Page 8 of Healer Hunted

With some kind of important visitor arriving in a few days, the need to escape was growing. I had a sinking feeling I knew just who it was that my mother was preparing for. I didn’t plan on being here, and I didn’t want Noa to be here either. My mother had lost her amazing ability at empathy, the one I’d inherited from her, when she’d been injured when her ship crashed. Yet, she was smart enough to read social cues and I had no doubt that she’d seen my interest in the colorful human girl.

My eyes strayed to her form where she lay curled on the couch. Pato sat next to her head, carefully watching me as I worked. She was of average size for a human, but that still made her small compared to my six feet, and she was slender, with thin wrists and prominent cheekbones. She needed more food, especially when her system was running in a higher gear at the moment, she knew it too, from the way she’d attacked that food earlier.

I approached her once I’d checked the last task off the list for my room, gently sitting down next to her so I could wake her. I didn’t want to, because she looked peaceful asleep, and I could shamelessly stare at the colorful tattoos that decorated her arms and legs. Like a pervert, I wondered if they went all the way up her body, how much of her was covered with them? The patterns resembled flowers, big pink blooms, yellow ones, and even purple and blue. It would have looked loud and might have even clashed if not for the exquisite way the ink had been drawn onto her skin and the way green vines tied everything together.

My eyes snagged on the inside of her left wrist, where one pattern didn’t match the rest of her tattoos. Framed in leaves, in red ink, a staff with two twining serpents had been drawn, wings flaring out from either side at the top. It was a beautiful symbol, and it had been tastefully framed by her other artwork, but it did stand out as different.

“It’s a Caduceus,” she murmured. With her right she traced the symbol on her wrist, her voice still husky from sleep. “My mother was a nurse, and the Caduceus is sometimes used to represent medicine. It’s also supposedly the symbol of Hermes, the God of Thieves and Outlaws… It’s a reminder of my roots.” A medical symbol, a symbol of healers but also one of outlaws? That resonated with me on such a level that I could only stare at it, my fingers tracing over the delicate, dark red lines etched into her skin.

My gladiator friends were all outlaws in a way, with bounties on their heads courtesy of Drameil, our former owner. I had checked, there was no such bounty for me, but I felt outlawed all the same, touched by that dark period of my life when I was forced to work for the crimelord. I didn’t fit into my old life anymore and I didn’t want to, I’d learned enough about myself that that would have never made me happy anyway.

“It’s lovely, all your artwork is beautiful,” I told her truthfully, our eyes meeting. She gave me a soft smile, still sleepy, and I felt my heart race in response. Her emotions were soft and receptive, it was almost enough to convince me that if I leaned in and kissed her, she would let me.

We’d never know how that would have ended, a sound at the door had me lean back and leap to my feet. I was standing protectively in front of her before I’d even made any conscious choice to move. My mother stepped into the room, her high heels clacking on the polished stone floors of the suite. She already had a haughty, disdainful look on her face, as if she’d known exactly what had been going on in here moments ago. Or rather, almost had.

Noa straightened from the couch, I could hear the rustling of her clothing as she fixed her uniform. I held my mother’s cool stare, trying not to feel like I was that fourteen year old again that got called into her office all the time. The one that had refused to believe how much she’d changed since the accident.

“Lukalyn, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You still haven’t learned a damn thing have you? I can’t believe you’re cavorting with the housekeeper when your eager fiancee is about to arrive!” she said, her lip curled in disgust as she gazed at the hovercart with cleaning supplies. “My own son, cleaning? And you,” she turned to glare at Noa, “Think you can get away with lazing about, think you have him twisted around your little finger don’t you?”

I sensed the spike of fear coming from Noa, her alarm. Which was warranted, because the next moment my mother lifted a hand with long manicured nails, glimmering the same icy blue as her dress. She pointed one finger at Noa and a torrent of pain unleashed itself on the small human female. She let out one startled yelp, then collapsed to the floor on her hands and knees, and bore that current of pain in silence.

No way could I be as stoic about it as Noa was, while the pain I felt coming from her was only an echo, not the full blow, it still stung, and it was only too familiar. I’d experienced that kind of treatment far too often the past three years. I leaped at my mother and slammed her hand down, “You do that again and I will kill you!” I growled into her face, but that only made her smirk so I added, “I will fight you tooth and nail on every single plan you’ve got for me. I would rather die than cooperate, you hear me?”

Her bottomless black eyes were entirely dark, not a hint of a glimmer, a shine. She inclined her head slowly, indicating she heard me and I backed up, slowly letting go of her. Then I turned to Noa to help her up from the hard stone floor. “Are you okay?” I asked even though my senses told me the pain had gone and that she now felt shaky but otherwise remained unharmed.

She looked up, her blue eyes shiny with tears but gave me a firm nod as she climbed to her feet. The hate-filled glare she gave my mother, I felt it all the way done in my bones, I couldn’t agree more. I was relieved however that Noa kept her smart mouth shut and just glared, if she made one of those snappy sarcastic comments that she liked to aim my way, I wasn’t sure if my mother would care in the heat of the moment that I’d threatened her.

“You,” my mother said, pointing at Noa, “Finish your damn work. Don’t let me see you again.” Noa tilted her head to give me a look that I couldn’t decipher, her emotions a tangled, angry mess. She took her cart and darted from the room. As the door opened, I was grateful to notice that neither of my cousins was out in the hallway, just the Rummicaron guard, but he didn’t seem interested in anything but doing his job.

As the door closed, my mother stepped in front of it and into my line of sight again. I had managed to topple her fancy hairdo so it was now in some disarray and she was fastidiously fixing it up as she glared at me. “I don’t care what you think son, you are not consorting with some lowly housekeeper.”

“Don’t you mean slave?” I said, and then added full of derision, “As I’ve been for the past three years? Did you even care enough to look for me when I was taken? Did you know what I went through?” I was furious with her, with how abandoned I’d felt while I’d been forced to work for Drameil. I knew my mother hadn’t been capable of feeling any kind of love since the accident, but to her, family was everything. Our reputation, our name. I couldn’t believe that she’d just drop me like a stone.

I’d surfed the data streams after I’d been freed and seen the pretty act she’d put on, about how her beloved son was gone. How she was horrified by what had happened and prayed for my safe return, but no real search had been undertaken. It was all an act, one she’d had to carefully orchestrate because she wouldn’t have been able to fool any empathic Aderian. That footage had all been recorded in private, by my cousins probably.

She waved a hand in dismissal, “That wasn’t real slavery, that was just to teach you a lesson.” Her words sank into me like poisoned arrows, hitting me so hard that I staggered back into the couch that Noa had just vacated. Had she really just admitted that she’d known all along where I was?

At my horrified look, she made a tsssking sound, “Oh, don’t act so surprised. I was sure you knew. Didn’t Drameil tell you why you were there? I was sure that would teach you that a hospital was no place for you. When you got free, you were supposed to run back home with your tail between your legs.” The disappointed look on her face told me just how much she thought I’d failed her by staying away. It only confirmed how right my choice had been to stay with the gladiators aboard the Vagabond.

Chapter 5

Noa

My legs were shaking by the time I was finished with the suites and all the extra work. Polishing the silver lights from the top floor hallway and the two stairwells had left my hands cramped and stained with black. I was done so late that I’d missed the evening meal, but my stomach was still fairly satisfied after that delicious food from Luka’s room.

It was a struggle to get the hovercart into the storage in the basement, my tired body just not managing the snug maneuver like normal. When a soft little chirp pierced the silence I thought at first that I was imagining things. Then a little head poked out from between a wad of dirty towels, a huge tuft of white fur surrounding a black face.

Pato, Luka’s pet monkey, he’d smuggled himself out in my hovercart and I hadn’t noticed all day. “Hey, what are you doing here, silly?” I said softly. Casting a furtive look over my shoulder I made sure I was alone before I nudged the door shut behind me. I stuck out a hand slowly, not wanting to spook him but he wasn’t bothered. “Come here Pato, I guess you can stay with me tonight.”

At the sound of my voice, he popped out of his hiding place and scurried up my arm. I unbuttoned the top of my uniform and he needed no prompting to climb inside. Now I just hoped he’d stay quiet as I made my way back to my bunk. I was going to be in a lot of trouble if anyone found out I had the little monkey with me.

First, I shook out the towels Pato had slept in and was about to throw them down the laundry chute when something clattered to the ground. A card. I stared at it, unsure if what I was seeing was real. That was an access card for all the amenities in the hotel. My palm print was only keyed for the hotel rooms, the kitchen, and the basement. With this, I could access the resort itself, and more importantly, the spaceport just outside the protective dome.

My mind started racing with possibilities as I praised Pato for the excellent theft of the card. Stepping out of my shoe, I hid the card inside it, trying not to show how giddy I was as I headed to my bunk. All my exhaustion fell away, my only thought that I wished I could share this fortuitous find with Luka.

My bunkmate was already asleep. An Aderian woman named Mikasul, the story was that she’d crossed the Dragon. She only worked in the kitchen because nobody was meant to know she was there. I didn’t like the middle-aged woman, nobody did, because she was mean and spiteful. She tattled on anyone if it could gain her perks, or give her a leg up somewhere. So it was imperative I hid Pato and the card from her prying eyes.

I didn’t trust that she was asleep so I climbed onto my bunk, the top one. Undressing furtively in the dark, I curled beneath my blankets protectively around Pato’s small body, clutching the card tightly between my fingers.