Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Hearing his real name aloud for the first time in decades froze every part of his body and stole the words from his mouth.
Sawyer Knox. Blood pumped between his ears as he glared at the woman hanging from her wrists.
That’s your name, right? Her words echoed hollowly in his head.
The agitated sensation he’d experienced during Archibald’s interrogation began at the back of his neck and spread throughout his body. Not only because she’d said his name, but she could see the face attached to it. The scent of dust and metal invaded his nostrils.
Remove the threat. She knew too much about him, and that meant she needed to die.
Except, he had to follow orders. And for some reason, he didn’t think he would enjoy killing Wynn Lambdin.
That agitated sensation turned into an all-out burn. His gaze went to the two bleeding lines on her arm. She’d accepted those cuts like she enjoyed them, and he only knew one person who would’ve done the same. Me.
During his training as a kid, he used to get overwhelmed, panicked, and the only thing that would bring him back to himself was pain.
He’d become addicted to it. Egged the other kids on to fight him because hits would bring clarity, then beating the shit out of the other little snots would bring satisfaction.
He’d thought he’d left that all behind—along with his name.
“How do you know that name?” he asked, disgusted that his voice came out weak, choked, the raw parts exposed now that his helmet was disengaged.
She stared at him with parted lips and curiosity-filled eyes. He hated it. She wasn’t begging or pleading for her life. She wasn’t crying or blubbering. In fact, she looked the calmest he’d ever seen her.
Frustration replaced the disbelief, and his senses returned to him like someone poured them back into his body. He stepped back toward her, pulled his gun, and pressed the muzzle against her temple. “How do you know that name?” he ground out.
He’d had so many since he started working for the CORE government as a child, but not that one. Never that one.
She shook her head once, her forehead pink where she’d hit him, but white under the pressure of his weapon. The blood from the cuts he’d given her dripped onto her top, some falling to the plastic sheeting in quiet drips.
Fuck the government. He would start cutting off body parts if she didn’t start giving him some answers that made sense.
No, you won’t.
He pressed the gun harder against her head. “How do you know that name?” he repeated.
“You’re not going to kill me,” she said instead of answering, her eyes flashing fire. “You would have done it already if you could.”
“Then how about we see how you feel if I blast off your toes? Would you like that?” He pointed his gun at her feet. “How do you know my name?”
A battle waged behind her eyes, indecision and defiance. She licked her lips, then said, “Cut me down and I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me, then I’ll cut you down.”
“I can’t trust you.”
“No, you can’t,” he agreed with a nod. “Doesn’t look like you have many options.” He made a show of scanning the cargo hold, empty except for them and containers left for storage.
She swallowed, then lifted her chin in defiance. Her neck was red from where he’d gripped her. “He called you that.”
“Who?”
“Iax.”
It took him a full second to realize she meant the Calypson. The fucker had a name? Sawyer didn’t know why he found that odd, but he did.
“How did he know my name?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I answered one question. Now cut me down.”
Sawyer didn’t realize he was pacing again and stopped in front of her. The two lines on her arm bleed steadily, hitting the plastic at regular intervals. Drip. Drip. Drip.
He stepped closer, and she tensed. Raising the regenerator, he turned it on with a flick of his thumb. It hummed as he brought it close to her wounds.
Her eyes rolled in the back of her head, like he gave her the greatest pleasure, though he knew the healing process stung.
Fuck, this was weird seeing it from the other side.
With the last cut healed and residual blood drying on her skin, he swapped out the regenerator for the laser scalpel. A gasp caught in her throat, a look of betrayal crossing her features.
He scoffed. After everything, she expected him to follow through on his word? Fool. She should know by now not to trust anyone in this system. No one will look out for you except you. A lesson he’d learned early in life.
He stepped back and reached above her hands, slicing through the bindings with one swipe.
The action set her on her feet, then her knees buckled.
Splat. She fell forward onto the sheeting; the plastic crinkled.
He reached down to help her before he caught himself.
Clenching his jaw, he moved off the drop sheet.
“You’re going to answer more questions, or I’ll string you up again.” At least he knew she didn’t like that part.
Her hand covering the newly healed cuts, she glared at him.
“For your wrists,” he said, tossing the regenerator in front of her.
When the hell had he gotten so soft? He didn’t understand what was wrong with him. First Archibald, now her. Why couldn’t he just get the fucking job done?
Buzz. The noise of the regenerator took up the silence while she healed her chafed wrists.
“You’re an agent, aren’t you?” she asked without looking up.
And that wasn’t how this was going to work. He left the question unanswered and paced back and forth.
“What else did that fucker know about me?”
She shook her head, and his hand tightened on his weapon. Would he have to resort to threats again? Not like that worked.
Then she said, “He only told me you were there to collect me. That’s it. Only your name and that.”
He couldn’t hear a lie in her voice. How would the Calypson have known his name and objective, though? Sawyer thought of ways his communication stream could have been hacked and came up empty.
There’d been moments during their fight that he’d thought the fucker was in his head, predicting what he’d do before Sawyer did it. He’d blanked his thoughts on purpose and had come out on top because of it.
The doctor cleared her throat. “He didn’t say much at all,” she added.
There it was, the tightness that told him she withheld information. He narrowed his eyes at her and continued to pace.
“Why does Cazin want you?”
A huff of breath left her, her focus on her wrists. “I don’t know who that is. You should know more than I do. You were the one sent to collect me.”
He couldn’t detect a lie there either. And if she didn’t have some personal connection with Cazin, then this entire thing circled around the Calypson.
“How did the fucker control the beasts?”
The regenerator stopped, and so did he. Holding her forearm, she stared up at him with an uneasy expression, then shook her head.
His hand tightened on the scalpel.
“Silently,” she said a second later, her voice quiet. “Somehow.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know.”
She refocused on her wrist, most of the redness gone.
“Why was he at your outpost?”
Her entire body stiffened, the regenerator jerking against her skin. She didn’t look up when she said, “I don’t know.”
“Lie,” he spat, resuming his pacing. “You do know, and you’re going to tell me.” He had the urge to turn on the laser scalpel for emphasis, but knew the effect would be lost on her.
“Same reason as you,” she finally murmured. “He said he was there to collect me.”
There was truth there, but something else too. He didn’t have the time to explore it more. “Where was he going to take you?”
She tensed and shook her head.
Sawyer stopped and kept his voice even. “Where was he taking you?”
She kept her head down when she said, “Sector Ten.”
He heard the terror in her voice, the uncertainty. She hadn’t wanted to go with him—the first reaction he could relate to.
“Then why help him?” It was a pointless question when he had so many more to ask, but it burned to be answered.
Why did she help a Calypson? Why did she try to stop him from attacking one of the biggest threats in the solar system?
Everyone knew what they could do to a person, what they were capable of if you got too close, though the how of it remained a mystery.
Which begged the question, how was she still human?
She lifted her chin and met his gaze. “He treated me with more respect than an asshole like you.” Her jaw flexed. “And I would do it again if given the chance.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, more questions needing to be answered, but their time together was short. On cue, his PALM beeped, letting him know the timer he’d set had run out.
Turning on his heel, Sawyer left the good doctor on her knees staring after him, and made his way to the bow of the ship.
A slender spiral staircase punched upward, and he took the steps two at a time to the upper level.
Plush carpet dampened every stride as he passed through the sitting area toward the cockpit.
With a swipe of his PALM, the door slid open, revealing a four-seat setup that would rival any ship out there.
The creamy smooth texture of the upholstery contrasted with the black of the shiny terminals that wrapped around the entire bulbous cockpit.
Above them, a viewer showed the unending vista of space.
He slid into the pilot’s chair, the upholstery squeaking as it rubbed against the material of his flight-suit. A flashing red light on the main control panel drew his attention. He tapped it to turn it off—a summons from Earth’s orbital station, and another from Jupiter One, Jannex’s home base.
The administrator would have lost his shit when he found out about his commandeered ship. Sawyer relished the thought. Any time he could stick it to the ruling class, he would.
Ignoring both summons, he adjusted their course. He hadn’t wanted to go straight to the Corvus without first interrogating the good doctor and had plotted an arched route that would take them there eventually. But his time for detours was over.
Another communique appeared, this one sent to him directly. Cazin’s signature scrolled across the bottom of his ocular implant. With only a short span remaining on this trip, it was time to send his update.
His fingers twitched. Not yet. He couldn’t send the past days as raw data.
He started with the last hour in the cargo hold. The radiation down there was always a bitch for sensors, making it easy to erase how he’d strung her up by the wrists. He went all the way back to the moment they stepped on this ship and he’d knocked her out.
I don’t have time for this. A rushed job meant a messy job, and he’d done this twice in the past week.
Maybe it was time to cut himself loose from the CORE before they decided he was worth the termination order. He could use his extensive contacts to disappear and never resurface on the government’s radar.
A problem for another day. He was already short on time.
He continued to scrub anything that revealed the doctor’s resistance in coming along. Adding some personal but benign facts to the brief, he concluded with, She’s been an absolute delight, before sending the package to the Corvus.
He didn’t know why he’d lied. She’d been anything but cooperative, but he also knew what reception she’d garner on a Guardian if he marked her as a hostile.
And he definitely didn’t mention that she’d helped a Calypson.