Born of Fire

Over and over his mind kept flashing on Talia and the way she’d looked when he’d found her in his bedroom. The pale blue tint of her skin. Her eyes half open. Her body drenched in the blood that had drained out from her slashed wrists . . .

It wouldn’t happen again. Not on his shift.

Entering the port, he quickly assessed the ships around him. Most were small freighters and shuttles. But two were fighter class—just what he needed.

He ran at them full speed.

“Hey!” one of the attendants called, rushing toward him. “You can’t take that ship.”

Shifting Shahara’s weight in his arms, Syn spun on the woman with his blaster raised. “Unless you want to die, I suggest you stand down.”

She put her hands up in the air and moved away from him.

Syn kept his eyes on her while he continued to move toward the ship, more slowly this time.

At the base of the fighter, he stared up at the ladder and cursed. Now how the hell was he going to hold on to Shahara while climbing aboard a fighter? True he was nimble, but that defied even his abilities.

Then he saw his answer. “Move the docking crane over to the fighter.”

“I can’t do that.”

He clicked back the release of his blaster. “You have five seconds.”

She ran toward the crane as Vik flew into the cockpit.

Once she had it in place, Syn warned her away. He climbed the stairs two at a time, all the while watching the worker, half expecting her to gain enough courage to try something. It wasn’t until the three of them were aboard and the cockpit solidly latched that he began to calm.

A little.

As soon as the cockpit shield had begun its descent, the worker had vanished. Syn was certain she was running for help so he wasted no time firing the engines. A bit of worry swept through him at not running a preliminary check, but he didn’t have time.

He threw the throttle and launched the craft’s thrusters straight up. His stomach dipped as the g-forces played havoc with his body.

Within a few minutes, they achieved escape velocity. He swung the ship out toward space, and in no time they broke through the planet’s atmosphere.

Once they were safely tucked into the bosom of space and he was certain no one was tracking them, Syn turned his attention to the small form draped in his lap. The control lights glinted softly against her pale cheeks and he noted her blood had soaked his pant leg.

Gingerly, he shifted her head until he could examine the wound. It didn’t look quite as bad as he’d first thought. He should have remembered that head wounds bled a lot, even when they were slight.

But hers was deep and could use a couple of stitches.

He shrugged his backpack off and pulled out the first-aid kit. In just a few minutes, he had her wound cleaned and wrapped.

“Will she live?” Vik asked.

“I think so.”

“Will she be pissed over it?”

“Probably. I’m sure it’s going to hurt when she wakes.” He looked over at Vik who was now in his mechabot form, perched on the control panel. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

“She was kicking butt on her own. Thought it was safer you not fight blind. But then you stuck your head up and I had to help you.”

“You still could have warned me.”

“And you could have taken me with you instead of abandoning me all these years.”

Those words made him ache. “I am really sorry, Vik. If I’d known how much it would hurt you, I swear I wouldn’t have done it.”

“Okay, I’ll drop the subject. But if you ever do that to me again, I’ll stab you in the penis, which I’m sure will hurt.”

“Yeah, it would.”

“Good. Now I’m powering down for a bit to conserve my power.”

Shaking his head at his strange invention, Syn shifted Shahara’s weight and pulled her up to sit in his lap more comfortably. Leaning her head into his shoulder, he held her like he used to hold Paden when he’d crawl into his lap for a nap. The thought brought tears to his eyes and he quickly pushed his memories away. It didn’t do any good to look to the past.

Paden wanted nothing to do with him outside of maintaining his bank accounts.

He was Syn again and Syn had never had a son. Syn was a street survivor.

As he looked into Shahara’s peaceful features, a long-forgotten part of him begged for something he knew he couldn’t have. Mara had brought that harsh reality home. Decent women didn’t want to spend their lives with filth like him.

They wanted husbands they could be proud of. Not functional alcoholics with a hair trigger on their temper. But at least the alcohol was a step up from the drugs that had once ruled him.

That was what cut him the deepest. Mara had never seen the darkest side of his past. The animal that had crawled through the streets and sewers looking for his next mission and fix that would get him through one more day. He’d been a pathetic waste of humanity at one time.

If not for Nykyrian, he’d still be a worthless junkie, wallowing in a hovel.

Or he’d be dead.

Would it really matter? Could hell really be worse than the life he currently lived?

But at least he didn’t have to deal with the shakes and cravings.