AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You hold tight here,” the growly one said with a mean snarl, peering at her through the bars of the cell. “But don’t worry, you won’t be staying long. We’re going to bump you up to the next shipment.”
He gave her a wink that made her skin crawl before turning and heading back down the hallway where she and Dante had been together not long before.
The Jorvlen’s words chilled her, though, pushing away any warm thoughts of Dante. Tinsley didn’t know what he meant exactly, but she could guess, and it didn’t sound pleasant. She sent up a silent message to Dante but suddenly realized she could do one better.
She almost laughed as she realized that the idiot Jorvlens, in all their gloating, hadn’t taken her comm.
Chapter 30
The Thunder Bolt hummed to life under Dante’s touch, and soon he was rising through the forest under the ship’s cloaking tech. For a second, he let the ship hover just under the canopy, as if hesitating.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to himself and to Tinsley.
Dante was overcome by the sudden urge to turn the ship around and bring it crashing into the side of the facility. He had images of himself jumping out of the cockpit, guns blazing, shooting down any Jorvlen who crossed his path until he found Tinsley and wrenched her back from the pirates’ grasp.
But that was nonsense and he knew it. If he didn’t kill himself in the act of crash-landing the ship, he’d no doubt be overtaken by Jorvlens within moments of exiting the vehicle. Even if he somehow managed to get to Tinsley, totaling the ship would mean they had no way of getting out again.
No, his only chance of saving her was to leave her behind, as much as it pained him.
He let out a heavy sigh before shifting the transporter into gear and sending it rocketing out of Seisi’s atmosphere. But the whole time he was thinking of Tinsley, wondering where they had taken her and what would happen to her when she got there.
It didn’t take him long to find out.
“New tracker detected,” came Buzz’s voice over the ship’s speakers just as Dante brought the ship into Seisi’s orbit.
Dante’s sullen visage suddenly transformed into a smile as he scrambled to get the tracking screen up. After a few button presses, it appeared in front of him. The ship had already twisted to face the small, red planet, and suddenly the screen showed an image of Seisi overlaid on the real thing.
There, on the holographic map, he saw a small blinking red light. Tinsley.
Dante breathed a sigh of relief, staring at the dot for a moment and willing it to be okay. He could see she’d been taken inside the facility, and he zoomed in, not sure exactly where she’d been taken.
What he saw ripped the smile right off his face and replaced it with a look of dread. Tinsley was in the basement, right inside the hallway they’d explored together. In fact, he could even see her cell.
Suddenly another thought occurred to Dante—one that made his blood turn to ice.
What if they’ve drugged her?
He knew how dangerous and how powerful Motley was. Hell, they’d seen it with their own eyes—cell after cell of unconscious women, drugged for gods knew how long and for what purpose.
The thought of the same thing happening to Tinsley was nauseating. For the second time, he considered flying right back down there and extracting her himself, and for the second time, he reluctantly shook that thought away.
What he had to do was call for backup.
With a tightness in his chest, Dante found Bran’s name on his comm and started a call. The way they’d left Tinsley’s ship—in a state of disrepair with little hope of fixing it on that tiny substation—made him wonder if there was any way the backup he was about to call could get there.
But his fears were dashed almost as soon as he heard Bran’s voice.
“Yes, captain?” came the first mate’s answer immediately.
Dante smiled. He knew he could trust his crew to be ready at a moment’s notice, and he was sure they would have figured something out in his absence. That’s what they were hired for, after all.
“Bran,” he began, “I hope to the gods the Nebula is up and running by now, because we need your help.”
“Good news, captain!” came the words that Dante was hoping to hear. “The substation crew was able to order in some spare parts. Captain Adams’ ship is ready to go. Where do you need us?”
Dante could feel his chest relaxing, just a little.
“I’m orbiting the small planet of Seisi. Tinsley’s been captured and is being held there. And not just her. The facility is full of kidnapped women. I need you here as quickly as possible.”
