Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [98]
Ten years. He’d thought that everything would be long ago buried by now. He’d been badly mistaken.
“It didn’t seem fair, really,” Trinica said, tilting her head like a bird. There was a childish look on her face that said: Poor Frey. Poor, poor Frey. “It didn’t seem fair that you should be able to turn your back and walk away like that. That you could leave your bride on her wedding day and never have to think about what you’d done, never take any responsibility.”
“I wasn’t responsible!”
She leaned forward on the card table, deadly serious, those awful black eyes staring out of her white face. “Yes,” she said, “you were.”
Frey dashed the cards across the table, but his fury died as soon as it had come. He sat back in his chair, his arms folded. He wanted to argue, but he needed to keep things calm. Keep things together.
Don’t let this bitch get to you. Play for time.
“You had the Shacklemores keep track of me after that?” he asked. Trinica nodded. “Why the interest?”
“I just forgot to call them off.”
“Oh, come on.”
“It’s true. At first, I’ll admit, I wanted to see what effect my news would have on you. I wanted to see if you suffered. But then … well, I left home, and other things got in the way. It was only years later that I realized they’d been keeping the file open on you all that time, drawing a fee every month. My father was paying for them, you see. When you’ve that much money, it’s easy to forget about something like that.”
“You know I joined the Navy, then?” he said.
“I know they conscripted you when the Second Aerium War began,” she said. “And I know you were drinking too much, and you started taking all the most dangerous jobs. I know nobody wanted to fly with you because it was only a matter of time before you self-destructed.”
“You must have enjoyed hearing all about that.”
“I did, yes,” she replied brightly. “But I didn’t find out until after you had disappeared.”
Frey didn’t say anything.
“They tell me the position was overrun by Samarlan troops. My guess is, you landed there and they ambushed you. What happened to the rest of the crew?”
“Dead.”
“Naturally.”
“Navy intelligence,” Frey sneered. “Bunch of incompetent bastards. They sent us out there and the Sammies were waiting.”
Trinica laughed: the sound was sharp and brittle. “Same old Darian. Picked on by the world. Nothing’s ever your fault, is it?”
“How was it my fault?” he cried. “I landed in a war zone because of information they gave me.”
Trinica sighed patiently. “It was a war, Darian. Mistakes happen all the time. You landed in a war zone because you had been flying the most dangerous frontline missions for months. You never used to ask questions; you just took the missions and flew. It was a miracle it didn’t happen sooner.”
“It was the best chance I had to pay off the loan on the Ketty Jay,” he protested, but it sounded weak even to him. He couldn’t forget the desperate tone in Rabby’s voice as he closed the cargo ramp. Don’t you leave me here!
“If you wanted to die, why didn’t you kill yourself?” Trinica asked. “Why try to take everyone else with you?”
“I never wanted to die!”
Trinica just looked at him. After a moment she shrugged. “Well, evidently you didn’t want it enough, since here you are. Everyone thought you were gone. The Shacklemores closed the file. The loan company wrote off the rest of your repayments on the Ketty Jay. And off you went, a corpse to all intents and purposes.
Until one day … one day I hear your name again, Darian. Seems you’re alive, and everyone’s looking for you. And I just had to throw my hat in the ring.”
“You just had to, huh?” Frey said scathingly.
Trinica’s demeanor went from casual to freezing in an instant. “That day you disappeared, you cheated me. I thought I’d never get to make you pay. But you’re alive, and that’s good. That’s a wonderful thing.” She smiled, the chill smile of a predator, her black eyes glittering like a snake watching a mouse. “Because now I’m going to catch you,