Dirty Lies Read online

  “There’s another gun.” I can see it through the windshield. I circle the shuttle to the pilot’s side, and she follows me. When I try to open the door, she slams it shut again, pressing the barrel of her gun into my chest.

  “No. Leave him alone.”

  “The pilot?” I don’t back up, and she doesn’t fire. As much as she likes holding that thing, she doesn’t seem to want to shoot me. “Your sympathies are sorely misplaced. If he brought you down here by yourself, he wasn’t planning to just release you. He was going to have a little fun with you first. You’re lucky he stopped breathing before that could happen.”

  “No, he wouldn’t—”

  “Yes, he would. Even if you were paying for some kind of private shuttle service. Does this place look like an amusement park to you? Because the only thing you get to ride around here sure as hell isn’t a rollercoaster. Now either shoot me or get out of my way.”

  “You won’t be able to use his gun,” she insists. “It’ll have restrictions.”

  “That one doesn’t.” I nod at the one she’s still pressing into my sternum. Then I reach for the door again, and she steps in front of it.

  Irritation flares in my chest. I pull her away from the door and press her against the side of the shuttle, staring down into her gorgeous brown eyes. Her gun is jammed into my side now, because there’s no room between us, and though she looks terrified and she’s breathing harder than any woman should, while she’s fully dressed, she still hasn’t shot me.

  “Here’s how this is going to go, princess.” I step even closer, so she can feel just how easily I could overpower her, if I wanted to. “I’m going to open the door and take that gun. If I can’t fire it, fine. But if I can, I’m going to keep it, and I’m still going to help you find whoever you’re looking for.” A trek across zone four with a beautiful woman sounds a hell of a lot better than the nothing-much I had planned. “So you can calm down. I’m not going to just take the gun and abandon you here.” Surely that’s what she’s afraid of—that if I have a pistol of my own, I’ll have no reason to help her.

  Or that I’ll shoot her with it.

  “That’s not… Fine. Get the gun. But leave the pilot alone. He was a nice guy, no matter what you think.”

  Oh. She’s already fucked him, though I can’t imagine when, if she’s as new as she seems. And not just new to Rhodon. Rayla seems to be confusing what was evidently a pleasant-for-her screw with true affection from the guard, which makes me think she’s really fucking young.

  Zone four is going to eat her alive.

  I open the shuttle door, half-convinced that I’ve read her wrong, and that she’s going to shoot me as soon as I stick my head inside the vehicle. But she lets me pry the gun free from the dead guard’s belt and back out of the shuttle without giving me any new…perforations.

  “Try it.” There isn’t even a hint of doubt in Rayla’s voice, as if she knows the gun won’t fire for me.

  I try it anyway, aiming at the ground. The trigger clicks ineffectually.

  “Told you.” She’s actually smiling.

  “Why would he bring one restricted gun and one unrestricted gun? Where was that one?” I ask with a glance at her pistol.

  She shrugs. “One of the lockboxes in the back broke open during the crash.” But she’s lying. Turns out she does have a tell—a quick glance to the side. This is the first time I’ve seen it, though, which surely means everything else she’s said has been true.

  I lean into the shuttle again and take stock of everything I can see in the cargo compartment, behind the seats. There’s a wrench and a pair of pliers and a few unopened meal packets, as well as what looks like a spare Universal Authority uniform wadded up beneath a branch of the tree that impaled the shuttle—the pilot brought a change of clothes?

  One of the lockboxes does appear to be broken open, but I can’t see whatever is left inside it.

  Unfortunately, I’m too big to fit around the tree wedged between the seats, which means I can’t get to any of the stuff back there, and I already know that if I ask Rayla, she’ll refuse, because climbing into the shuttle would require her to put the gun down. Or at least stop aiming it at me.

  I hate to let the food and tools go to waste, so if I get a chance to come back for them after I’ve dropped her off with whoever she’s looking for, I will. If not, oh well. I’ll have a gun, and that’s worth a hell of a lot more than a couple of packets of food.

  “Okay, we should get going, unless you want to be here when they send someone down to get the body.”

  Rayla blinks, and she seems to be thinking about that. Considering…something.

  “No,” I say. “You don’t want that, no matter who’s paying off guards on your behalf. That shit’s over, now that you down here in the dirt with the rest of us. So here’s a free survival tip—avoid guards at all costs.” I frown, reconsidering. “Actually, avoid men at all cost. And approach any women you see with extreme caution. They’re less likely to take what you’re not willing to give, in one respect. But more likely in another.”

  “Meaning?”

  I roll my eyes. I’ve never met anyone with less of a chance of surviving here. “Meaning that most of the women will take your things.” I reach out and pluck the strap of her supply pack like a guitar string. “But the men will just take you.”

  “But you won’t?” she asks.

  “Oh, I certainly will.” I step closer, until she has to look up at me, and she’s breathing too hard now. Too fast. “But not until you want me to, princess.”

  For a second she looks…intrigued. Then her gaze hardens and she steps back. “Why wait? Because I have a gun?”

  “No, it’s not because of the gun.”

  “Then why?”

  Because no matter what she’s done, she doesn’t deserve what will happen to her here. She doesn’t stand a chance of holding on to that gun, and if I don’t take it someone else will. And I can’t let that happen. So I’m going to disarm her. I’m going to take away her only method of defense, which means whatever happens to crush this soft, delicate flower transplanted into the wrong damn soil will be my fault.

  But it won’t be at my hands.

  “Come on. My turn to ask questions.” I take off toward the east, and she has no choice but to follow me or get left behind. “So, who are we looking for?” I ask when she catches up to me, picking her feet up too high with every step, as if she’s never walked in the forest before.

  Now that she no longer looks ready to kill me with every breath she takes, she’s staring around at the trees like they’re paintings hanging in a museum. Up at the foliage like it’s a kaleidoscope about to shift with the breeze and show her an entirely new pattern of leaves and branches.

  City girl. Has to be. I’ve never met anyone less suited to life on Devil’s Eye.

  “I’m looking for prisoner number 2648397.” She rattles the seven-digit number off like it’s her middle name.

  I haven’t even memorized my own damn prisoner number.

  “And who’s that? Boyfriend? Father?” Who else could this naive child-woman possibly know on a prison planet? Did she get herself sent here just to find him, whoever he is?

  Is he strong enough to protect her?

  “Neither.”

  I wait, expecting more information, but no more comes. “So…do you have a description? A location? Maybe a compass that points directly to prisoner number 2…6…whatever?”

  “Prisoner 2648397. And no. All I know is that it’s a woman.”

  A woman. I did not see that coming. “If you don’t even know this woman’s name, why do you know her prisoner number?”

  She picks her way through the underbrush in silence.

  “Rayla. Answer the question.”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “Hey.” I pull her to a stop in a bed of fallen leaves, and she jerks her arm free. “I get that you don’t want me nosing into your business, but if you want my help, t
his is my business now too, and I have some practical concerns. Some safety concerns. Is this woman expecting you?”

  “No.” Rayla’s mouth seems cooperative, but her eyes are closed off, as if she’s permanently shuttered the windows to her soul.

  “Okay, is she going to be happy to see you, or should I be ready to defend myself?” And her. Because even with a gun in her hand, she looks about as fierce as a baby rabbit.

  Rayla exhales, long and slow, as if she’s just now giving that question serious thought. “I honestly don’t know. I hope she’ll be happy to see me, but…” She shrugs.

  “So, you don’t know her name, or where she is, or what she looks like. You don’t know whether or not she’ll be happy to see you. If all you have is her prisoner number, how can you even be sure she’s in zone four? I mean, I don’t know how many zones are on the Red Rock, but the chances of someone you’re looking for—someone you know that little about—being in the same zone you’re in are slim at best.”

  “She’s here.” Rayla’s confidence is back. She’s as sure of this as she was that the pilot’s gun wouldn’t fire for me. She’s a fascinating and infuriating combination of information and ignorance. Of innocence and experience.

  “That’s all you’re going to tell me, isn’t it?”

  Instead of answering, she starts walking again, with that weird, awkward gait, as if she doesn’t quite trust the ground beneath her feet.

  We make it out of the woods a few minutes later, and as soon as the view is clear of tree trunks and branches, she stops and stares out at the landscape, eyes wide, as if she’s never seen anything like it.

  “I know. It’s weird at first, isn’t it? All the red.”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah, I guess.” But she doesn’t even sound like she’s listening. “Is that a…town?”

  I follow her line of sight toward a cluster of buildings peeking over a hill in the distance. “That’s Settlement A.” From this far away, I can’t tell if anyone’s out and about—not that there’s much more to do outside than there is inside.

  “So, there’re people there?” Her jaw forms a firm, determined line, and she takes off straight for Settlement A.

  “Whoa.” I grab her arm again, and again she pulls away, but this time when she turns on me, she’s aiming the gun at my chest.

  “Stop. Grabbing. Me.”

  I hold both hands up, trying to look harmless. “Then stop going off half-cocked.” I’m not going to let her get herself killed before I have a chance to grab that gun. “That’s the men’s settlement. That cluster of broken down buildings is literally the last place you want to be in this entire zone.”

  “Okay. I appreciate that information. It’s just…I don’t have much time, and—” Her mouth snaps shut so suddenly that her teeth clack together.

  “Princess, all you have is time. You have the rest of your life here.”

  Yet she doesn’t seem to believe that.

  I grab her right hand, to see if her prisoner number has a circle around it—though that would only tell me if she has something communicable—but her entire wrist and palm are wrapped in a bright white bandage.

  Rayla jerks her hand free, and I let it go.

  “Hey. Are you sick?” I can’t think of why else she’d be in a hurry to get anything done, when she should have a good forty years left in zone four. When the rest of us stretch out every little task, trying to make the time pass faster.

  “No, I’m not sick.”

  Yet she didn’t even flinch when I grabbed her hand. Which means it isn’t injured.

  Her actions tell me she’s lying—why would she cover her prisoner number unless she doesn’t want people to know she has something contagious—but her eyes tell me she’s not.

  There’s something off about this woman. Nothing about her makes sense.

  3

  RAYLA

  “So, how far is Settlement B?” It feels weird to be walking away from the closest group of inmates without even seeing them, but if there are no women there…

  “It’s all the way across the zone. From here, that’s two or three days’ hike, depending upon the pace.”

  Shit! We could spend nearly half the time I have here on Rhodon just trying to get there, with no guarantee that’s even where I need to be! Kenny said he was setting us down in a remote location, but I had no idea it was that remote.

  Jai adjusts his pack on his right shoulder. It looks really heavy. Of course, so is mine, because I took more supplies than would’ve been issued to any new prisoner in the open population. “I know that seems like a long way, but Settlement B is where most of the women stay.”

  “Most of the women?” I stop, and he turns, frowning. “Where are the rest of them?”

  “Well, a few of them are loners, I assume.”

  “You assume?”

  Jai shrugs. “I haven’t seen any women wandering around out here alone, but some of the men are loners, so I assume some of the women are too. And there are a few in Settlement A, of course.”

  “Wait, what? Over there?” I turn and point to the cluster of buildings on the horizon. “You said that was the men’s settlement.”

  Jai shrugs. “It is, but a few women live there. Ten or so, last I heard. The chances of finding whoever you’re looking for are much better in Settlement B. That’s where they drop off new female prisoners and that’s where most of them stay.”

  “But we’re closer to Settlement A. Shouldn’t we check there first, to save time?”

  “No.” Jai starts walking again, and this time I grab his arm.

  He turns on me with a fierce, almost predatory look. Then he glances pointedly at my hand, and I let go of his bicep. His very large, very hard bicep. “So, I don’t get to grab you, but you get to grab me?”

  “No, I…” My face feels hot and my tongue is all tangled. “I’m sorry. I… No grabbing. You’re right. I should follow my own rules.”

  He steps closer, so close that his chest brushes mine, and suddenly I’m afraid to take a deep breath, because that might press my breasts against him. And he might—he definitely will—assume that means more than it really does.

  Which is nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  “Or…we could break your rule together,” he suggests in a gravelly voice that seems to rumble through me, triggering an ache in places no one else has ever touched.

  I bet he’d know exactly how to…

  No. He’s a convicted criminal. He’s only here because he wants my gun, and once he has it, he’ll probably try to shoot me with it.

  He said he wouldn’t hurt me, but he also told me not to trust anyone. At best, that’s a very mixed message.

  “No.” I back up, even though retreating feels like surrendering ground. “No breaking rules. No grabbing. No…touching. We’re going to Settlement A, so I can rule out the women there before we hike all the way across the zone to the other settlement.”

  Jai raises one brow at me. “If you don’t want to be touched, that’s the last place you want to go.” He throws one arm out toward the cluster of buildings. “The women in Settlement A are there to be touched. They’re a sort of…peace offering. From the women’s settlement.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Tell me while we walk.” I turn toward Settlement A.

  Jai starts to grab my arm again, to stop me, then he seems to think better of it at the last moment and steps in front of me instead. “It’s not that long a story. Just listen.”

  “Fine.” I push hair back from my sweaty forehead, wishing I had some water. We’ve been out here nearly an hour and this planet is sweltering. I’m parched.

  “There used to be a system in place. Every time Settlement B got a new shipment of female prisoners, they would send six of them to Settlement A. To keep the men…happy. To keep them from raiding the women’s settlement and taking whatever they wanted.”

  Disgust churns in my stomach.
“The women were sex slaves?”

  “More like prostitutes,” Jai insists.

  “Were they volunteers? Were they paid?”

  “They weren’t volunteers, but they were paid in food, shelter, and protection.”

  “If their only other option was death, they weren’t prostitutes. They were sex slaves. Rape victims.”

  “Sometimes, yes,” Jai admits, and his gaze flicks to the ground. “But not always. Anyway, something went wrong, and the system fell apart.”

  “What happened?”

  “The guy who kept everyone in line got killed. After that, Settlement A descended into chaos. There were riots. Several men thought they should be king of the hill, and they kept fighting each other, trying to get everyone else to take sides. Then they realized the women had run off in the chaos.

  “So some of the men got together and raided Settlement B. It was pretty bad. People died on both sides, but the toll was much greater for the women. So their leader struck a new deal. She offered to reinstate the original truce, but with ten women at a time instead of six. When I left the men’s settlement, things were pretty calm under that new system, but beneath the calm, there was this…tension. Everyone was on edge. The women looked ready to bolt. The men looked willing to hurt them if they tried.”

  “So you left?” Without trying to help any of those women?

  Of course he did. This is a prison planet, not a retirement home for superheroes.

  “There wasn’t much I could do.” Jai shrugs. “It’ll work itself out eventually. It always does. But Settlement A will always be the last place you want to go.”

  “Okay, well, it’s not like I’m planning to march down Main Street banging on a drum to announce my presence. I just need to…”

  “Need to what?” he prompts when I realize I have no idea how to finish that sentence. “You don’t know what this woman looks like, which means you’d need to get close enough to read the numbers on the female inmates’ hands. And Rayla, if you get caught in Settlement A, you won’t get out without paying for the privilege, and whoever grabs you will grab your gun too. Fuck.” He runs one hand through his hair, his eyes squeezed shut with a sudden realization.