Spy to Die For (Assassins Guild) (15 page)

Skye felt more unsettled than she had when she first touched Jack. Strange how his words unnerved him more than that instant connection had.

Perhaps his words unsettled her because they echoed what she had been thinking. He hit on the same analysis she’d been doing with herself before she saw Liora Olliver talking with Heller.

Skye hadn’t had a lot of time to think about it afterwards. She’d been a bit relieved to focus on Jack.

She took a bite of her squished-down sandwich. The ham was real and so was the cheese. All the ingredients were better than any she’d had off-planet. This place amazed her.

Jack ate too. He seemed to understand her need to reflect.

He finished his sandwich quicker than she did. Then he pushed his plate away, with a lot of food left on it.

“Here’s one piece of information you need to know,” he said. “Heller does the pricier jobs himself. He only deploys a team when he’s convinced that one person can’t do the job.”

“I figured.” Skye didn’t want to sound dismissive, but she understood how jobs worked. Even the Guild deployed a team when the job sounded too hard for one person.

She took another bite of her sandwich. The food was restorative. She felt less tired than she had.

Jack didn’t seem disturbed by her terse response. He said, “Part of what he’s trying to do is become the go-to squad for various governments. He told me once that every government needs an extra-legal organization to do its dirty work. He wants the—um—his people to be that.”

Skye frowned. Everyone believed that the Rovers already did such jobs. Now she was paying attention.

Jack had just told her that the Rovers had once been different. It explained a lot. It explained how he could seem so honorable and yet work for them.

“You mean that’s new?” she asked.

“Since Heller,” Jack said. “And just in the last few years. Despite what everyone thinks, the organization wasn’t bad. Not really. There were always bad guys affiliated with the group, but they didn’t last long.”

“If the group has no rules, how could that happen?” Skye asked.

Jack twirled his glass in his hands. “What I was told is that those guys had an inordinate number of accidents.”

“That didn’t bother you?” she asked. She felt a bit emotionally whiplashed. She thought she understood him, and then he would say something that surprised her, so she understood that, and then he would say something like this about the accidents.

That would bother her. The Guild reprimanded people: it didn’t help them meet with “accidents.”

“It didn’t bother me at the time,” Jack said. As he spoke, her heart sank. Had she read him wrong?

“I knew some of those bad guys. The ‘accidents’ were often quick, efficient, and better than they deserved.”

She understood that. She had felt that way about a lot of the people she investigated. Part of her was quite harsh: she believed some people just needed to leave the universe to improve it.

But she also felt really uncomfortable with assassination as the way to do it. She had said so back at the Guild. It played with dangerous things, and she had protested that. She had protested her part of that.

Death by hire, even if it was legal or nearly legal, crossed certain lines, lines she didn’t like, lines she couldn’t participate in.

She felt like a hypocrite sometimes, but she truly didn’t know a better system. So she made sure that her lines remained firm.

By providing information, she made certain that the right people (or the worst people, in truth) got assassinated, while those with indeterminate guilt or no guilt went free.

She never asked what happened to them when the Guild refused the contract, however. Did those who wanted that person dead go to the Rovers? She didn’t know the answer to that question, and she doubted Jack did either.

They would have to research it, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

She had a hunch she might not like the answer.

“So what changed your mind about your group?” she asked, still avoiding the word
rovers
.

“Too many people who were innocent died,” he said. “I did the research before the jobs, and Heller or someone accepted the job anyway, even if I recommended against it. Then I found out about this extra-legal thing. Here’s the problem: if you work for a government, the government sets the agenda. The government might despise a group of people for their religion or the clothes they wear or the fact that they are peaceful dissidents. Neither group—yours or mine—should be involved in things like that.”

His voice had lowered, yet it sounded even more passionate than it had earlier. He was gripping the glass so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

This really upset him.

She let out a small breath. She understood that upset. She related to it, and it made Jack a good guy to her. It confirmed the sense she had.

He seemed shocked by the fact that the Rovers had instituted the change. She wasn’t, but mostly because she had always thought the Rovers did things like that.

She had been more surprised that everything she had known about the Rovers in the past wasn’t true.

“Forgive me for asking this,” she said, “but you’re telling me this is a change of policy?”

“Yes,” he said with quiet force.

He moved the glass near the plate. She got the sense he had done that to avoid crushing the glass between his powerful hands. Then he grabbed the rest of the dishes and replaced them on that part of the table that had delivered them.

“I know what people believe,” he said, “and it was never true. When I was part of it all, we let the rumors stand because it made us more unpredictable. It also brought in certain kinds of work that no one would approach the Guild with—not extra-legal work, but dicier jobs, the kind we specialized in. I would investigate, and if I said no, this wasn’t our mission, this didn’t fall into the kind of legal work that the governments in the sector looked away from or never prosecuted or even encouraged, then we didn’t take the job. Back then, my group listened to me.”

“And they don’t now,” she said.

“It’s worse than that,” Jack said. “It’s not about my ego. I could handle it if it were. Now they take the jobs I recommend against, and they ignore the other jobs. They let you guys handle those.”

His fingers tapped on the tabletop. As they did, the food dishes he had placed on the side disappeared.

He looked at the mechanism in shock, then leaned back in his chair, hands off the table.

“All of that changed under Heller,” she said.

“Yes,” Jack said with that quiet forcefulness. “It changed, and then it changed again. Now it’s so bad that it doesn’t matter who the contract goes out on. The death will happen if the contract exists.”

His hands shook. He clasped them together, but the shaking continued.

Finally, he moved them off the table, apparently thinking she couldn’t see how upset he was.

“It sounds like this was gradual,” she said. “Why is he after you now?”

“Because I was stupid.” He started to get up, then looked at the ceiling, and clearly thought the better of it. He obviously needed to fidget.

Skye waited. She had no idea what else she could do.

“I went to the entire group,” Jack said. “Or what passed for the entire group. And I told them what I knew, how wrong it was, how many innocent people would be at risk, and you know what they did?”

She was afraid she did know, but she shook her head anyway.

“They laughed at me. They called me naïve. They said innocents get hurt all the time, and if it concerned me, I was in the wrong profession.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I agreed with them, so I left. I figured that was the end of it. Then you tell me that Heller’s after me.”

She was frowning. She understood his confusion. It made no sense to her either.

“I figured that he thought you knew something he didn’t want out.”

Jack shook his head. He rocked in his chair for a moment, his expression hardening.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I mean, how can I ruin their reputation? I can’t. Everyone already thinks the worst of them.”

“But you have another idea,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t like it.”

She waited again, knowing if she pushed he might not tell her. He rubbed a hand over his mouth.

“I think it’s personal now. I questioned him in front of everyone, I exposed him, and now he wants me gone.”

“He’s that petty?” she asked.

“He’s a little tyrant,” Jack said. “He wants me dead to prove a point, to make an example. He wants to show that he can destroy me or anyone who gets in his way.”

Skye’s stomach twisted. “If that’s the case you don’t have a lot of choices.”

“I know,” Jack said. “Believe me, I know.”

Jack felt trapped in the small room. He wanted to leave, but he didn’t want to head back to the crowds in Zaeen. He wanted to pace, but there wasn’t room for him to stand up. He needed to move, and Skye wasn’t even done eating yet.

Her point made the trapped feeling worse.

“You could just stay in the Brezev Sector,” she said, picking at her food. “No one would come here. You could start over.”

His sandwich sat heavily on his stomach. He could stay in the Brezev Sector or go somewhere else, but he was six-foot-six, for heaven’s sake. He would be out of place, and people would notice him—if he stayed in space, which he loved.

Plus running would mean looking over his shoulder. It would also put Rikki at risk. When Heller had asked Jack what Rikki thought about the changes in the Rovers, Jack had said,
She
has
no
idea
what
the
hell
you’re doing and she doesn’t care
.

He hadn’t realized until just now that he had probably saved her life with that statement.

But if he ran away, he would put Rikki’s life on the line. The Rovers would go after her, thinking she knew where Jack was. And then they would hurt her, or Heller would.

Not that she couldn’t take care of herself. She could. But he didn’t want Rikki on the run as well because of something he did.

And he didn’t want to lose her friendship. She was family. If he ran, he would have to apologize, tell her he was never coming back, leave her to fend for herself, and vanish.

What kind of man would do that? What kind of
person
would do that?

Skye was watching him. She had finished most of the sandwich. “If you don’t disappear, you’ll have to do something. They’ll continue to come after you and there’s nothing we can do to protect you.”

He wasn’t sure if the
we
was the Guild or if the
we
meant her and him. He didn’t want to ask, either. He wouldn’t put her in danger just because she was with him. Unlike the assassins, unlike Rikki, Skye couldn’t fend off a trained killer any more than he could.

“I know,” Jack said. “I have to come up with something else.”

He deliberately avoided the
we
that she had used. But he did need some information from her.

“Would the Guild care that a Guild member has hired Heller?” he asked.

“Yes,” Skye said. “Of course.”

She was clearly thinking about it. She frowned, then slid her plate aside. “I had hoped to have all the information when I approached the Guild, but I could tell them that this is happening. They would do something about Heller.”

“He doesn’t rise to their standards for a target, though, does he?” Jack asked.

“It depends,” she said. “If he has been hired to harm someone important in the Guild, then yes, he would. It would be defensive. They would go after him and whoever else was plotting with him.”

“We can’t just speculate, though, can we?” Jack asked.

“I worry about the Guild doing the investigation,” she said. “I don’t know who is involved. After today, I think a lot more people are involved than I expected.”

“You don’t know who to trust,” he said.

She nodded. “We have to bring facts to the people in charge.”

Now was the time for him to ask about the word
we
. He wrapped his hands together. He felt nervous—he wasn’t sure why he felt nervous. Maybe because he felt like a lot was at stake with her answer?

He wasn’t sure.

“You mean you and me?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” she said as if it were the most natural thing in the universe. “Your people are coming after you, some of my people are involved, there’s all kinds of investigating to be done. Why wouldn’t you and I do the work together?”

A thread of joy started through him. He ignored it. He couldn’t be sidetracked by the idea of spending time with Skye, as enjoyable as he would find it.

Much as he desired it.

“They might catch us before we find out all of the information we need,” Jack said. “It’s dangerous.”

She grinned. “I’d love to tell you that danger is my middle name, but you’d know different. Still, I think it’s better for both of us if we go after this together. I mean, how are you going to let the Guild know if you figure out who is involved there?”

“I suppose,” he said. He hadn’t gotten that far mentally yet.

“And you know who to investigate from your side,” she said. “We have a lot of stuff to do.”

She sounded happy about it, as if a path made her more comfortable as well.

Still, he had one more question for her. “You spent all this time researching Zaeen. I can only assume it was to find your parents. Don’t you want to stay here and do that research?”

“You hate it here,” she said.

He didn’t like that answer. “That’s not a reason for you to leave.”

Her grin faded. She did stand up, and he envied that. Still, she didn’t have room to pace either. So she just grabbed the back of her chair and ran her hands across it.

“I’ve researched this place and them to death,” she said. “I could stay here for a year and not figure out what happened.”

“That’s still not a reason for you to leave,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “I just… they left me, you know? And as a kid, I’d track them down and join up with them again, only to have them leave again. I started researching them, just like I had as a kid, and then I talked us into coming here, and I thought… I’m doing it again. I’m chasing them, and they don’t want me.”

Her voice didn’t break when she said that last bit, but it sounded odd, strangled, as if she had trouble getting the words out.

“And that’s if they’re alive,” she said. “If they’re dead, then what have I gained?”

He wanted to get up and hold her. But she had placed that chair—and the table itself—as a barrier between them.

“Knowledge,” he said. “You would know what happened to them.”

“Knowledge is overrated,” she said.

He shook his head. “I’ve researched my history for more than twenty years and found nothing. I would love to have a name, an idea, a place to start with.”

She stared at him. Then she said, her expression bleak, “I have knowledge. I know they had a pattern. They had no idea how hard it was to raise a child. They had no one to help them and no money. So they’d drop me with so-called friends. Over and over and over again. They were going to send me to the Guild anyway. Their last friend did. They never came for me, they never paid my fees at the Guild, they never even acknowledged me.”

Her hands continued to run across the back of that chair. He understood the fidgeting. He had just done it as well. He wanted to take her hands and pull her toward him, but he couldn’t move in this tiny room.

“They’re the reason I’m trapped by the damn Guild,” she said. “I could have gone to school there, and if they had just paid the stupid fees, I’d be free. But I’m still associated in ways I don’t want to be because they abandoned me. So why am I chasing them?”

This time her voice did break. And this time, he couldn’t stand it. He stood, hit his thighs on the table, and winced as pain threaded through him. He managed to get around it, and he shoved her chair aside. He pulled her in his arms.

He had expected a fight, but she didn’t give him one. She buried her head in his shirt.

But she didn’t cry. Her breathing didn’t even change. He rubbed her back and after a few minutes, she relaxed against him.

How long had she carried that abandonment all by herself? When he talked with her about the Guild, she mentioned that she knew people, but she never mentioned friends.

He didn’t have a lot of friends, but the ones he had he valued above all else.

Skye was being his friend. He needed to value that as well.

“Maybe you just want answers,” he said. “Maybe you want to stop guessing about why they kept leaving you behind.”

Her breath hitched. Then she stiffened, and stood, tilting her head upward so that she could look directly at him.

“Those answers can wait,” she said. “They’ve already waited for most of my life. What’s another year or two? Besides, if I help you and we solve whatever is going on with the Guild and Heller, then maybe I can get out of the last of my contract. I’ll be free to pursue the investigations I want to pursue.”

He smiled at her. “And I can help you.”

He was about to add,
We’d make a good team
, when her expression closed down.

She moved away from him. “One thing at a time, Jack. One thing at a time.”