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Distrustfully, she assessed me. “How much?”
“More than you can imagine,” I answered, hoping Daryus would indeed reward her, but I couldn’t imagine he wouldn’t. I had to believe that he wanted me back as much as I wanted to get back to him. We had shared something special, something deep. I had to believe that.
“I can imagine a whole lot.” The girl nodded. “But Gitgo will kill me and credits won’t do me any good if I’m dead.”
She was right about that. “You wouldn’t have to come back here or stay here. You could take your mom or dad away from here,” I tried to lure her.
“Like I would share with that sack of a wasted lifeform,” she spat to the ground, leaving me wondering if she was referring to her mother or father.
“Once I’m away from here, I could find a place for you,” I offered.
“Nah, I think, I’m just gonna—” And with those words, quick as a dart, she snatched the can from my hands and jumped back. “—take your trash. Have a good day, human.”
Defeated, I looked after her as she jumped up on the incinerator with the trash in her little arms and then up over the wall where I couldn’t see her any longer.
I trotted back to Gitgo’s house. The alien sat on the same chair I had sat in before he woke me, staring at me with his three eyes. “Where’s my trash can?”
“A little girl took it,” I said, preparing myself to be zapped by him. The small disc remote sat right in front of his hand.
He cackled. “Serthia? Sneaky little brat. Did she promise to send a message for you if you paid her?”
It hadn’t been quite like that, but close enough, and my stricken expression must have told him because he cackled some more. “You have no friends here, lady,” he pronounced the title like it was something despicable. “You’ll learn that soon enough. Nobody will help you, no matter what you promise, only hard credits or gems count. Nothing else.”
Besides my nightgown, I had nothing. Not on me. Lady Natoi had given me plenty of jewelry, but they were all safe and sound in my bedroom, where I should be.
“Now get moving and clean the other room,” Gitgo commanded, moving to the fridge and pulling out a plate filled with what looked like salami, making my mouth water and stomach grumble despite my brain telling me that this most likely wasn’t salami. Still, my stomach cramped painfully as I walked past him to get to the cleaning bucket, wondering what I would use to pick up all the trash I could see from here in the other room, and what I would do with it once I had collected it.
This time I swore I would just dump it right where I stood in front of the damn incinerator, not giving a damn.
“She denied any involvement vehemently, but my powers of persuasion brought her to her senses. She admitted to having conspired with Sir Vodin to have Lady Heather kidnapped. I’m sorry, Emperor, I know how much she meant to you.”
Meant to me? Past time? I narrowed my eyes. “What are you saying?”
“I’m sorry, but Lady Natoi admitted that Sir Vodin’s guards were supposed to kill Lady Heather and dump her body in the ocean,” Lady Madeema informed me with a contrite expression that was betrayed by a gleam in her eyes.
I stared at her. That couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.
Rage took over. “Out!”
I screamed, not watching her scurry away, before I smashed the first glass I found into the wall, followed by another.
“Nocc!” I screamed so loud I feared I broke my vocal cords. That was the last coherent thought I had, before everything went red.
For a long time.
When I slowly regained my senses, I stared at the utter destruction I had wrought. I was draped in the same blanket that Heather and I had used on my bed before my entire world had shattered. I still smelled her on it.
She couldn’t be dead, she just couldn’t.
I walked to the broken window. The floor was littered with shards of glass and broken pieces of rock from statues I had torn down in my rage. They crunched underneath my boots, but I didn’t hear anything.
I stood on the balcony and stared out over the ocean, visible in the distance. Right here, where Heather and I had stood not too long ago. Draped in the blanket we had made love on.
She was supposed to be out there?
Grief gripped me so hard, it nearly tore my heart from my chest, making it hard to breathe. Nocc! This just couldn’t be true.
Having spent most of my energy and anger by destroying my suite, I was finally able to think more clearly again. Sir Vodin had courted her, he had wanted to meet her again. I couldn’t believe that he would have harmed her. I saw the look on his face when he spoke to her, the male had been besotted.
