Overlord: The Fringe, Book 2 (32 page)

After a long moment, she looked back.

Emmet broke into a wide grin that caused his split lip to ooze a bit. “You think you all kinds of clever, don’t ya?” He tossed the pistol to his desk. “I don’t need you no more. ’Cause of your dumb luck, I got Overlord.”

Mary fought down any visible reaction, but her heart took a sickening lurch. Emmet found the one chink in her thousand-foot walls. Her anger at Michael’s betrayal wasn’t great enough to overshadow her concern for his safety. She couldn’t bear the thought of him in IWOG custody, even though she wanted to kick the crap out of him herself.

With a voice cool as Ice Lake, Mary said, “He won’t come for me.” In a rush, she wanted that statement to be true so Michael would be safe, but she also wanted her words to be false, because a silly-girl-romantic part of her heart wanted Overlord to rescue her.

“He won’t come for you, girl. He’s done gotten what he wanted from
you
.” Emmet uttered a dirty snicker that made her skin crawl. “Evil bastard’ll come for his dead lover’s ship, though. 20Mil and I’m out of this backwater forever.”

Her chest tightened, but she held her ground, even knowing that Emmet was probably right. Michael would want
Whisper
back. What seemed like a good idea at the time backfired.

“I’ve stolen plenty for you. You don’t need money.”

“Not money, idiot, but proof I’m a good, solid IWOG consumer. Delivering Overlord will secure me a new place in the IWOG world.” Emmet tapped his index finger against the com unit as he flashed her his crooked, yellow teeth. “And that’s whether you’re alive or not.”

“Visual confirmed,” Rourke, the pilot of
Elusive Grace
, informed Michael. “
Whisper
is in geosynchronous orbit to Taiga. No other ships in scanner range.”

“IWOG activity?” Michael asked as he stood on the bridge and checked the scanners. From the bridge window, he had a grand view of the terminator line sweeping across Taiga. The small silver dot in the distance must be Kraft’s ship.

“None in this sector.” Rourke tapped at the main console. “Tasher reports indicate a recent message sent from the vicinity of the Taiga Pine Glenn Courthouse to the nearest IWOG post.”

“Time to respond to a distress call?” Michael kept his posture and voice formal.

“Thirty hours, barring interruption,” Rourke informed him, checking other components on the console.

“Elapsed time since Emmet placed the call?”

Rourke hesitated for a moment. “We haven’t confirmed Emmet Courtland sent the distress call to the IWOG outpost, Commander.”

“I know he did, but I appreciate your professionalism. How much time since the call was placed?”

“Five hours.” Rourke quadruple checked the scanners. “We have twenty-five hours to accomplish our mission, Commander.”

“Good work, Rourke.” Michael nodded to his most trusted pilot.

Rourke respectfully turned his attention back to the main console.

“You’re really gonna do this?” Duster asked from the copilot seat.

“Even if Mary gave Emmet a detailed description, he still doesn’t know what I look like, and that’s to my advantage.” Michael scanned the console again.

“Mary knows you.” Duster frowned.

“Because of my wrist com, we know she’s being held in the Pine Glenn prison.”

“Or at least your wrist com is.” Duster grumbled. “It could be a trap.”

Letting his professional posture fade a bit, Michael argued, “I’m telling you, that’s where she is, and my plan will work.”

“Risky.” Duster let out a deep sigh.

“Matters of the heart usually are.”

When Michael echoed the words Duster had said in his office, Duster climbed to his feet. “If you’re doing this to prove to me that you love Mary, I’m going to commit mutiny right now and stop you.” Arms crossed, Duster glared at him with a combination of anger and disbelief.

“I’m not doing this to prove anything to you.” Michael frowned and checked the console. “Get over yourself, Duster. This isn’t about you.”

“Fine.” Duster had the grace to look contrite, but he didn’t stop trying to change Michael’s mind. “This plan of yours is riddled with more holes than a shooting range.”

“Indeed.” He checked his meager possessions again. Well-worn brown homespun pants, a battered tan shirt, decimated cowhide boots, and an empty holster. Michael had two bills in his pocket and an ace of spades up his sleeve. Just enough to get himself into trouble in a Taiga tavern. “Give me the first alternate plan.” Barely had the words left his mouth when Duster launched into what would amount to a full-scale invasion of Taiga.

“We dispatch a team of thirty men to surround the Pine Glenn Courthouse—”

“With guns drawn, tempers high, and maybe Mary gets blown away by friendly fire.” Michael shook his head. “No way.”

“Trained men against—”

“We don’t know what firepower Emmet has in that place.”

“He can’t have much,” Duster argued.

“Yes, he can.” Michael cleared his throat and calmly said, “Mary has been stealing for five years. Not just from me, but from Fringe players all along the black-market route. Smarter than hell, she only took a little bit from each ship. We noticed by a fluke, an accounting error. You thought it so strange, you turned it into a game.”

Duster straightened. “It’s not a game now.”

“Granted. Hear me out.”

Duster reluctantly did.

“Now, you add that up, my 20K times fifty or sixty ships, and Mary has swiped a fortune. She’s given everything to Emmet, thinking she could save her world from an IWOG invasion. Emmet, that prick, is a disgraced IWOG officer forced to watch over her by blackmail. Right now, he’s filling her head with a truth that will destroy her.”

“You don’t
know
that,” Duster said, but he sounded less sure.

“I can smell it. Not literally, but I know the truth.” Desperate to convince Duster, he added, “Emmet has gone out of his way to hurt Mary her whole life. She just didn’t know. And I’ll bet he’s filling her in on the situation now. Laughing at her. Jeering at her. Like everyone else in Pine Glenn.”

“You tricked her too,” Duster reminded him. “She thinks we ganged up to play a nasty trick on her when we didn’t. Or at least I didn’t.”

“Granted.” His soft admission startled Duster. “My motives may have been more pure, but the outcome was the same. I tricked her. Just like everyone else in her whole life.” Michael couldn’t feel more ashamed if he tried.

“What in the Void makes you think she won’t turn on you?”

“The crux of the matter.” Michael took a deep breath and found he could still smell the compelling essence of Mary embedded into his skin. “I don’t think she will. But I could be wrong.” As he went to the shuttle bay, he said, “If I am, you know what to do.”

After a night of exhausted sleep in a reeking bunk, Mary spent Friday behind bars. Occasionally, someone would come in to conduct business, and Emmet, his head hung with shame, would say, “Mary’s in a bit of trouble.”

He’d leave it up to the villager to decide just what that trouble might be. Glances from pity to glee flashed her way. Some glances turned downright glaring when Emmet intimated that his black eye and busted lip were her fault.

Unable to stand anymore by late afternoon, she crawled into one of the smelly bunks, propped her leg up, pulled the threadbare blanket over her head and went to sleep.

Around about eleven on Friday night, she jerked awake.

Payday.

“He lost fair and square.” A drunken male voice slurred the words into a jumble. A huge, rippling burp followed, echoing in the darkened courthouse.

“You got caught with a card up your sleeve,” Howie Duhon, one of the deputies, said. Keys jingled.

Oh, great, company.
She hoped her cellmate would be too drunk to notice her. Lord knew he couldn’t
smell
her with that stench of whisky and beer on him. Christ! He smelled so plowed he likely couldn’t
see
her, especially since the deputies didn’t turn on the lights. Only pale moonlight filtered through the dirty front windows.

She peered over the edge of her thin blanket. Howie and Owen Duhon, the two brothers who were Emmet’s deputies, escorted a big drunken man to the cell door. Howie opened it, Owen shoved him in, and then Howie slammed the iron door closed with an angry clang. “You sober up a bit, pal.”

Without a word, they left through the front door. She heard their boots clomp down the three front steps as they laughed and turned up-street, toward the tavern.

She clenched her hands to fists. The Duhon brothers knew she was in here yet didn’t seem to care if the drunk attacked her. Emmet probably told them to fill the cage with criminals, because if she defended herself with forbidden arts, Emmet would have a valid reason to imprison her. Not that anyone was concerned enough about her to question
why
Emmet locked her up.

Watching the drunk carefully, she lay still so as not to attract his attention. The upper bunk gave her a deep shadow to hide in, and she took advantage of the black hollow by pressing herself to the back wall. Cold cinder block seeped a chill into her sleep-warm body.

Giganto-drunk shook the bars, yelled again how everything was fair and square, then stumbled toward the bunk where she hid. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. If he dumped his massive body to the bed, he’d crush her. To her relief, he slumped to the edge and looked around the cell.

“Mary?”

Her eyes went wide when she recognized him. “Michael?”

Leaning over to yank at his boots, he whispered, “Don’t say anything. Pretend to be asleep.” He groaned loudly, then burped a real ripper. A solid ten.

She shoved her hand in her face to stifle a crazy giggle. Breathless, she whispered, “Oh-my-God.”

“Be quiet.” His urgent tone sobered her instantly.

“I told Emmet everything. He wants to turn you in. You have to get out of here.” Panic filled her. As much as she’d longed for him to come, he would die if he stayed.

“For once, don’t say anything.” He didn’t sound the least bit drunk even though he reeked of whisky and beer.

For a nanosecond, she obeyed, then whispered, “Emmet wants the 20Mil reward and—”

“I know,” Michael said through clenched teeth. He flopped back on the bed, crashed his head into her legs and groaned when he hit her cast. “Be quiet.”

For once, she listened to him.

He sat up. “Sorry, fella.” He belched another ripper. “Didn’t know this one was taken.” He stood, swayed and stumbled over to the bunk that made an L to her bunk. He flopped down with his head close to hers. “Are there cameras or coms in here?” Surreptitiously, he looked around the room.

“No.”

“Good. Where’s Emmet?” Now he sounded all business, calm and completely in control.

“Most likely he’s passed out in his bed.” She wrinkled her nose, trying to filter out the odor of whisky and beer with the blanket that reeked of sweat and urine. She gave up since she was unable to decide which was worse.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah-huh, I’m real sure.” Even in the dark, she could see him frown at the country-simple tone of her voice, so she dropped it. “Emmet comes in occasionally to yell and throw things at me. The last time, he almost fell over.” She knew the rhythm of his drinking well.

“And those two deputies?” Michael shifted on the rickety bunk, turning on his side so she could hear him better.

“Unless there’s another drunk, Howie and Owen won’t be back until morning.”

“Are you okay?” He not only sounded concerned, but he looked it, and the chink in her thousand-foot walls widened.

“I’m fine. Now go.” Why in the Void had he allowed himself to be incarcerated? Whatever game he played, he seemed close to losing.

“I’m not leaving without you.” He rolled his head until he caught her gaze.

For a moment, she let herself dream that he’d come to save her because he wanted to prove the love he’d declared. She shook the fanciful thought away by turning her mind to practical matters. “These old bars are solid. If you’re thinking about busting us out of here with some kind of kung fu, you’re fooling yourself. Duster better show up with the key real quick.”

“Don’t worry, these old bars are nothing.” He flashed her a perfect smile that made her knees weak.

“You’re packing a laser knife?”

“No.” He fished around down the front of his trousers.

“What the hell are you doing?” She couldn’t believe he wanted to get frisky now, of all places, at all times!

“I’m getting out the damn key.” He withdrew a slender silver cylinder. “Nice thing about being male is other males won’t frisk you there.”

“And just what is it you’ve managed to smuggle down your pants?” The cylinder didn’t look like a key.

“Compressed liquid nitrogen.” He sounded smug.

Her eyebrows went up. Right off the cuff, she thought of several ways to use the weapon smuggled in his pants. When the double entendre of her thoughts caught up to her, she had to bite down a crazy giggle.

He stood, pressed the tip of the cylinder to the lock, blasted one sharp hiss and rammed his hip against the door. The iron lock shattered like glass. He turned with a wicked smile, holding out his massive hand. “Come with me, Mary.”

Bobby Jameson had said that too. He’d always been nice to her, so she went. Just for a walk. Not too far. They talked and laughed as they went deeper into the woods. Spring covered the forest with lush shades of green while animals and insects darted and hummed. Bobby stopped near Hobblestone Creek, leaning close to kiss her. Mary waited breathlessly. Bobby wasn’t her first choice for a first kiss, but Bobby was cute in his tall, dark and gangly way.

Out of nowhere, five boys shoved Bobby down and tied her to a tree. They laughed, threw dirt at her and ran. Bobby flashed her a guilty glance, but he ran too.

Mary spent the next three days frantically chewing through the rope, but once free, no one believed her side of the story. Bobby said she was easy. Fifteen and saddled with a reputation based on lies and imagination. Once sexual rumors started, her fighting against them only reinforced them. Mary said nothing, but they wouldn’t fool her again. She spent all her free time repeating every kata from the karate book Emmet gave her. If any man came at her, she’d beat the snot out of him and tie
him
to a tree. Men claimed to have bedded her, but she knew the truth.