“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing really. He tried to... but I hit him. I hit him with a big, big stick.” She sucked in a breath. “He started...” She touched her forehead. “Blood. He’s dead.”
“Show me,” said Keirth. “Show me where Risciter is.”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to look at it again. We should go.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll find him.” He pointed into the woods. “This way?”
“Don’t leave me alone!” she said, terror making her voice shrill.
“Then come with me,” he said. He tried to keep his voice calm, reassuring. “Show me where you left him.”
She shuddered again, sniffled, but turned and walked back into the woods. He followed her. They walked for some time, no sound except an occasional hitching breath from Ariana and the crunch of their feet on the forest undergrowth.
Finally, she stopped. “I thought he was here.”
“Well, he’s not here now,” said Keirth. There was nothing there but trees.
“But my stick. The thing I hit him with. It isn’t here either. So maybe...”
“You hit him over the head, and he started bleeding,” said Keirth, “but maybe you just knocked him out. Maybe he got up.”
She shook her head. “I killed him.”
“Maybe you didn’t.” And as sick as it might be, Keirth was excited to think Risciter was still alive, that he could still take his revenge.
Ariana was hugging herself. “I thought it was here, but everything looks the same.”
She was in a great deal of shock. It was cruel keeping her out here, trying to make her look for a body. Keirth saw that. He had to get her home. He had to get her to people who could take care of her. “Let’s go back to the ship.”
“Can we leave?” she asked.
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
“Good,” she said.
* * *
They were in hyperspace, and the girl was sleeping. She’d fallen asleep almost immediately once they’d gotten on board. Keirth stood in the doorway to her darkened bedroom, feeling guilty for getting her involved in all of this. He hadn’t had much choice, of course, but she wasn’t part of his revenge scheme, and if she’d never come along, nothing like this would have ever happened to her.
No woman deserved to be terrorized by Risciter. And apparently, he did it as a matter of course. As some kind of macabre hobby. The girl would never be the same, Keirth knew. She looked peaceful now, but these horrors were inside her brain now. She’d never quite be able to be free of them.
And she wasn’t built for this. She was rich and pampered. She’d probably never had to deal with anything so terrifying in her sheltered life. It made Keirth sick. Sad.
He’d programmed the ship to take them to her homeworld of Wendo. He thought that the authorities were probably watching for his ship, prepared to arrest him for capturing the daughter of a duke, and because he wanted to save his own skin, he couldn’t land in any of the proper docks. He knew about some docks on the planet that wouldn’t ask questions, however, places where he’d be able to set the ship down in relative safety. He could get the girl back to her family, and then he’d be back on his own.
Risciter had taken his blaster, so he needed another of those. And he’d want another ship. The underground would have to help him out with both of those things. Once he’d procured supplies, he’d head back to Kush. If Risciter’s ship was gone when he arrived, he’d know that Risciter was alive. If not, he’d try to find Risciter’s body, make sure he knew the truth himself. If Risciter was alive, Keirth would hunt him down again, and he’d make sure he got it right this time.
Either way, he needed to make sure the girl was okay before he did anything else. Leaving her on a colony planet someplace wasn’t an option anymore. After what Keirth had exposed her to, he owed her more than that.
He closed the door to her bedroom, leaving her to her rest and went to the kitchen to rehydrate some kind of food.
He was sitting down a meal of noodles and some kind of powdered, spicy sauce that had turned out to be quite nice, when Ariana appeared in the doorway. She wasn’t wearing the jumpsuit anymore. He guessed that since it was her ship, she had her clothes on board. She’d changed into an outfit that wasn’t nearly as form fitting. Instead, she was clothed in something that obscured her shape and covered her from neck to wrist.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“You should rest,” he said.
“I’m not tired.”
He gestured at the noodles. “Hungry?”