“Close enough, but it’ll evaporate soon.”
All the more reason to snatch the Tissue-Bond and run. Playing dress-up was fun, but the reality of what they were about to do—and the consequences of failing or getting caught—had begun to set in, and Solara’s heart pounded hard enough to rattle her rib cage.
Renny navigated past a strip of retail stores and dining establishments to the medical center at the far end of the complex. Instead of landing the shuttle near the emergency entrance, he alighted behind a ship twice their size.
“This’ll be easy,” he told her while cutting the engine. “But if anything goes wrong, come straight back here. The shuttle’s the safest place to hide, and you know how to fly it back to the Banshee in case…” They catch me and you have to run.
He didn’t have to say the last part. Solara understood from her time on the streets. As honorable as it sounded to leave no man behind, that was a naive policy that would result in more damage, not less. The Enforcers would arrest them both and try turning them against each other in the interest of a speedy conviction. If the guards nabbed her, she fully expected Renny to save himself and return the medicine to the Banshee. Doran’s life was leaking out of him, and they didn’t have time to be noble.
“Thank you,” she told Renny. “I don’t know why you’re helping us, but I’m glad you’re here. There’s no way I could pull this off on my own.”
He flashed the same genuine smile that had melted her heart the instant they’d met. She wished he really were her uncle; that blood would tie them together no matter how much distance stretched between them. It wasn’t fair that people couldn’t pick their own families.
“It’s not an easy life out here,” he told her. “I think you know that. So when fate places a kindred traveler in your path, you do your best to make the journey last.”
“What’s your story?” she asked. This might be their last chance to talk, and she felt suddenly desperate to know more about him. “How did you end up on the Banshee?”
He shook a chiding finger, as if scolding her for lack of faith. “I’ll tell you this much. I had a home on Earth, with a good job and a woman who loved me more than I deserved. But my condition got in the way. I stole from the wrong people, the mafia, and it wasn’t safe to stay there anymore.” He patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll have to wait till later to hear the rest.”
He opened the shuttle doors, and Solara looped both arms around his neck when he came around to fetch her. As he carried her across the docking lot, she rested her head on his shoulder and grimaced in a show of pain, just in case the guards were watching the security feed. When the med-center’s emergency doors parted, cool air washed over them, thick with the biting scent of antiseptic.
She released an audible groan while Renny rushed to the admissions counter and told the attendant, “It’s my niece. She hurt her ankle at a party.” He drew a breath and went on, each word tumbling out quicker than the last. “I never should’ve let her go, but she promised there wouldn’t be drinking.”
“Heyyyy,” Solara slurred, jabbing a finger at his chest. “It’sss not my fault. They told me it was fruit punch.”
Ignoring her, Renny made pleading eyes at the receptionist, a middle-aged woman wearing a pinched expression that said her shift was nearly over and, along with it, her patience.
“Tell me you have the meds to fix it,” Renny said. “I can’t send her back to my sister like this. I swore not to let—”
“How’d you hurt your ankle?” the woman interrupted, sliding her gaze to Solara’s painted face.
“Turns out,” Solara said, and hiccuped for effect, “I’m a really bad table dancer.”
Renny hung his head. “Your mom’s going to kill me.”
With a barely contained eye roll, the receptionist pushed a data tablet across the desk and nodded toward the area behind them. “Fill this out and wait over there. Someone will call you shortly.”
Renny situated them in the far corner of the waiting room, where Solara drew the gazes of at least two dozen bored patients, gawking at her like they’d never seen a debutante before. She couldn’t blame them. Roles reversed, she probably would’ve stared the hardest. At first the attention made her nervous, but then she heard a familiar name on the news program playing above their heads, and the rest of the lobby ceased to exist.
“Still no word on the whereabouts of Doran Spaulding,” a female journalist said from the ceiling speakers, “the Prodigious Academy alumnus wanted for the same crime that landed his father, president of Spaulding Enterprises, in jail without bond while he awaits trial.”