Page 9 of Healer Hunted

The crinkling of an empty wrapper was what alerted me that someone had attempted to care for me, Aradne or Moira, most likely, had tried to sneak me food. Mikasul had eaten it and she’d left the wrapper to rub it in. To let me know I couldn’t hide things from her.

I clutched the card tighter, thoughts and plans whirling through my head. My stomach rumbled just a little at the thought of that missed meal. I tried to tell the little monkey that he needed to stay quiet, but it took a very long time for me to fall asleep.

Especially when I remembered how the Dragon had just slipped a casual mention of a fiancee into the conversation that morning. Luka was engaged apparently, not that he’d sounded all that enthused about it. There was this stubborn niggle of doubt in the back of my head, how many rich guys had flirted with me back on Colony Four? Rich guys, that were blatantly engaged but didn’t give a single shit about being caught cheating? I couldn’t stand that type, and while Luka was saying he was a captive, while everything pointed towards this being the truth, a part of me did worry.

*

Luka

I couldn’t find Pato anywhere and was really starting to get worried. I could only think of one thing that could have happened, he’d snuck off with Noa. I didn’t know for sure though, and it was the not knowing that was driving me crazy.

More than anything, I wanted to see her again. After my mother had left, I was worried that she’d do something to her, take out her frustrations. I’d done what I could to warn her off after she’d noticed my interest in the human female, but I feared that my mother would figure out a way to get me to play her games.

Pacing through my suite I’d spend all afternoon and evening trying to work on an escape plan. The only thing I knew for sure was that running for the resort’s spaceport next door was sure to fail, my mother would have all kinds of fail-safes in place to prevent me from getting away through that port. She had no control over the small landing strip next to the science outpost however, so when Noa and I made our break for it, it had to be there. There was no doubt in my mind that I’d be escaping with Noa, I was not leaving her behind. Not when we’d created some kind of dependency on each other that I had to figure out, not when it would make her sick enough to die.

The medkit and handheld had been taken back as soon as I’d used them on Noa. I’d thankfully had the foresight to delete all data from the device before I handed it over, I shuddered to think what my mother would do if she had hold of the information I’d gleaned through that scan of Noa that day.

If only I’d had the foresight to also gather a hypo-spray or syringe with a sedative. If I had something like that, I could be certain I’d manage to knock out the guard. With a few more tools I knew I could take care of Noa’s slave collar. Knowing that that pretty white lace hid such a horrible tool… I didn’t think I’d ever look at lace the same way again, not that I’d ever given it much thought before.

When breakfast was brought up that morning by the tall Xurtal woman with the sharp, filed-down teeth she had a message for me. “Pato is safe,” she huffed at me in a gruff voice that fit with her muscular build. I didn’t have to look twice to know that this female had been forced to fight in a gladiator ring. The even more underground, female-only kind. She was old enough to have aged out of the ring but attractive enough that in her uniform she matched the aesthetic my mother liked.

“Thank you, is he with Noa?” I asked her, but she didn’t say another word, just stalked from the room. Whew, okay, her emotional temperature was indifferent at most, but she was clearly not a talker. At least now I knew where Pato was, and that Noa was okay, or she wouldn’t have been able to relay a message like this.

When a tailor arrived later that morning I saw my chance, stealing a pair of plain scissors and some needles from her toolkit. Next time Noa came in I’d have that pain collar disabled in a moment; if she’d trust me to work on it.

Only, she never showed up that day, another girl came in to clean my room. This one didn’t have a message and she outright refused to talk to me. I didn’t want to risk my connection with Noa by asking this female to give her a message for me. But the next day when it was the same girl again, I was starting to give it more serious thought. My mother had switched Noa’s schedule, she’d made sure I wouldn’t see her again. I didn’t think Noa was avoiding me this time around.

This was a huge problem though, last time she’d managed to stay away for two weeks and she’d been really bad off by then. If she hadn’t arrived at my suite that day, I was sure she would have collapsed somewhere else and that would have been the end of things. The doctor for the resort wouldn’t have known what was wrong with her if she’d even been brought in for treatment.

Would she be able to survive two weeks again? Or had the dependency grown stronger? Judging from my own anxiousness, the restless pacing that overtook me most of the time… It had grown stronger. Like last time, I resorted to a workout routine my gladiator friends had taught me. That first time Sunder had run me through it, I’d come out a wrangled, pained mess. Nowadays I upped the number of reps every week, and here at the resort, every day. I was stronger, and it was a side effect of what was going on between Noa and me. I really needed a handheld and a lab to figure this out, but I didn’t see one forthcoming any time soon.

On day three I was ready to break down the door and tackle the guard, I was ninety percent certain that I could actually take him. Out, I would have to scour the resort to locate Noa but I had a feeling she would have a bunk down in the basement. I could hide out in the laundry room until she returned.

The plan was vague, and it was dumb, so I was relieved when that morning’s housekeeper was accompanied by Pato leaping from her cart. She appeared utterly shocked at the sight of the little monkey, which meant the female hadn’t known he was there. That meant I couldn’t trust her, so I took Pato and locked myself in the bathroom to check him over. Yes, there! He had something in his little hands, I just hoped the female hadn’t noticed it.

And, just as I’d hoped for, it was a syringe, the label telling me it was a sedative. So Noa hadn’t been idle, she’d gotten her hands on something really good. Now I just needed to figure out the timing on this. How sick was the human woman feeling by now? And with that special guest of my mother’s arriving in less than two days… We needed to escape now.

Waiting until nightfall was my best bet, there wouldn’t be so many people about, and I could stay hidden. I dressed in the sturdiest clothes supplied to me, which wasn’t great. The decorative boots would probably fall apart halfway through our hike. The leather pants were thick and well made, but they were rather tight, meant to attract, not to go outdoors with. While the black shirt and sweater I pulled on were simply too fancy, too dressy to make sense. They’d do and I made sure to pack another set of pants and a sweater for Noa so she’d be warm. I also stripped the blankets off the bed and rolled them tightly to form a pack, we’d need something to sleep under outside.

With my heart pounding in my throat at the excitement to come, I paced in front of the suite door until well past midnight. My pack of meager supplies stashed in the corner, I made a banging sound on the side table, then hoarsely shouted, hoping it would be enough to alarm the guard.

Sure enough, I’d only just dashed to the side of the door when it swished open. I had the male by the throat, slamming him into the wall hard enough that pain reverberated up my own skull, my empathic gift picking up enough for it to hurt. Then I depressed the syringe in his thigh and watched the male thud to the floor as he collapsed.

I made short work of tying him to the bedpost, Pato eagerly chittering as he cheered me on. The male had better boots than mine, in the same size, which was a fantastic coincidence I wasn’t about to pass up on. Swapping shoes, I checked his belt for weapons and took the laser pistol and the set of keys, along with his identification card. Good, that would get me to where I needed to go.

Now I just needed to hope that this was what Noa had in mind when she sent me Pato with that syringe. I needed to find her, but I was certain I knew enough of the layout of the resort to know where to start.

The hallway was deserted, but I was sure it was being monitored by cameras. To avoid those as much as I could, I flicked a hood up over my head, hiding my features. I couldn’t do anything about leaving the suite, but I hoped they’d missed that part and wouldn’t think anything of seeing a guest walking the hallways at night.

I wanted to take the stairs, but Pato darted from my shoulders and headed for a hidden panel in the hallway. An elevator door to a service elevator, probably the one Noa used with her hovercart. That was much better, and the guard’s identification card got me the access I needed. The door slid open smoothly. Inside, I immediately noticed that there was no camera, and as I sent the elevator down, it rattled obnoxiously.

The basement level was dark and deserted, but Pato leaped from my shoulder and led the way. His tiny form was only visible to me by the bright white tuft of hair on top of his head and the flash of his white limbs. I broke into a jog to keep up with him, setting down my feet carefully to avoid making noise.

After a few twists and turns and we were in a hallway lined with doors and Pato halted in front of one of those. He tilted his head and stared at me and through my empathic senses, I caught a sharp warning, a sense of fear. So Noa might be behind that door, but she wasn’t alone.

I rehearsed what I had to do in my head, locate the enemy, neutralize it. Make sure that Noa was alright, and then we had to get out of here. Counting to three in my head, I nodded at Pato and burst through the door into the tiny cell.

Chapter 6