Chapter 14
Zaraq
Zaraq’s heart pounded as he heard Vexis’s threat ring out over his comm. The blue suit he was wearing suddenly felt too hot and too tight, as though it was restricting his breathing. Zaraq pulled at his collar as he played the message again. But the words were still the same, the voice was still all too familiar, and the mention of Zaraq’s “pretty little girlfriend” was still there, like a sucker punch to the heart.
That and he still couldn’t seem to get enough air.
The guards’ stolen pod seemed to reverberate with the Rikuan’s snarling voice, and even though Zaraq knew he should hurry inside, out of sight and definitely out of the fluorescent light of his wrist comm, he felt momentarily frozen in the driver’s seat.
Suddenly, though, a new thought invaded his mind, sending a jolt of energy rushing through him.
“He’s bluffing!” Zaraq shouted, as he grabbed his pack and weapon, tore out of the pod, and slammed open the glass door of the hotel.
Somewhere in his mind, he knew this suspicion was unlikely. Vexis had called from Sofia’s comm after all. But he could have stolen it , he reasoned, hoping against hope that Sofia was unharmed and waiting for him back in their room.
He barely noticed the confused look of the night receptionist as he ran past the welcome desk and up the stairs, his face still purple and helmet missing. Nor did he register Arccoo’s curious inquiry when he passed him in the hallway. He didn’t stop running until he’d thrown open the door to his own room.
“Sofia!”
The vast space was silent, the purple-stained sheets still tousled from their morning’s lovemaking, the remains of their breakfast wilted and stale now on the dining table. Even Zaraq’s towel still hung on the back of the kitchen chair where he’d left it that morning. Nothing had been touched, not even by the housekeeping they’d made sure to refuse.
But Zaraq still didn’t want to believe Vexis was telling the truth.
“Sofia! Are you here?”
He rushed into the bathroom, just in case she was simply out of sight, perhaps taking a long bath after the evening’s unsavory activities. But like the bedroom, the bathroom was empty, its gleaming white walls staring back at him with total indifference.
As Zaraq turned to leave, he caught sight of himself in the mirror.
He was panting heavily, and his face was streaked purple with patches of his own gray skin shining through where he’d sweated off the makeup. The cut from the glass had begun to clot, leaving a scab of blue blood on his cheek. But what struck him most of all was the look in his eyes.
It was wild, angry, anguished. It was all his feelings for Sofia alchemized into a desperate concern for her wellbeing. In fact, it was all the things he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for another person since he’d left Rikuus all those years ago.
The sudden rawness of it hit him in the chest. Without thinking, he spoke.
“I love you, Sofia,” he said out loud, hearing the power in his words. Words he wished he’d told her sooner. The thought that she was out there, her life at risk because she’d tried to save him from injustice, pained Zaraq. He, who hardly deserved a second glance from her because of his past, had not only put her in danger. He had failed to protect her.
As he continued to gaze into his own anguished eyes, he heard footsteps enter the hotel room.
“Sofia?” he cried out suddenly, tearing his eyes from the mirror and dashing into the room. But of course, it wasn’t her. The person who greeted him was Arccoo.
“I take it that means things didn’t go according to plan.” The Thryal prince gazed at Zaraq solemnly, his gray hands clutching the edges of his intricately embroidered robe.
“No, not exactly.” Zaraq crossed the room in just three steps, his boots heavy on the carpet and his brow tightly furrowed. In his hand he still clutched his pack, and when he pulled out the sigma blaster, Arccoo’s dark purple eyes widened.
“Is that…” he uttered, his gaze flicking between Zaraq and the weapon.
Zaraq nodded. “The weapon he used to kill Ryka.” The words hung heavily in the air, but the next part really weighed on Zaraq. “I’ve got the proof, but I wasn’t fast enough. Some of his guards found me. I got away, but Vexis figured it out. He has Sofia, and he wants to make a trade.”
Zaraq could feel the heat rising in his face as he said it, and he knew all the emotions he’d seen in the bathroom mirror must have been on full display now for Arccoo. For a moment, the two men stood in silence. The only sound in the hotel room were the shouts of fighting and revelry that floated up from the city’s sordid streets below.
Then another sound rang through the stillness. Zaraq’s comm was chiming again, and he felt his heart jump into his throat.
When he checked the message, it practically jumped out of his body altogether.
“Zaraq,” came Sofia’s voice. It was a thin, hurried whisper but undeniably her. “Don’t make the trade, okay? We worked so hard for this, and I knew the risks. Just promise me you’ll—”
In the background, a sudden bang, like a door slamming, stopped Sofia in her tracks, and a second later, the recording stopped.
Zaraq didn’t consider her suggestion for a moment, and when he looked up at Arccoo again, a fire blazed in his eyes. “I have to go get her.”
Without another word, he stuffed the sigma blaster back in the pack and made to leave, but Arccoo stopped him with a hand to the chest.
“Do you have your own weapon?” he asked, his voice low but firm.
From the pack, Zaraq pulled out the small zapfa ray, but Arccoo just shook his head.
“If you’re doing this, you’re doing it properly. And with backup,” he told Zaraq with the authority of a prince. “You might want to change as well.”
Zaraq looked down at himself, the tight blue suit still clinging to his body. He could feel it hot around his throat again, and as much as he wanted to rush out and get Sofia back, he knew Arccoo was right.
“What backup are you talking about?” Zaraq asked, though he thought he already knew the answer.
“You’re looking at it.”
Arccoo held out his hand, his fingers splayed forward in the traditional Thryal greeting of solidarity. Zaraq hadn’t encountered that gesture since he was a child—not since his mother and father were alive.
With a solemn nod of thanks, Zaraq held his hand out at a ninety-degree angle to Arccoo’s and then slid his fingers between the prince’s. To seal the gesture, they each bowed until their foreheads touched.
When they stood straight again, Arccoo was smiling slightly. “We’ll make sure she comes home safely. You get changed. In the meantime, I’ll find you a real weapon.”
“Thank you.” Zaraq’s words came out thick with the gratitude he felt, and as he grabbed a pile of his regular clothes and ran to the bathroom to change, he thought again of how remarkable Sofia and her family’s solidarity had been.
As he unzipped the suit and finally released himself from its clutches, he was struck by a touching realization. Just a few weeks earlier these people had been strangers, and realistically, they owed him nothing. But as he was learning, that came second to their sense of justice and solidarity, as well as Sofia’s feelings toward him.
Zaraq could never have guessed that three Earthlings and a Thryal prince might rally behind him like this.
Out of his blue suit and gloves, and dressed once again in his black cargo pants, gray shirt, and black leather jacket, Zaraq wiped the last of the purple makeup from his face. When he stepped out into the room again, he was met by two of the three Earthlings, plus the Thryal prince he’d just been musing about.
“Sofia’s in trouble?” Carmen gasped the second he appeared.
She clutched Elena’s hand tightly, and both sisters held panic and pain in their eyes.
“Not if I hand over the murder weapon.” Zaraq wanted more than anything to set their minds at ease. “Which I’m about to do now.”
He grabbed his pack from the bed again, glancing inside one more time to check the sigma blaster was where he left it.
He was about to ask Arccoo for the extra weapon when he caught Carmen and Elena exchanging a glance. They turned back to him with a look of determination.
“We’re coming with you,” Elena announced, her voice strong despite the fear she wore on her face.
“We need to get Sofia out of this mess,” Carmen added.
In the large hotel room, the four of them stood in silence for a second, but Zaraq’s heart ached at the thought.
“I’m sorry, but there’s no way,” he said finally. “Sofia would kill me if she knew I was dragging the two of you into this mess.”
Carmen went to protest again, but this time, Arccoo stepped forward. He’d changed out of his regal garments and was now wearing something a little closer to Zaraq’s outfit—a dark navy jacket, thick black pants, and, Zaraq noticed, the Thryal military boots he’d seen in Carmen’s costume trunk.
The prince took Carmen’s hand, holding it tightly. “Zaraq is right. It’s far too dangerous, and I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you. To either of you,” he added, shooting Elena a look of deep concern. “It’s best for everyone if Zaraq and I do this alone.”
Zaraq nodded. “The fewer people the better. I know how deals like this go. A handover is supposed to be quick and easy. If we show up with too many people, Vexis will take it as a threat, and then it could be the end—for all of us. Better if it’s just me and Arccoo.”
Zaraq felt Carmen’s gaze intensify for a moment, and he knew she must be grappling with his words, with the thought of remaining helpless while her sister was traded like goods.
What Zaraq hadn’t said was the real reason he didn’t want them to come. He knew he had to fix this himself.
Because it was all his fault.
The weight of the guilt threatened to crush him, but he knew he couldn’t succumb to it, not now. He needed to fight for Sofia first.
Finally, Carmen’s dark brown eyes softened, and she nodded.
“Okay, but please, be careful. And Zaraq,” she added, stepping toward him with a heavy look in her eyes. “I know what you’re giving up to save her. Thank you.”
As she gazed at him, Zaraq saw her eyes grow glassy with tears. The air in the room felt suddenly thick, and if the others were anything like Zaraq, they were thinking about how terribly unfair this all was.
Zaraq wished he could say something to reassure them that everything would be all right, and for Sofia, he believed it would be. But as Carmen said, he was giving up his freedom all over again.
“We’d better go,” Arccoo interrupted, and suddenly the tension was replaced by action.
As Zaraq got ready to leave, Arccoo presented him with a delta blaster.
“This will serve you better than that zapfa ray. Let’s just hope you don’t have to use it.”
Zaraq took the slim silver weapon from Arccoo’s hand, feeling the weight of it. It was significantly heavier than the zapfa ray, which, he now realized, was the worst weapon he could have snatched from Vexis’s arsenal. He managed a smile for the first time since he’d received the kidnapping message.
“I think you might be right about that.”
He stuffed the gun into the back of his pants and covered it with his shirt and jacket. With one last apologetic look at Carmen and Elena, he strode out of the room. Arccoo followed close behind after kissing Carmen goodbye, and by the time they’d gotten down to the dark street, Zaraq was feeling almost hopeful.
“This way,” Arccoo said, directing him away from the stolen pod and toward the hotel’s rear parking lot.
“Where are we going?” Zaraq asked, eager to get on the road.
“The best way to get arrested before you even get there is to drive around in what I assume is a stolen vehicle,” the prince declared. “Not to mention the warrant for your arrest and the murder weapon in your pack.”
Zaraq cursed under his breath, annoyed at his own impulsiveness.
“You have a point,” he conceded, beyond grateful for Arccoo’s levelheadedness. “What’s the alternative?”
“I already commed a rental,” Arccoo explained. He swiped his wrist across the door of a sleek black Catraaka 6000 parked on the edge of the lot before slipping inside.
Zaraq, once again, was flooded with gratitude. He knew his inevitable incarceration would be a little less bitter now that he’d had the chance to make friends like this. At least his life hadn’t been a total waste.
“When we get there, I want you to stay in the car, okay?” Zaraq told Arccoo as he slid into the passenger’s seat. “I want this to be as clean as possible.”
Arccoo glanced at him skeptically as he started up the pod’s DriveAI.
“What makes you think any of this is going to be clean?” he asked, and the words cut Zaraq to the quick.
“It has to be.” His brow was set in a look of stubborn determination. “For Sofia’s sake.”
Without another word, Arccoo pulled the pod out from behind the hotel, and soon they were zooming up the seedy main street of Rikuus. All manner of nightlife still littered the city even at this late hour, and Zaraq hoped Sofia, at least, would be able to escape this place for good, even if he couldn’t.
Vexis’s house was still shrouded in shadow, just as it had been earlier that night. The only difference now was that a single light glowed from inside. Zaraq recognized it as the living room light, and he tensed as Arccoo brought the pod to a halt across the street.
“I should be out in ten minutes,” Zaraq told him, his voice low and strained.
“And if you’re not?” Arccoo asked. As he spoke, he absentmindedly touched his own weapon, holstered at his side.
“Then something’s gone wrong.” Zaraq said this matter-of-factly, reminding him of his old days. “Let’s just hope we don’t have to worry about that.”
With one last glance at the prince, Zaraq grabbed his pack, feeling the weight of the sigma blaster shifting inside. His own blaster was still tucked into his belt but as he made his way toward the tall black doors, his only thought was for Sofia.