Chapter 11 Penny
PENNY
Varok’s reaction to the Night Watch was gratifying, but unhelpful. I waited as he drank in the old painting for a minute, impatient but wanting to give him time.
“You wanted to steal that?” he said at last, breaking the silence. “How?”
His incredulity stung, but it wasn’t unreasonable. I swallowed my anger. “By stealing your escape plan, of course. Keep up.”
Varok laughed, and my cheeks heated. Not with embarrassment, or not just embarrassment.
With it came an unsettlingly pleasant rush of warmth through my insides, and I continued hurriedly.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this painting, okay?
The catalog lists this as the Mona Lisa, much smaller and easier to steal.
Now stop wasting time and let’s fucking go. ”
“Agreed.” Varok spoke with a finality that surprised me. Then he surprised me again.
I didn’t even see him move, just felt the sudden sting in my fingers as he swatted the pistol from my grip. His other hand was at my neck before I could react, and my back slammed into the wall, his silver face inches from mine.
You might call his smile predatory. I wouldn’t argue. From this distance, I saw how sharp his teeth were, felt his warm breath on my cheek. My heart raced, my chest heaved as I struggled to catch my breath, and a tremor ran through my body.
I tried to speak, to say something, but I found no words. Frozen in place, helpless, I stared into Varok’s eyes with no idea what I hoped would happen next.
“I will steal your precious Night’s Watch,” he said, voice a low growl that sent shivers down my spine. “Not because of your threats.”
Yeah, no shit. Holding him at gunpoint seemed like a laughable idea now. I did my best to nod. With Varok’s hand on my neck, I could barely lower my chin.
“Nor is it because of the challenge. That’s not enough on its own.”
Leaning in even closer, his breath hot on my skin, he whispered, “I will steal it for you, Penelope Halford.”
With that, he released me, turning away in a sudden move that left me stumbling. My cheeks burning red, I gulped down air and tried to think of something to say.
Nothing occurred to me other than the embarrassing ‘what?’ that I refused to say. Does he genuinely expect me to believe he’s ditching his own heist for mine?
Was it a trick? It had to be. I wanted to trust Varok, but my inner cynic had seen me burned too many times before. A man promising me everything I wanted? That never ended well.
If I couldn’t see Varok’s trick right now, that just meant he was hiding it well. The wonderful, rose-tinted idea that he meant it was too good to be true. That didn’t mean I could refuse.
I had no options left. No backup plan aside from abandoning the mission altogether. I’ll keep an eye out for his inevitable treachery and backstab him before he can backstab me.
“Fine. Yes. Let’s do it.”
Packing The Night Watch was a fraught process.
In its frame, the painting was too big and unwieldy to move, so we braced a pair of Varok’s anti-grav lifters under it.
I still winced as we lowered it to the ground again as we dismantled the frame and had to swallow my fear that we’d damage the priceless canvas.
In a few hours, morning would arrive, and with it, General Attrobi and a gaggle of bloodthirsty nobles.
So we rolled it up like a carpet, careful of the centuries-old paint. To his credit, Varok was every bit as careful as I was, never rushing. It won’t be worth as much to him damaged, I told myself, working hard to ignore the possibility that he was doing this for me.
Fortunately, the Collectors had been efficient with storage. I found the case Attrobi used to transport The Night Watch hidden in a niche behind the painting and breathed a sigh of relief. Climate controlled and shielded, it would keep the painting safe during its rescue.
Once we finished loading the massive painting into its container, Varok slid it back onto his anti-grav lifters and floated the canvas up to waist height. He guided it to the sarcophagus, looked from the painting to the open stasis chamber, and frowned.
“Well? What’s the next bit of your foolproof plan then?” I asked, hands on hips.
“I was afraid of this. Your painting’s too big to fit.”
I groaned. “Your plan, your solution to my problem, was to stuff it into a coffin? What, just walk out with it and hope no one notices the missing art and melting statue?”
“No. I’d fake a containment failure, rush the sarcophagus back to my ship and get it off-planet. No one would stop me while I’m moving an unstable antimatter bomb away from them.”
I looked at him wide-eyed. He looked back, his aggravating smile and annoying confidence daring me to say something. I didn’t disappoint him.
“That is the stupidest plan in the history of stupid plans. It’s like…like…I have no idea what it’s like.”
“It beats yours.”
“How? Neither plan works!”
He didn’t respond, just looked at the sarcophagus and grimaced. A long moment stretched between us before he sighed and pulled a datachip out of his comm bracelet. Weighing it in his hand, he thought for a moment longer before speaking.
“My backup plan still works, but it might be a little risky for your taste.”
“I’ll try anything.” I don’t know if he’d intended to needle me with that remark, and it didn’t matter. Perhaps I was more risk-averse than Varok, but I’d be damned if I’d let him paint me as a coward.
He nodded but didn’t elaborate. Instead, he returned to the eerie sculpture, carefully disconnecting it from its pedestal and lifting it into the stasis chamber. The door swung shut with a loud click, and the stasis field engaged with an almost inaudible hum.
A hologram image of the ice sculpture flickered into place, concealing The End from view. He’d covered all his bases perfectly. Well, almost perfectly.
“A masterful crime,” I said with a laugh. “Not a clue remains for anyone to track down the thief.”
Varok growled, following my gaze to the slowly melting ice sculpture propped against the wall. “Careful, human. I can stop helping you.”
“Oh? Please tell me when you start, because it looks like you’re going back to your original plan.”
“No, just putting it aside in case. Maybe I can return for it before the Hive leaves.”
That was the stupidest idea I’d ever heard, but I didn’t object. He can do what he wants after I get The Night Watch away. With an effort, I ignored the pang in my heart at the thought of him getting caught. If he was crazy enough to return to the scene of the crime, he deserved the consequences.
“Okay, so what’s the next part of your famous plan?”
“My plan, which is working better than yours, human.”
“At least I’m getting out of here with the target I came for.” Was it stupid to taunt him while relying on his help? Yep. Unfortunately, the words were out before I realized it.
“You are not,” he said, lips drawing back from his sharp teeth. “We are getting out with a target you didn’t expect or prepare for.”
“Details.” I waved him off with a laugh. “I overcame an unexpected challenge, that’s all. Speaking of getting out of here, what’s next? I planned to walk out with the other guests, but that won’t work. All my backups relied on the target being small enough to hide in my kit bag.”
“Whereas mine might still work?” Varok’s grin showed his sharp fangs. Which should have been frightening, but it was my reaction that scared me. I bit my lip, trying to control a sudden surge of need. Damn, that was a sexy look.
No. Down, girl. Don’t let him distract you! Did scolding myself like that work? It did not. All I managed was to keep myself from saying something even stupider. Varok got on with his preparations while I fought with my sudden urge to fling myself at him.
Adrenaline, I told myself. Or rather, lied to myself.
He repositioned his remaining lifters onto the case, balancing it and binding it securely. I watched him work, all smooth motions and confidence. When he turned back to me, I saw a new tension hidden behind his lopsided smile.
“I had a subtle way in,” he told me, pressing the datachip against the wall. “Out is the hard part. My first plan wasn’t exactly discreet, and the backup, well, it’s direct.”
The datachip blossomed into holographic life, menus and programs flickering in and out of view too fast to follow. I winced at the sight—taking pre-programmed hacking scripts against the Collectors’ software? My confidence in his plan, never exactly high, deflated further.
“What are you trying to do?” I asked, fidgeting and fighting the urge to grab the chip and take over. Without a chance to study the scripts, I’d just make things worse.
Varok’s eyes sparked as he watched my discomfort. “Just wait. It’ll be obvious in a moment.”
I started to object, but before I said a word, the lights went out.
“What the fuck?” The pitch black lasted only a moment before Debbie’s camera lights came on, illuminating Varok in stark detail. He was already on the move, pushing The Night Watch toward the doorway, muscles bulging against the seams of his shirt.
No point in arguing now. This kind of disruption was impossible for anyone to ignore.
I grabbed hold of a pair of carrying handles, put my shoulder against the floating crate, and heaved for all I was worth.
It was impossible to tell whether I’d helped, but I felt better for trying.
I refused to stand around letting Varok do the heavy lifting.
“Dataspike,” he explained as we lugged The Night Watch toward the door. “My brother Zakar made it for me, simple enough for even me to use. It overloaded their local network, froze up the system, and bought us some time while they’re recovering.”
“That’s your plan? Shut down their computers and hope we have enough time to escape before they reboot?
” Despite my efforts to control my outrage, it leaked into my voice.
“I had a carefully timed plan, detailed logs. I studied their systems and what’s known about their code.
You got a crystal full of scripts from your brother and let them run? ”
“Worked, didn’t it?” He flashed that infuriating, smug, sexy grin at me again, and I didn’t know if I wanted to punch him or jump him. There wasn’t time for either, so I gritted my teeth and kept pushing our prize through the crystal tunnels.
“Your plan was fragile,” he said, pulling the crate around a corner. “Too complex. One thing went wrong, and it broke. Mine’s still going strong.”
To my surprise, I resisted the urge to argue. Perhaps because I was getting out of breath—the anti-grav canceled The Night Watch’s weight, but its mass made controlling it hard work. Moving faster and faster, we careened around the maze, surrounded by eerie silence.
I’d expected the Collectors to react with panic or a well-practiced emergency plan, but I heard no sign of either.
No Collector’s panicked footsteps echoed in the corridors, no shrieks of alarm, nothing.
The Hive was all connected — had the spike killed them?
That was a terrible thought, and I pushed it aside.
I couldn’t know, and speculating wouldn’t help.
Varok led me on a different route from the one I’d planned, and I hoped he knew what he was doing. Not that I had a better idea. My extraction route would take us back through the occupied guest rooms, into the arms of guests who’d want to stop us.
The big silver alien seemed to have a plan. That would have to do.
A freezing wind from up ahead sent a shiver running through me, and I sighed with relief. The outside was near, and with it, escape. We rounded a corner onto another space open on one side to exterior.
“What’s next?” I said as snow blew in around us. Yep, the forcefields were down, leaving the Hive without protection from the elements. “Please tell me your plan isn’t just ‘hope there’s a skiff.’”
Varok laughed. “Oh, much worse than that, human. Climb aboard and hang on tight.”
Before I mustered a protest, he took aim at the opening and charged. Varok roared with effort, speeding up and pushing the stolen crate faster than I could keep up. I took his advice and jumped onto it, clinging tight as he shoved us onward, faster and faster.
“Hey, slow down, we’re getting close to the edge,” I shouted over the howling wind. If he heard me, he gave no sign, pushing harder and faster until the platform disappeared from below us.
Given the chance, I’d have jumped for safety. Varok denied me the option, leaping on top of me and pinning me to the ceramsteel. His powerful arms closed around me as he took hold on either side of me, and caught between two unyielding surfaces, I screamed as we fell into the darkness.