39. Chapter Thirty-Nine #2
To my surprise, then my dismay, Val reached out to take my hands.
I was too stunned, honestly, to pull them back.
“I need you to know that what happened with Alexei and LeFleur was not part of the plan. They were supposed to take you to the brig, that was all. We didn’t expect them to .
. . do what they did. And we certainly didn’t expect Ursa to wake up so quickly. ”
Angrily, I withdrew my hands from hers to brush away the tears that managed to escape down my cheeks without my permission. “You’ll find he’s a man of many surprises, I expect.”
Val straightened again, pulling back her own hands back at my rejection. “We already have. We thought all this time that Dr. Rawley was after you, but once we were in communication, we realized that Ursa’s the prize he’s really after. He won’t tell us why, of course.”
My heart sank. It was as I’d feared then. Rawley was making a big show of trying to track me down so he could get to Ursa and continue his experiments. If Val and Tobago handed Ursa over to him—
When, I realized. Not if. It had already been decided.
“For what it’s worth,” Val continued, in that same infuriatingly unflappable tone of hers, “it isn’t personal. It was just an offer too good to refuse. That brings us to tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? I jerked my head up at the reminder. We were still several weeks away from Haven 3, so what was supposed to happen tomorrow?
“Rawley’s offered rewards for both of you,” Val informed me. “But we’re not going to turn you over to him. Instead we’re going to drop you off at Elba and tell Rawley you died en route. Since Ursa is the bigger prize, we’re hoping we’ll still get most of the reward.”
Frankly, I didn’t know which part of that to process first. I had no idea where or what Elba was, so it couldn’t be a sizable port. But more pressing than that was my confusion. If the point was to turn Ursa and me over to Rawley, why not follow through to get the whole reward?
As if she’d read my mind, Val motioned with her chin toward Tobago.
“He insisted on it. Thought this way you’d still get a fighting chance.
Not much of a chance, mind you. We can’t spare many rations, or much oxygen, and Elba’s an emergency port.
Infrequently visited at best. Still, you never know, you might get lucky. ”
“It was the least I could do,” Tobago muttered.
“Yes,” I agreed bitterly, “the very least.”
He winced and didn’t say anything more.
Gathering myself, I looked to Val imploringly. I realized now that she was not who I thought she was, had probably never been, but maybe there was something in her I could still appeal to. “Please, don’t separate me from Ursa. I don’t care what Rawley does to me—”
“You didn’t hear the way he was talking about you,” Tobago interrupted.
I ignored him, continuing my appeal directly to Val. “I’ll take whatever comes, but I can’t leave Ursa. I can’t let him suffer whatever Rawley has planned for him on his own.”
And it would be terrible, no doubt. I’d seen for myself firsthand just what Rawley did to his lab rats. I couldn’t let Ursa go through that alone. I’d promised him I wouldn’t leave him, and I’d meant it.
Val shook her head. “It’s already been decided.”
Because Tobago had decided it, in his terribly misguided attempt to protect me. He somehow thought it was more humane if I managed to survive on a random outpost in the black? He really thought my life would be worth something to me if I only kept it by letting Ursa die in my place?
“I don’t want this,” I told him furiously. “Take it back. Change your mind!”
But his face was stone again. Whatever he was thinking, feeling, had disappeared behind his coolly, cruelly handsome expression. “It’s already done.”
I made one last desperate appeal to Val. “You said we should never let men come between us,” I reminded her.
She shrugged. “This isn’t men coming between us. It’s money. It’s engine repairs we’ve needed for years now, and booster shots so our crew can finally shake that bug we’ve been passing around for months, and enough rations and petrol to get us back to Earth.”
Despite myself, my eyebrows rose at that. “To Earth?” I looked at Tobago in dismay. Somehow, no matter how low he’d already sunk, I couldn’t believe he would go this far.
He spoke to my chin, not meeting my eyes. “You wouldn’t give us the location of the pool. Rawley will.”
So that was the bargain they’d struck. The real reason my childhood friend had sold me out. All the poolwater Tobago needed for Indy. And the biggest score the Trojan Horse had ever had, if they could collect enough to sell it.
Only now they’d let Rawley know there was something valuable he’d left behind. He’d had no idea about what healing powers the poolwater held. If I knew my former fiancé, he wasn’t going to let that get snatched out from under his nose.
If I’d been feeling generous, I might have given Tobago a heads-up. But I wasn’t in a particularly magnanimous mood.
Taking in a fortifying breath, and blinking to clear some of the remaining tears from my eyes, I lifted my chin. “So why are you telling me all of this now? Why not just dump me on Elba tomorrow?”
“Tonight will be your only chance to say goodbye to Ursa,” Val informed me. “And we aren’t heartless, Mina.”
A sharp bark of laughter escaped my throat. I pressed a hand to my mouth, shaking my head slightly to collect myself. “Right. I don’t suppose this has anything to do with how restless Ursa has been?” I raised my eyebrows. “Has he managed to break out of his cell yet?”
Despite themselves, it seemed, Val and Tobago exchanged a wary glance.
I couldn’t quite catch my smile of pride at my man. They were going to find it very difficult to keep him locked up, especially if he believed I was somewhere on the ship.