Page 216 of Star Bringer
“Milla, are you there?”
Long seconds pass, and my stomach churns.
“About fucking time.”
I hear her loud and clear. Max is grinning, so I know he heard it, too.
“Just don’t go anywhere,” I say. “We’re coming to get you.”
Chapter 95
Kali
“Go!” I hiss, because Ian has stopped halfway down the ramp and he’s peering back at me like I’m a recalcitrant child and he’s the parent checking to make sure I’m where I should be.
And by should be, I mean where he’s ordered me to be.
It’s like he’s expecting me to do something stupid, like maybe stand at the top of a ramp in plain view of the most wanted woman in the whole system, who’s made it her life’s mission to annihilate my entire family, and who obviously wasn’t opposed to just shooting at anyone on board theStarlighton the off chance she turned out to be me.
Rain, who thankfully awoke for a short time, and I have both admitted it wasn’t the smartest of moves. But Ian isn’t ready to accept our apology.
Still, I’m planning on sticking with him, which is a good thing, considering he’s not planning on letting me out of his sight. Max and Merrick will split off to disable the cameras, then head back outside and stop anyone who tries to enter the buildings while we’re here. They’re both behind us—though Merrick looks like shit. He just got off a last-minute comms call with Serati that I’m sure involved him getting his butt chewed out over Rain’s unfortunate near-death experience…
Being Rain’s bodyguard isn’t nearly as easy as it should be.
And Gage is staying with Rain and theStarlight. They’ll be ready for a quick getaway if we need it—and I have no doubt we’ll need it.
I take a deep breath, then step off the ramp and onto the asteroid. It’s like being on a planet, though the air is cold and thin, like I’m at a high elevation.
Ian is beside me in a second. What a surprise. “No handcuffs?” I ask.
“Don’t tempt me,” he growls.
And I decide to stop messing with him—he’s nervous enough without me adding to it.
The ramp lifts behind us, and I turn for a last look at the ship. The heptosphere has settled close by, hovering a few feet off the asteroid’s surface. This is the closest I’ve been to it since theCaelestis, and already I can feel its pull.
I ignore it as best I can, but it’s not as easy as I’d like.
“Let’s go,” Ian tells me.
I follow him across the open space to the building entrance. There’s a big metal gate, but Max is already there with a laser cutter. At the same time, Merrick uses the handheld device Gage gave him to disable the alarm. It only takes seconds, and the doors swing open.
Once we’re inside, we have to move quickly. There are hundreds of cameras, and while we’re hoping the guards are distracted by the explosions we can still hear coming from the other side of the compound, that won’t last for much longer. Hopefully Merrick and Max will make it to the guard’s station, where intel says all the buildings cameras are wired to, and disable them before the entire compound can see our images in high-def.
We get to the end of a hallway, and Ian turns right. He memorized the schematics days ago. But I’m overwhelmed by the sheer number of rooms. We’ll never find Jarved in here, if he even is in here.
He pauses for a moment, and I know he’s talking to Milla. “To the left, then down four levels,” he says quietly. “She’s in the single cells reserved for troublemakers.”
Yeah, she sounds just like Ian.
Merrick and Max break off to take out the cameras while we find the stairs Milla told him about. The lower we go in the building, the worse the smell gets, a mix between sweat and blood and a strange chemical—something like ammonia? We’re heading into the bowels of the asteroid now, and the clean-looking building gives way to jagged rock walls and dark hallways.
There are no cameras on these levels that I can see, and I don’t know if it’s because the prisoners don’t matter or because they think no one would come down here. Or worse—because they don’t want what happens down here to be filmed. Either way, I want out. Now. My body is still begging me to go back up, to return to the heptosphere, with a compulsion that has me on the verge of panic.
I ignore the feeling, swallowing my fear as I concentrate on following Ian. The darker it gets, the harder it is to see him—I have to follow the beam of his light as it slices a slim, eerie white line through the shadows. Add in the occasional pain-filled moans, and I’m about to jump out of my skin.
We finally get to the fourth level, and Ian stops at the bottom. Then he heads off, striding purposefully into the darkness that scares the shit out of me.
