Panicked, I brought the titan stick up to strike my new enemy.
“Gara. It’s me.”
His voice penetrated, and I held still, regained control of myself, even as I watched Ulza roll and fall off the end of the platform.
“I got rid of your blue friend,” I told him, taking a deep breath.
Isaak had his hand up, toward me, apparently to ward off a stick attack, but he risked looking back over his shoulder. “Excellent.”
He stood and placed his palm on some kind of scanner. Immediately, the loading platform began to retract, the pieces sliding inside one another like an old-fashioned spyglass. The Cerberus bad guy who Isaak had been shooting at when I ran onto the ship appeared. Either Isaak was a horrible shot, or he had some kind of bulletproof vest like Ulza. Or whatever it was called in space. I had to give the guy points for perseverance, for he must have leaped to grab onto the edge, his fingers curled around the platform, hanging on like a monkey.
“Gara, can you take care of that? I need to start the engine.” Isaak dipped his chin in a pointed reference to my still crackling titan stick.
I glanced from the stick to the asshole trying to pull his elbows up onto the platform. “I can do that.”
Isaak took off down a small corridor at a dead run, putting his faith in me to take care of the pesky guy. I raised the titan stick, walked slowly toward the exposed hands grasping for purchase on the ever-shrinking ramp.
I swung once.
His hand disappeared.
Twice.
He lost his grip, but hand number one had returned.
“You asshole. I am not...”
Slam.
“Going...”
Slam.
“With you!”
The ship lurched beneath my feet as I slammed the stick down on the attacker’s hand for the last time. He fell with a bellow of rage, and I stood at the door, watching until it was completely sealed, making sure no more thugs needed a titan stick up their ass.
6
Zara
“Time to go!”
Isaak’s shout had me moving. I dropped the titan stick—no way was it fitting down the narrow corridor without accidentally electrocuting myself—and hustled in the direction of his voice.
I found the cockpit or whatever it was called in a spaceship. It was literally just like Star Wars with two seats and a shit-ton of buttons and dials and slider things. I settled into the empty seat beside him.
“Buckle up,” he said, not offering me a glance.
I heard and felt the hum of the engine as I clipped into the five-point harness.
He turned his head, narrowed his eyes as he took me in from head to breast, his gaze stalling for a second.
I was in a tight, ugly brown outfit which was far from flattering, but it also didn’t do anything to hide my hard nipples adorned with gold rings with a gold chain connecting them. I’d heard guys got hard-ons in battle. I got hard nipples. Sue me.
I arched a brow which broke him from his stare.
“Hang on,” he said.
I figured he meant that figuratively since there wasn’t anything to hang on to, but the second that weird force field disappeared, Isaak hit the gas and shot us past it.
Then he slammed on the brakes, and my head whipped forward.
There was a secondary force field, which I had to guess put us into an air lock or something. That one finally opened, and he really hit the gas.
My head shot back, and I felt pressed into the seat as if I were in a ridiculous roller coaster at an amusement park. This one hopefully didn’t have a sick drop.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, then relaxed when the speed and the craft leveled out. I was glad I never got car sick. “That’s got some kick.”
I saw his grin, the obvious pride in his ship. He was right. It might be small, but it was fucking fast.
I didn’t say anything for several minutes as he maneuvered us past what I thought was an asteroid field. He then pushed some button that I assumed was hyperdrive or turbo-whatever as we were out of there. If we were in a car, I’d have looked over my shoulder to see if they were still following, but I didn’t think anyone could have.
He unhooked his restraints and turned to face me. “All right, gara. Who the—” His gaze dropped from mine to my upper arm. “What the fark happened to you?”
I looked down, saw the blood staining my top. I hadn’t even known I’d been hurt, but now that he’d pointed