Chapter 15

I wake in my rented room in Landis to a new comm from my hired hacker. I stretch in the too-small bed before I check it. There aren't a lot of visitor lodging choices in this remote fishing town, and by the time I found this one last night, it only had one room left. Still, my night was more pleasant than sleeping in a jungle tree.

My pulse speeds up when I scan the data. They've sent me an address. It's a lab in Flex that I already knew about from my public search of Aezok's holdings. With the address, there's an image. It shows a male walking through the front door of the lab. His face is lowered, but I recognize the pink skin. He's pushing a laden cart.

From the time stamp, this just happened.

My pulse speeds up in excitement. Aezok is there right now. And I'm only a short flight from Flex. As I dress, I hurriedly scan Landis' public feed for the next transport and book it. I don't have my blaster anymore, but Flex has arms dealers I've used in the past for my work with Haven. I should be able to set up a meeting with an old contact.

This is it. My revenge is only a few hours away. Hurrying down the street, I resist the urge to check the wharf for Zuko's boat. If it's there, I don't need the distraction of asking about Mara. I need to focus on a plan of attack.

While I pace the open air of the public landing platform, waiting for my flight, I get another ping from my mother. This time I answer her, knowing I have a little bit of time to kill.

"Viz'en, where have you been?"

"Working, Ma. You know I can't leave my comms active when I'm on a job."

My mother doesn't know the details of my work for Haven, just that I perform security assessments for facilities on remote planets. She knows it's dangerous, but not how much.

We're not close. She lives in a city about an hour outside of Flex now. Part of me knows I should tell her I'm on Hofterin, maybe set up a time to see her. But the rest of me knows seeing her is bad for my mental health. I've moved past it, but I haven't forgotten those hard years after my father passed. When we're around each other, it brings too much back to the surface, like how she checked out so fully she didn't realize I'd run away from home for two weeks.

And when she looks at me, I know she sees my father's face. And it grieves her still.

I can't imagine what she will say when she realizes I've lost my tusks.

My jaw tightens as I push my thoughts aside.

"Did you need to talk to me about something?" I ask instead.

"I have horrible news. Just horrible." Her voice hitches for a long moment before she continues in a dramatic tone, "Aisa was murdered two days ago. In her own bed! An intruder broke in during the night and stabbed her in the stomach over twenty times!"

My brow wrinkles. I glance at the sky, scratching the stubble on my chin. "Aisa?"

"You don't remember Aisa? She and her son lived next to us when you were, um, twelve or thirteen, I think. In Flex, that nice street with the park."

I shake my head even knowing she can't see me. "No, Ma, I don't remember a neighbor from over twenty years ago."

"Really? She was shy, I guess. And her little boy was strange. He had those stubby horns that never grew. And this odd pink skin. There were rumors his father—"

"Ma—" I cut her off sharply as the memories unfold behind my eyes. The small boy who followed me sometimes to school and his red eyes, so unlike my own black ones. His mother, Aisa, I guess, was always frowning at him. Sometimes, when I saw him outside of the house, he had bruises on his arms and neck.

The coincidence is too strong to ignore.

"The boy, the son. What was his name?" I ask.

My mother is quiet for a few moments while she thinks but then says, "I actually can't quite remember."

"Was it Aezok?"

"That's it! You do remember him. Isn't that just terrible news? It's all over the media networks. The police are baffled."

I scrub at my stubble again. Aezok knew me as a youth. Is that why he targeted me? I rack my brain, trying to recall any interactions where I was mean to him. But I wasn't a bully as a child. I can't even remember a time we spoke. I was older than him, so we weren't friends.

"What were the rumors about the father?" I ask.

"Oh, the usual. He left the mating when Aisa cheated on him. He didn't claim the boy as his."

My brow clears. That might explain why Aezok doesn't look like a Kral, if his father was actually another species. But it still doesn't connect the abduction and experiments to me specifically. And there has to be a connection. He targeted me.

I shake my head, my thoughts whirling. Maybe I'll get some answers in Flex.

I disconnect with my mother when my flight arrives, and in the air, I set up a meeting with a blaster dealer. As I work out the details, my brain picks at my past, searching for an explanation I don't think I have.

HOURS later, I'm in another rented room, this time reviewing security footage from the lab. My hacker sent me the link to the live feed just a few minutes ago, and I have access to the whole building, it seems. I can see a handful of Kral males and females walking the hallways, sitting at desks, and standing at lab tables. It's late in the day, so hopefully they'll be finishing soon and leaving the building.

There's no sign of Aezok in any of the rooms. Did I miss him? Did he already leave? I keep scanning as my comm pings again. This time the file is a large data cache. It's labeled, "Raw data dump from subject's home system."

I frown in irritation. I don't care what Aezok's storing on his private systems. I want to find his current physical location and point my blaster at his face. I want to figure out why he targeted me, and then make him pay for my imprisonment and torture. I'm not interested in his scientific work.

The comm pings again and I swear out loud as it pulls my focus from the camera feeds. The hacker's sent a personal note this time. I scan it quickly, then once more when I finish, this time slowly, the skin on my nape prickling.

"Subject in possession of illegal Class 7 being, a Terran female. See data cache just sent. I'm out. Too risky."

I drop the camera feeds. The hacker means when Aezok is caught with a Class 7 species, the Feds are going to tear his life apart and interrogate everyone he ever interacted with until they uncover the source—either the smuggler or the auction house.

I've seen it happen before. The Feds take planetary designations very, very seriously. Class 7 planets can't be touched. Their inhabitants can't know about the United Federal Planets, either because they're too primitive or too violent.

I run an image search for Terran females, but the results return classified.

I sit on the edge of the bed, my thoughts uneasy, and open the data cache. For hours I review the details of Aezok's illegal experiments—his attempts to create a Wrath serum are his primary focus, and he's been working at it for years. His idea of looking into Kryllian physiology makes sense due to our common ancestor, however, it appears he ultimately abandoned that route.

I've never heard of anyone experimenting with the Wrath toxin before. It's a uniquely Kral trait. Did he kidnap me in order to study my blood? But again, why me?

The scientific data cuts off about a year ago. I don't know why he stopped recording his results, but I don't have a good feeling about it. The last entry in his log is a series of images labeled, "Female Candidate One."

My breath exhales from my lungs in a heavy whoosh. My claws press into my palms. Nausea roils in my guts.

The first image is Mara. She's nude and standing on a podium, her eyes glassy with fear. Her body is slim, well-muscled, and healthy, her limbs straight. The defect in her left arm is absent.

I can't look away. This is Mara just a year ago. What happened to her? She's obviously the Class 7 female, and I feel stupid I didn't put it together before now. I remember the female I saw on Geshan X with Orix, and I can tell they're the same species. No claws or tails or horns. Smooth skin. Delicate facial features and soft hair. No wonder I recognized her but couldn't label her.

The second image is a crumpled body covered in blood. It takes a long moment for me to recognize the color of Mara's hair. Her body is thin now, gaunt. Fresh wounds cover her back. There's a belt on the floor beside her and a broken lab flask.

My chest tightens. I feel the beginnings of Wrath stirring in my blood. I don't want to flip to the next image but force myself anyway. I have to see.

It's Mara again; this time only her arm is on the screen. It's broken, the bone protruding from her skin.

I lurch to my feet and reach the washroom just in time to vomit into the toilet. Acid floods my throat, the sweat on my skin cold and clammy. I drop to the floor and cradle my head in my hands.

My heartbeat thunders in my ears as my breath comes in pants. Mara was with Aezok for a full year. I was with him for only a couple of weeks. He starved me and shocked me, but he didn't come within reach of my claws. Mara has no claws. He bought her. He abused her. He hurt her.

He forced her to work in his lab.

I remember her haunted eyes, her hurried movements, her ducked head. I remember her strapped to the table when I finally broke free of my cage.

And I remember my own actions. My rage at her, my refusal to help her in the jungle. When I tied her up and left her . . .

Every moment floods through my brain in a torrent I can't stop. I would have left her there. If she hadn't followed me into the jungle, I would have left her behind, trapped by Aezok with no hope of escape.

My head hits the wall behind me with a thunk. My hands are shaking, I'm so enraged. And I've never felt so helpless. She's gone, somewhere alone on this planet with no Federal identification, no way to ever reach her home again. She's probably frightened. She's hurt. Her body has been starved and abused for so long, she may never be well again.

She has no one.

My Wrath simmers, aching for an outlet. I'm going to kill Aezok, I remind myself. I'll make him pay for what he did to Mara. And to me. And then I'm going back to Landis. I'll find her if it takes me the rest of my life. I have to help her. I have to make up for what I did and didn't do. It's a compulsion I can't ignore.