I barely felt myself land on the carpet. Pain shot through every inch of me, except my feet which were still inside the boundary. The collar squeezed shut. I tried to hold my breath. I pushed the pain away and yanked at the carpet square. I'd missed. I scrabbled around me, yanking at every patch of carpet I could sink my fingers into. None of them moved. I was running out of time.
"Idiot," Rivian said as he crouched next to me. He shoved me to one side and pulled up the carpet that had been under me. He reached into a hole in the floor.
I tried to be patient while he fiddled inside. I was running out of air. The collar was squeezing my neck in half. Pain burned through me. I felt the first twinges of convulsing muscles that signaled my dose of the drug was wearing off. I silently swore to myself. At least my death would come quickly. I wasn't going to live through the next day unless I could steal some of Shomies' stock.
"Got it," Rivian said.
The collar relaxed. The pain went away except for a spreading ache from lack of the drug that stayed. I pushed myself up to my knees.
"And what do you think you are doing?" Shomies said. She towered over us like an avenging devil out of a really bad vid. She glared down at us, the fire painting her face from one side with evil orange light.
Rivian stood up slowly. He drew himself to his full height, barely more than my short stature. He glared at Shomies.
She brushed him aside to focus her rage on me. She held a small blaster in her hand. "Get back in there," she said, waving the gun at the tiny bit of floor.
I stood up, next to Rivian. "Go ahead, shoot me."
She snarled and raised her gun. The entire front of the building shattered. Glass crashed to the floor, spreading across the carpet. Shomies turned to look. Stray shots scattered into the room. She turned back to us, the gun aimed at my head.
"Then you can die," she said. She lowered her aim to my belly. "I hear you can live for hours if I aim right."
I gathered what strength I had, fighting down the aching pain spreading through every muscle. I tensed to jump.
"No," Rivian shouted. He jumped in front of me just as Shomies fired. He staggered back against me. I fell, with him landing in my lap.
Someone screamed near the window. Shomies turned away from us, headed for the window.
"Dace?" Rivian's voice was weak, pleading. "It hurts."
"Just lie still," I told him, cradling him in my lap. His wound was bad. She'd burned away half of his stomach.
"I have a gun." He tried to reach into his belt. He gasped with pain. "Shoot her," he pleaded with me.
"Why?" I couldn't help asking. It was obvious he loved her in his own twisted way.
"She never bothered to learn my name," he answered. "Say it for me. Please. No one called me by my name in years. Until she brought you here." He stopped to grimace with pain. "Shoot her now."
I eased the gun out of his belt. It was another small blaster. Shomies had stopped only a dozen steps away. She was turning back to us. She saw the gun in my hand and froze.
"You're going to shoot me now?" Her voice was taunting. "You don't have the guts for it, Dace."
"You killed him," I said. "Do you even care?"
"Him? I can always buy another slave." She said it so casually, as if his life meant nothing to her. As if he were only an insect to swat, something insignificant bothering her.
Rivian grabbed the gun from me and fired. The shot caught Shomies low in the stomach. She grunted in surprise, staring down at the charred mess of her belly. Rivian was sobbing as he shot her again. She collapsed to the floor, landing with a thud. Rivian dropped the gun. He turned towards me, sobbing and moaning in pain.
I put my arm around his shoulder and pulled him close. He clutched me, leaving blood smeared across my slave tunic. His breathing grew ragged. He wasn't going to live much longer.
"I won't forget you, Rivian."
"As long as you live?"
"It won't be more than a day."
"Say my name?"
"Rivian, river of peace," I added in the language of Dadilan, his native tongue.
He sighed and died.
I laid him carefully on the floor. He looked young again, frozen forever in death. I crossed his arms over his chest.
One of the flitters outside exploded. I looked up. Nione fell back to one of the storage sheds on the far side of the courtyard. There seemed to be people with guns everywhere out there.
I looked back down at Rivian's face. I didn't want to die here. Shomies sprawled on the carpet nearby, half of her obese body a charred ruin. Death only made her pitiful. I looked past her corpse to the hidden door. I didn't have time to search for the drug. I didn't know if I'd recognize it if I found it.
"I want her found!" Luke's voice was loud in a sudden lull outside.
I knew he was talking about me. I had to leave. I'd rather die alone than with him. I had to leave now.
My body protested as I ran for the blasted windows. My bare feet crunched over glass. I ignored the pain. All of it. My muscles twitched, warning of the spasms to come. I hurried faster.
I slipped out on one side of the broken windows into the deep shadow behind the haphazardly parked flitters. One of the explosions had blown open the gate to the outside world. I slipped through shadows towards the illusion of freedom it promised.
Luke shouted orders, waving a huge blaster to emphasize them. His people headed into the mansion, their boots crunching over the glass on the carpet. Luke followed them inside.
I darted out of my shadow and ran for the gate. I expected to hear him behind me at any second. My legs cramped, almost dumping me on my face. I stumbled on, through the gates and into the night.
The mansion was next to a shallow gully. Rocks climbed the far side, studded with short, fleshy plants that glowed faintly in the starlight overhead. I stumbled into the gully. I didn't care what direction I was headed. Away was all that mattered.
I was halfway across, my feet brushing through deep sand, when the first stabbing pain hit. I had to stop, clutching my belly and biting my lip to keep from screaming. I concentrated on breathing until the pain finally receded. Shomies' words floated up in my mind. First would come the pain. It would get worse, becoming a constant. Sometime soon I would start to hallucinate. And then the convulsions would start. And I would be aware of all of it until the very end.
It didn't matter. I was free. I was going to die free. I stumbled across the sand. Another bout of pain sent me to my knees. I gasped and vomited. It was nothing but bile. I staggered back to my feet, determined to get far enough away that Luke couldn't possibly find me. I didn't want him to have the satisfaction of even finding my body.
I reached the far side of the gully and started up the bank on the other side. The rocks were sharp and bruising on my bare feet. The ground was rough. I stumbled and went down on one knee. I reached out without thinking and grabbed one of the weird plants. It was covered with stinging hairs. I jerked my hand back, tears in my eyes at the sudden sharp pain. I got back to my feet and kept going, pushing myself with everything I had left.
"Dace?"
I stopped at the top of the rise and closed my eyes against the pain. I couldn't have heard that voice, the one that still haunted my dreams. Tayvis wasn't here, he couldn't be here. I was hallucinating.
"Dace?"
His voice again, closer this time, his boots crunching across the loose rock. I didn't want this pain. Hadn't Shomies already won? Why was I torturing myself? Why wouldn't my heart let him go? I couldn't keep my eyes closed any longer. He was just a hallucination, but I couldn't not look. I turned my head towards his voice.
He stood not far away. He watched me, uncertain and vulnerable. The pain in his eyes was like a knife in my heart. I stared at him, drinking in every detail of his face. I didn't want to die alone. The vision my mind conjured up was going to have to be enough for me.
"I've got her, Clark," he said into a com unit fastened to one shoulder.
I blinked, confused. Why would my mind put him in a green shipsuit, one with a flaming bird on the shoulder? And why was he talking to Clark?
It didn't matter. It hurt too much, even if it wasn't real. I looked away, down at the ground and forced myself to keep stumbling forward.
I didn't make it far. Three steps and I fell onto my face. Pain shot through me, every muscle screaming. I felt a building cramp in my legs. I curled up on the ground and tried to just breathe.
Tayvis knelt beside me, dropping a rifle I hadn't noticed nearby. He slid one arm under me, lifting me off the rocky ground.
"Where are you hurt?" he asked urgently once he saw the blood streaked down the front of my tunic.
I stared at him in shock. He was warm. He was real. I wasn't hallucinating. I reached up to touch his face, to prove to myself he really was here.
"You came for me?" I whispered with what voice I had left.
He touched the collar on my neck. He looked sick. "Where are you hurt?" he asked again.
I wanted to answer that I was fine, now that he was here, but it was a lie. I was dying. I leaned against him, listening to his heart beat.
"Dace, what did she do to you?" he asked. He ran his hand over my middle, searching for the source of the blood.
"It isn't mine," I said.
"Then what?"
"Drugs," I said, my voice slurring. "I'm addicted to dreamdust."
The convulsion hit suddenly. I jerked violently, every muscle going into spasms. Tayvis pulled me close and held me tightly. It hurt but it felt good at the same time.
"What's wrong?" Clark asked as he came up to us. His boots sounded like gunshots in my ears.
"She went into convulsions," Tayvis answered. "I don't know what's wrong. I couldn't understand her."
Clark peeled back one of my eyelids and peered into my eye. He ran his hand over my neck, feeling for my pulse. Clark had med training somewhere in his background.
"She needs help and fast," Clark said. "Didn't you say Shomies specialized in drugs?"
"This isn't glitter or stardust," Tayvis said. "Dace wouldn't ever take anything like that."
"Unless she had no choice," Clark answered. "Let's get back to the flitter."
"The medunit in the ship can't handle this," Tayvis said. I heard the truth in his voice. I was going to die. He knew it. But he had come for me. It was enough. It had to be. It was all I had left.
"Let's go," Clark said.
The convulsions were lessening. Tayvis picked me up. I hung limp in his arms, too tired and in too much pain to say anything.
"Hang on, Dace," he whispered as he carried me across the rough ground.
I looked up, at the stars. It was enough, it had to be. Even if I still wanted more. I wasn't going to get it.
Tayvis paused, crouching behind a rock. He shifted me into a new position. He pressed my head against his shoulder. I was surprised to realize I was crying.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered into my hair. He kissed my forehead as he picked me up again.
I wanted to tell him I was sorry, too, that I forgave him everything. I couldn't make my mouth work. I could only try to fight the pain and hold on as long as I could.
"Almost there," Tayvis said as we crunched down the far side of another gully. Clark stayed near the top, one rifle slung over his shoulder, the other one held low ready to fire.
I could feel another convulsion building. My legs started twitching. Tayvis set me down next to a tiny flitter. He felt the tremors building in me and held me close again.
Clark came down to join us. He opened the door of the flitter and tossed the rifles inside. "No sign of pursuit. We should have just enough time to make it to the rendezvous point."
Tayvis held me while I jerked uncontrollably. I had so much I wanted to tell him. I silently cursed Pardui and her drug. It left me aware but unable to say anything. The pain ripped through me, over and over. I wasn't going to last much longer.
The convulsions finally slowed. Tayvis scooped me up and tucked me into the flitter on a small platform behind the two seats. He shoved the rifles out of the way and gently laid me down in the space. It wasn't very big. My legs were curled up. My head was behind Clark as he took the pilot's seat.
"Just hang on," Tayvis told me, a note of desperation creeping into his voice. He tucked a blanket around and under me, cushioning the worst of the bumps.
Clark didn't wait. He took us up into the air while Tayvis was turning around to sit in his own seat.
"We're going to have to fly low," Clark said. "We've got major activity overhead. Flip the lights off."
The inside of the flitter went dark except for the dim glow of the instrument panel. I closed my eyes. I was shivering now, burning and freezing at the same time. The swooping of the flitter made my stomach churn.
I was suddenly very sick. I threw up. It triggered another convulsion. Tayvis knelt backwards in his seat, holding me and trying to keep me from bumping into Clark. The pain went on and on. My muscles were screaming.
I tried to drag in a breath. My chest was tight. I wheezed and coughed. And threw up again, starting another round of spasms. Tayvis held me in place, his hands warm on my shoulder and hip.
The flitter swooped to one side. Something exploded outside.
"Someone found us," Clark said. "Hang on."
The flitter swerved on a crazy path. Tayvis smacked into the side of the flitter. I rolled helplessly. He braced himself, half climbing into the cargo space. He planted one arm behind my back, his other hand braced against the roof. Clark took us on a dive. I rolled forward, smashing into the back of the seats. It didn't help that I was almost doubled over with convulsions. Every muscle was cramping.
I dragged in a painful breath as Tayvis pulled me onto my back. He watched me with concern. I stared up at his face, wishing things were different. He leaned over me as Clark sent us into a steep climb. There were more explosions to either side of us as he swerved. I stared at the green suit Tayvis was wearing. He'd found the Phoenix. He'd joined the crew or Jasyn would never have let him wear it. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I tried to breathe instead. Each breath was getting harder. I could feel my body shutting down. I dragged in a final breath.
I made the effort to speak using everything I had left. "I love you," I managed in a final whisper.
The world was fading away. I let it slip.