Disobedience Read online

  Finn’s chest warmed a little at the show of humility from the Sirian. Her hesitance to trust was something they could all easily understand.

  Finn called over to Nova where she sat at the controls of the pod.

  “Are you good to handle the Reliance checkpoint on your own? I think it’s time Enyo and I talked.”

  The doxie waved a dismissive hand, her brows puckered in concentration.

  “All good here, boss lady.”

  “Reliance checkpoint? How are we to make it past that?”

  Finn caught the edge of panic in Enyo’s voice and turned to find the female’s chest heaving with alarm. She rushed to sooth the hybrid.

  “It’s fine. This pod is registered to a Reliance aristocrat; the daughter of an heiress sold it to keep a nasty Faze habit secret. No questions asked. We won’t raise any alarms when they scan us.” She forced Enyo’s eyes to meet hers, voice steady as she whispered, “Trust me.”

  They’d paid a small fortune—half of Finn’s earnings as a Farthers thief—just for the guarantee the ostentatious pod would get them safely through the Inner Rings.

  Some of the panic seemed to subside.

  “I think you are right, N’Goza. We should talk.”

  Finn nodded, leading her through the cockpit and into the big bedroom. She waited for the Sirian to choose a spot to sit, watching with quiet curiosity as she ended up in the plush, highbacked chair next to the room’s white-marble vanity; giving her the advantage of having her back against a wall while her darting eyes scanned the room for threats.

  Finn took a seat on the bed, carefully crooking a knee and resting her arm on top of it in a casual, nonthreatening pose.

  She barely had time to open her mouth wide enough for a mud-fly to sneak through before the hybrid launched in. Her back ramrod straight, Enyo’s angry eyes shone with defiance.

  “I do not regret killing that soldier.”

  “Good for you,” Finn remarked, keeping her tone light. “Do you want something to eat?” She motioned starboard, eyeing the places where the girl’s rags clung to her ribs. “I’m pretty sure Nova keeps a stash of sweets in the spare room.”

  Enyo’s eyes narrowed in confusion before she seemed to shake herself free of it.

  “I am not so easily distracted. Did you truly believe you could steal me from Jessup’s home without any casualties?”

  “I really hadn’t thought about it,” Finn fibbed. “But I do know that keeping the Reliance off our tails is going to be a hell of a lot harder if you keep leaving a trail of dead bodies behind for them to follow.”

  Enyo’s multihued brows furrowed, considering Finn’s words for a moment before abruptly changing the subject.

  “Tell me about the others who are imprisoned like me.”

  Great, another stubborn hybrid, Finn thought, sighing.

  “I recently came across a list of hybrids being held in captivity by the Reliance. Most of them are spread out pretty evenly throughout the Inner Rings, from Aquarii to Cartan.” She couldn’t be sure, but Finn suspected the Sirian had stopped breathing. “I’ve spent the last few weeks putting together a rescue.”

  “How did you come to be in possession of such a list?” Enyo asked on a barely perceptible inhale.

  “That’s a long story,” Finn hedged. Met with the newfound loaded silence, she rubbed her temples and relented. “I worked with a crew a while back. We pulled a job on Cartan. It turns out we were there to steal the list from an upper-caste senator.”

  “And you double-crossed your crew?” Enyo clicked her tongue, the censure in the sound causing Finn to grit her teeth.

  “No,” she bit out, her voice going hard as memories threatened to overwhelm her. “They double-crossed me.”

  The Sirian released a breath and nodded in understanding.

  “So, you took it for yourself.”

  “More like memorized it,” Finn corrected. “At least some of it anyway.”

  “And what of the rest of it?”

  “When the time comes, I’ll get my hands on the original list.” Enyo’s eyes shot wide, but Finn continued before she could interrupt. “I won’t need it for long. All it’ll take is a touch . . . I think.” Finn shrugged her shoulders. “Just one of the many new and fun hybrid abilities I’m learning about.”

  “You are a half-breed?” Enyo seemed to choke on the question.

  “Hybrid,” she corrected. “Half-Teslan.” Finn stretched the tension of the day from her shoulders and regarded Enyo with a half smile. “You don’t have to look so shocked.”

  “And your . . . pilot?” Finn chose to ignore the way she gagged on the word.

  “She’s an Altaran doxie, not a hybrid.”

  “I noticed the scars.” Enyo said, as though she expected the answer, her gaze far away and lost to whatever thoughts swirled behind those intelligent yet dangerous eyes.

  Finally, Finn took pity on her. Rising, she made her way back to the dresser and removed a sealed box of fragrantly spiced crackers. She threw them to Enyo before taking her seat back on the bed.

  “You really should eat something.”

  The Sirian eyed the box like a coiled serpent, before the telltale rumbling in her stomach gave her away. She tore the box open, the heady scent of Inner Ring herbs and spices filling the room.

  In response, her stomach grumbled louder, like a cry of despair begging to be answered. Finn hid her smile as the hybrid devoured a dozen of the crumbling morsels before pausing to take a breath. Speaking around a mouthful, she finally said, “What will your former crew do with the list?”

  “I don’t know. I ran before I could find out, but I intend to free the other hybrids before it becomes relevant.”

  Enyo nodded at the wisdom in her plan—at least that’s what Finn assumed—before swallowing.

  “You said there was another like me on Arcturus. What are they doing to him?”

  Something cold squeezed the back of Finn’s neck and refused to let go.

  “Probably the same thing they are doing to all the hybrids. The same thing they did to you.”

  Something dark and so painful it actually hurt Finn to see it shadowed Enyo’s face as her eyes sparked with anger.

  “Then we must go back and save him,” she hissed.

  “It’s not that easy. He’s in the planet’s house of worship. The place is impenetrable.”

  Some of the anger deflated from her body as she regarded Finn seriously.

  “Why are they doing this to us?”

  Finn nudged the crackers in her direction, encouraging her to eat more (as though anyone could have an appetite after what she’d been through). Surprising her, Enyo obeyed, operating on autopilot as she waited for an answer.

  “I don’t know,” Finn whispered, eyes gleaming with her hatred. “I think because they can.”

  The Sirian paused her assault on the crackers to meet Finn’s gaze with a hard stare of her own.

  “I do not like leaving another behind.”

  Finally, something we can agree on.

  “I don’t like it either, but we don’t have much of a choice.” Finn leaned forward so the weight of her words could truly sink in. “At least not until there are more of us.” She paused long enough to watch as the glitter of anticipation began to fill Enyo’s eyes, slowly spreading and erasing the lines of fatigue from her face. Finn recognized it immediately. “Does this mean you’ll be joining me?”

  Enyo’s full lips lifted, curling above the sharp row of her fangs in a frightening mockery of a smile.

  “I would not miss it, N’Goza.”

  “Good. Let’s discuss my rules.”

  FOUR

  Finn sat awake in the dead of the night, her body perched and alert in a flight chair at the pod’s helm while Enyo and Nova slept soundly in the spare rooms. She ran her hands nervously through the long auburn waves that now fell past her shoulders. Sleep had never come easily back on the Mud Pit, but nowadays it was a luxury Finn could no longer affor
d. Her mind was too busy plotting, always planning for the next step and the next three steps after that.

  It hadn’t been easy getting Enyo to come around to Finn’s way of thinking when it came to not killing the enemies they encountered on their journey.

  The hybrid was somewhat of a legend on her home planet of Siri. The tribe of native Sirian warriors there worshipped her hybrid abilities as Gods-like. Whereas most hybrids were raised in hiding and taught to fear their heritage, Enyo had grown up believing she was special.

  A fact which only made it more difficult for Finn to convince the tenacious woman that her right to revenge after cycles of torture and imprisonment at the upper-caste’s hands would have to wait in favor of a grander plan.

  Though Enyo’s unpredictable claws itched for retribution, it seemed Finn’s first assessment of the Sirian had been correct. Her strange yellow eyes housed a unique intelligence within their depths, and after what seemed like hours of arguing, the hybrid finally agreed to try things Finn’s way; even going so far as to defer to her leadership “for now.”

  Finn took the win, but those words, for now, and the casual way the Sirian had delivered them, plagued her mind, joining the thousands of others that played repeatedly like a holojector stuck on loop. It didn’t help matters that they all seemed to assail her in the low, gruff timbre of Grim’s unmistakable voice. They bombarded her in echoing decibels too loud to ignore.

  Is this solitude everything you dreamed it would be, Dhala?

  Every decision counts. Every move carries a consequence.

  What will happen to the hybrids if you get yourself killed? It only takes one mistake.

  Even worse, what if you get them killed?

  There is no shame in admitting this mission is far too big for one such as you.

  “Shut up,” she moaned.

  Finn dropped her head to the pod’s console, forcing herself to inhale slowly through her nose. All the while she cursed Grim for embedding himself so thoroughly in her head. All those cycles side-by-side under his tutelage had exacted its toll.

  Unlike so many other unpleasant memories from her past, Grim, it seemed, would not be so easily erased.

  Finn let out an agonized sigh and returned her attention to the endless chasm of space outside. What if she couldn’t do this by herself? What if imaginary Grim was right? Every decision she made carried the weight of one hundred sacks of mud tied to her waist and dragging her down below the surface.

  If she made just one wrong move, someone was going to pay the price . . . with their life.

  On that depressing thought, Finn doubled over in agony, a tiny moan slipping through her lips. As usual, the pain came so suddenly, she was completely taken off guard. It always seemed to happen this way, late in the night as she tried to outrun her insomnia, her squadron of worries marching in formation close behind.

  Another spasm hit just below the center of her chest, in the exact place where the cursed Independence had impaled her with a jagged shard of its metal during a high-speed chase with the Toad and his meteorhead bodyguards, sending shockwaves throughout her body. Finn gasped, struggling for air as she pulled herself up.

  Blindly using her hands for purchase, Finn put her weight against the console and forced herself into a standing position. She made it there just before the next wave of suffering hit.

  Lifting her shirt and forcing air into her lungs through the pain, she examined the old wound for signs of any new trauma. As was the case every time this happened, she found nothing but smooth, unblemished skin where Isis, Independence’s resident Aquariian, had healed her all those weeks ago.

  Releasing her shirt, Finn grimaced at the pale, sweat-soaked reflection staring back at her in the domed window above the pod’s controls.

  What had Isis done to her?

  She’d considered herself lucky to have survived her brush with death, grateful to the Aquariian healer for using her strange gifts to mend the undoubtedly fatal wound. Now, Finn wasn’t so sure.

  Each night, the pain worsened. Surely, she couldn’t survive much more of it. Whatever the Aquariian had done under the guise of “healing” needed to be undone before it was too late.

  Exhausted, Finn’s head fell into her hands. They barely had enough strength to hold her weight.

  Returning to Isis meant returning to Independence and with that ship came a whole host of people and things Finn had no desire to revisit . . . Grim . . . Iliana . . . Conrad. Finn groaned as another stabbing pain hit her like a double tap to the gut. Had this been Isis’s intention all along?

  What if whatever she’d done to Finn was intended to keep her close, causing blinding agony whenever she dared venture too far?

  “Finn?”

  The voice, as melodious and comforting as it was unwanted in that moment, filled Finn’s head.

  “Not now, Tiri,” she groaned against her fingers.

  “Finn? What’s happening? You’re in pain. Are you hurt?”

  She closed her eyes, trying not to think about how difficult it was becoming to breathe, and focused on the darkness behind her lids.

  “Your timing sucks, kid,” she informed Tiri on a wince.

  Her little friend had never stopped trying to find Finn—most likely at the behest of Grim and the rest of Independence’s crew—using her hybrid abilities to pop into Finn’s mind at the most inopportune of times.

  Finn had taken to recording the instances, curious at their sporadic nature. At first, she’d refused to speak to Tiri, worried that the tiniest error in judgment would get her and Nova caught.

  From what she could deduce, the girl could only enter her mind when close by, which meant Independence and her crew were within a sixth of an AU of their travel pod even now. She fought the panic, reminding herself that as gifted as Tiri was, she was still having difficulty locating Finn.

  There’d been a few close calls, with Finn and Nova sighting Independence as she’d orbited the Inner Rings outside of Arcturus mere days ago, but Finn quickly learned that by focusing her mind, she could keep Tiri from reading her thoughts. She had even stopped sleeping in long stretches, fearing the vulnerable state of her subconscious in slumber might reveal something.

  As it turned out, Tiri seemed resigned to their ongoing game of cat and mouse—though the little imp did let her frustration be known every time they spoke—so long as Finn continued to check in and stay safe.

  “Finn, did you hear me? Where are you hurt?”

  Her body responded to the worry in the little girl’s voice, the pain slowly receding as she focused on answering.

  “Ask Isis. She’s the one who did it.”

  Finn could almost see the child’s nose scrunched up in confusion as she said, “That doesn’t make any sense. Tell me where you are right now. You need help.”

  Keeping her eyes closed, she tried to raise her head, but the muscles in her neck gave out beneath the weight.

  “You know the rules, kid. I can’t do that. So how about a story instead?” Finn dutifully ignored Tiri’s protests, everything around her disappearing as her body became dead weight. Her voice took on a distant, slurred quality as she said, “Did I ever tell you the one about the Goslan and the Aquariian?”

  It was the last thing she heard herself say before unconsciousness took her and the already dark world around her went black.

  FIVE

  “Did I ever tell you the story of the Goslan and the Aquariian?” Grim asks the question on an exhale, pivoting to counter Finn’s attack and slashing his bokken in an upward arc until the long rubber blade collides with her stomach. His dark horns shine in the light and his red skin ripples over his heavily muscled seven-foot frame. Quirking a brow, he flashes pointy teeth and says, “Focus, Dhala.”

  Finn rubs the throbbing sting from her abdomen and groans, “How can I focus if you keep asking me questions?”

  “Do you think your opponent will politely face you in silence so that you may gather your concentration?”


  Grim punctuates the sarcastic question with another strike, distracting her defenses long enough to sweep her legs out from under her. She lands on the floor of his office with a loud “Oomph.”

  Blowing the stray hairs out of her eyes, she waits for her body to remember how to breathe.

  She knows she is lucky. At fifteen cycles, she has already learned basic self-defense, a skill most girls on the Mud Pit never get the chance to acquire. Grim is taking a vested interest in her learning and her future. With his tutelage, she could be a great fighter someday; maybe even as great as Grim himself, though she doubts it.

  With his size and strength, combined with his unique training in the old-Earthen techniques of fighting—so different from that of the typical berserker style Khaleerians tended to prefer—he is nearly impossible to beat.

  But she is learning, and every day she grows stronger.

  It is something she finds herself thinking of constantly—a welcome reminder of the reward for all the pains and hard work.

  “All right then, Grim,” she rasps, rising to her feet. “Tell me about the Goslan and the Aquariian.”

  His fangs gleam in the candlelight as he smiles at her, his big body falling into a battle stance.

  “One day,” he begins, circling her with his bokken raised, “an Aquariian priestess came across an injured Goslan amidst her precious plants. Several of his tentacles had been torn from his body and without healing, he would soon die.”

  Finn focuses on his movements, her eyes watching his feet as one moves forward followed by the other. She begins to counter his steps, moving back and around until they are at a standstill.

  “Don’t tell me she healed the Goslan?” She can’t help asking the question, as Goslans are renowned for two things: an abundance of deadly tentacles packing enough punch to squeeze the bones from a Khaleerian, and their incredibly impulsive natures.

  Grim lunges forward, striking with his bokken, but Finn is watching his shoulders and sees the attack coming. She counters with her own bokken and their weapons meet in the middle with a loud thwack. He nods his approval.