Spinning Starlight (2 page)

Maybe I’ll go to some of those events tomorrow so everyone can keep thinking my “busy social schedule” is the real reason I haven’t lived up to the Jantzen name.

Domenik was right. It’s late, and as nice as it is to walk down the river, it’s not helping. I should get some sleep. That means getting back to the house. I’ve gone farther
than I meant to, but at least the return trip means I’ll be tired enough to fall right to sleep. Always a bright side.

Except comfortable thoughts of my bed leach away in the not-silence of the trees and river. Some noises are missing; others don’t belong, but I can’t place them. A little closer to
home, I figure it out.

Voices.

I didn’t intend for Emil to drop everything
this
quickly, and he should know better. My feet slip on the bank’s wet pebbles as I hurry to tell him off. Really, though,
I’m hurrying to see him, so the telling-off will have to be brief. A few steps later, I curl my toes into the rocks.

That’s not my brother’s voice. None of my brothers sound like that, gruff and sharp-edged, and the voices are too near me, too far from the house.

If the media-grubs have trespassed on the property, my brothers will kill them for crossing that final line, especially in the middle of the night. It’s breaking the law. Instinct pulls me
into a crouch, then I’m sidling up to the closest tree and straining my ears.

“Team Two, are you in position?”

Not
a media-grub. Then another voice, maybe over a live-comm. My pounding heart obscures the words.

“Team Four, hold the perimeter.”

I don’t like the sound of that. Another tree, a larger one, is nearby and closer to the voice. I creep over to it and peer around its trunk.

Five men all in black stand several yards away. Without the light from Luna Major, I might not see them in the darkness of the woods. They’re carrying some kind of equipment and facing the
house.

Three options present themselves. I can confront them, I can run, or I can wait and see what happens. Options One and Two are no good. If I heard the voice right, at least three other teams lurk
out here. I don’t know enough.

Option Three it is.

“All teams, on my mark…go!”

The men race toward the house, dodging the remaining trees before cutting through the yard. It’s hard to see but it gets loud quick. A
boom
as they force the door open, maybe
breaking it, then gunshots.

Guns.

Charge-bullets flying in my home. Where I should’ve fallen asleep more than an hour ago.

I brace myself against the trunk and force my legs to straighten out of my crouch. The bark scrapes my palms. Everything shakes.

Boys, what do I do? Why aren’t you here? Why couldn’t even one of you be here?

A few more shots, then an unmissable shout from somewhere inside the house.

“Find her!”

I’m running before the words fade from my ears.

The other teams could be anywhere—I don’t know where their “perimeter” is, the edge of the property or closer in—but I run anyway. I run back along the river, back
to where the trees beyond the banks are thicker. Faint sounds follow, then not-so-faint shouts of “This way!” and “Move it!” and “Box her in downriver!”

Boxed in. I picked the wrong direction. The river bends up ahead. If they’re positioned right, they’ll have me cornered.

The trees to my right block my view of anything useful, but across the river to my left is one of the clearings where the boys and I used to play. Something there catches my eye, and I slow
enough to look through the darkness. A lone, shadowy figure stands in the middle of the clearing, waving to me. He’s familiar. One of the twins, either Luko or Vic—I can’t tell
from this distance.

I don’t dare call out, and he must not, either, because he just beckons me to him. Across the river. It’s small enough, as rivers go, but my brothers always forbade me from setting
foot in this part—during the hottest summer days, we swam in a slower stretch upstream.

The gunmen are getting closer, either in my imagination or in reality—doesn’t much matter which. I wade in, cold water shocking my feet, the silty bottom squishing under my toes. The
force of the current on my ankles, then calves, then knees threatens to push me over and sweep me along, but I fight. As I step toward the middle, the ground drops from beneath me and water rushes
up past my chest.

I cry out briefly before clamping my mouth shut. Luko-or-Vic might hear and know I need help, but so might the gunmen. I have no purchase, no traction, and I’m carried several yards
downstream. I stop fighting it and just try to make progress toward the opposite bank. A quick glance along the path of the river reveals just what I need—the dark shadow of an old log
stretching halfway across. I brace myself and grab hold, the bark cutting into my hands and arms, but I don’t lose my grip. It’s enough that I can pull myself along the length of it
until my feet are under me again.

My soaked skirt and top cling to me as I climb out of the river, the light breeze chilling every inch of my skin. It doesn’t matter. I doubt the river is enough to stop the men after me,
whoever they are, and I’ll warm up soon enough. I force myself up the bank into the clearing and look for my brother.

He’s not there.

I blink three times and rub the river water from my eyes. The light of both moons must be combining to play shadow games. But he’s still not there.

You imagined him, Liddi. You’re scared and wanted one of your big brothers to protect you, so your subconscious pointed the way out of the river-bend trap. And guess
what—you’re still scared.

The men across the river shout to each other, maybe asking if anyone sees me, if anyone’s caught me yet.

I’m alone, and right now I’d give anything for some silence.

The woods continue past the clearing. No roads that way, but I don’t need a road to find my way to Pinnacle’s edge. The ground is rougher, not smooth pebbles and soft grass like it
is on the house side of the river, and I curse my bare feet, but that doesn’t matter, either.

I need to get to my brothers, so I run again.

I’m pretty sure my feet are bleeding but I can’t look. I keep moving. The sight of blood isn’t my favorite, and seeing it won’t help the pain any.
It’s been ages since I heard any sign of the gunmen. I keep moving. Between the sweat and the dirt, everything itches, and my body aches. I can’t remember which designer sent my latest
party outfit. He’ll die when he sees what I’ve done to it, filthy and ragged with a hem torn where it snagged on a branch. Still, I keep moving.

The trees thin, revealing the edge of Pinnacle in the dim predawn light, and I finally stop. The city means civilization, protection. It means getting to my brothers, making sure we’re all
safe, and figuring out what in the Abyss is going on. I take a moment to orient myself. Anton’s place is closest.

About a million people stand between me and the boys, and at least as many vid-cams. That keeps me frozen at the last tree. I’d had no reason to bring a com-tablet for my walk along the
river, but now I would cut off my bleeding feet for one. I could live-comm one of my brothers, they could come get me, and I wouldn’t have to walk alone into the city full of watching
eyes.

Then again, maybe those eyes are a good thing. The gunmen came out to the house, the one place the vid-cams can’t go, and in the middle of the night. Whatever they were planning to do,
they wanted to be invisible. Maybe ransom. It would make sense as much as anything.

For once, having every sneeze caught on a vid might be exactly what I want. It might keep me safe long enough to get to my brothers.

Or I might have to run for it again.

If only my feet didn’t hurt so much.

It takes ten minutes for the first vid-cam to find me. I’m still on the outskirts of the city, where there wouldn’t be much hovercar traffic even if it weren’t so early. The
cams usually stick to downtown or the trendy entertainment districts, but a few wander the edge of the city, looking for something interesting.

Liddi Jantzen, dirty and bleeding, definitely qualifies as interesting.

One vid-cam turns into two or three, then a swarm buzzing around me. I’m too tired to care, too tired to do anything but force one throbbing foot in front of the other. But not too tired
to notice when the buzz turns into voices and the swarm becomes a crowd of people. As the media-casts go out, people backtrace my position and realize I’m in their neighborhood. People who
are up early to get ready for work, or insomniacs who haven’t been to bed yet—I can tell them apart by whether their clothes are pressed or rumpled—all kinds gather around me.
Talking, shouting, jostling…It’s too much to process when the white-hot fire of my feet demands all my attention. The only other things I feel are the eyes. My rules kick in: never make eye
contact. Just keep going.

“Look, I told you it’s her—it’s Liddi Jantzen!”

“Liddi, what happened? You’re hurt.”

“Get her off her feet.”

“You need to see a doctor.”

“More like she needs the police. Someone did this to her.”

“She needs both. Get out of the way. Liddi, look at me. Do you remember me?”

I turn, afraid the voice belongs to someone from one of dozens and dozens of parties and clubs I’ve been to in the past couple of years. Most of those faces disappear from my mind as soon
as I leave, so the chance I’ll remember isn’t good.

But I do recognize this one, and I find myself nodding. A man in his forties, his features slightly rounded and his hair graying. He’s familiar, but the name won’t come to me.

He must read the question in my eyes. “It’s Garrin Walker. I was your father’s assistant before…well, before. Come on, let’s get you some help.”

Of course. Walker-Man. That’s what I called him when I was little. He was younger, thinner, but his eyes were the same back when he’d let me play by his desk outside Dad’s
office. Back when I was the boss’s daughter rather than the boss-to-be. Those eyes were sharp and intelligent, but also gentle. They still are. All I have to do is nod again, and he takes
charge, guiding me through the crowd and into a waiting hovercar. The chatter and questions are sealed off outside the doors, and Garrin enters a destination in the hovercar’s computer before
turning to me.

“What did you do, Liddi? Walk all the way from the country estate?”

“Ran, mostly.”

“Why? What happened?”

As much as Garrin was kind to me when I was five years old, I can’t make the answer form in my mouth. The men breaking into my house. The shouts. The guns. Images flood my eyes, making
Garrin less real than the memory.

“I need my brothers,” I murmur. I need to know they’re safe.

He might restrain a sigh—hard to tell—and nods. “Of course, I’ll contact them. First, a doctor for you.”

My head’s getting too heavy for my neck, and my gaze falls to the floor. “I’m bleeding on your car.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

I don’t. Worrying takes too much strength, and I’m using it all thinking about the boys. How Marek would make me laugh, taking my mind off the pain, and how Luko would give me a hug.
I need one. I need
them
.

My vision blurs with a combination of tears and exhaustion. I end up in a hospital room, quiet except for the light rush of air sanitizers and the meticulous efforts of the doctor taking care of
my feet. His ministrations sting, then cool, then numb, and that final effect seems to spread through most of my body. I break out of the fog when raised voices erupt in the hallway. Loud enough to
know it’s an argument, but not loud enough to hear what it’s about.

“Doctor, have any of my brothers arrived?” I ask.

“I’m not sure, Miss Jantzen. If they haven’t, I’m sure they will shortly.” He finishes with my feet and raises a scanner to the scrapes on my hands and arms.
“You say you got these injuries running to the city from the wilderness preserve?”

It’s not a preserve, it’s my home, but there’s no point in arguing with him. Like everyone else on Sampati, he’s strictly a city-dweller, so I nod. “Well, and
crossing a river.”

His brows knit as he studies my expression. “A river. Why did you do that?”

“To get to the other side.”

The doctor doesn’t get to press further—thank the Sentinel—because the door to the hospital room bursts open. Two women stride in with Garrin trailing behind them. He’s
saying something about talking to me alone, but the women ignore him. The younger one wears the dark green uniform of the Sampati Police Force, but with black sleeves. So she’s not just any
cop—she’s here on assignment from the military divisions on Banak. Her tall, muscular build and sleek haircut reinforce that fact, but even her formidable presence can’t distract
me from the other woman who entered with her.

“Ms. Blake,” I greet, habit forcing me to sit up straighter. I may have played by Garrin’s desk as a child, but there’s no silliness with Ms. Blake, ever. The woman has
been managing JTI for most of my life, running day-to-day operations for my brothers. Coordinating the various departments, evaluating which projects have the most promise…doing a lot of the
things I’ll have to know how to do someday.