with a faint hum.

He laughed bitterly. “If you think the promise of my death frightens me, then you know nothing of me. I
yearn
for death.”

There was nothing but honesty in his gaze.

Following my instincts, I shifted the blaster to my neck.

I wasn’t prepared for the fury of his response.

“No!”

I backed away from him. “Your death doesn’t bother you but mine would?” I listened as the blaster continued to whine. “Why should my dying bother you at all? Even if you’re a doctor—or if you were—I
long
for death as well. Death and the peace it will offer.”

“Put it down.” His gaze was locked on the blaster I held, as though nothing in the world mattered more than that. “Lower the weapon and put it away and I’ll…”

Even from across the room, I could hear him swallow.

“I’ll tell you,” he whispered.

I lowered the weapon and lifted a brow. “Then do it.”

“Not until you put the blaster away…Silence.”

I frowned, but complied.