Spin State - Chris Moriarty [205]
“Stop it! You’ll go yourself.”
“But if something happens—”
“Nothing will happen!”
He put a hand up to touch her face, but she jerked away, her throat tight with panic. “Don’t you sacrifice yourself for me and leave me to live with it. I won’t let you. And I’ll hate you for it.”
“Don’t say that, Catherine.”
“Well, what the hell do you want me to say?” she shouted.
I want you to say you love me.
He took a step toward her, and this time she didn’t back away.
“Fine. I’ll buy you a drink somewhere when this is all over and say it.”
“Say it now,” he whispered. “Just in case.”
She said it. She couldn’t believe it, couldn’t even get the words out without stuttering. But she said it.
Then he set a hand on her hip, and she stepped into his arms, and it was all so, so simple. Something shivered and let go at his touch, something she’d never even known she was holding on to. And with a jerk of recognition, she found that dark unmapped territory in her own heart that was his already—shaped to him, made for him, the exact width and breadth and depth of him.
This time there was no chasing, no hiding. Just everything they wanted spilling through their hands and running away like water.
“We’re getting the truth now, I think,” Voyt said. His voice was level, but there was a brightness, a loose-limbed alertness to him that turned Li’s stomach to acid.
Sharifi was still sprawled across the steps. Li could feel the cold stone biting into her back, setting shattered ribs grinding. She blinked, and a razor’s edge of agony shot through her now-blind right eye. God, what had they done to her?
“Is she dying?” Haas asked. Li recognized the doubting hitch in his voice: a civilian’s cautious uncertainty about just what kind and what degree of violence a human body can tolerate.
“I know my business,” Voyt said. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“Your recorder off?”
Voyt twitched irritably. “I’m not a complete fool.”
“Good.” Haas had been drawing closer as they spoke. Now he stretched Bella’s slender hand toward the Viper, “Give me that.”
Voyt hesitated, then handed it to him.
Haas stepped around Voyt and pressed the tongue of the weapon against Sharifi’s head.
“Careful,” Voyt said. He spoke in the even, artificially calm voice of a soldier watching a civilian do something stupid with a gun and not wanting to scare him into making a big mistake out of a little one.
“Oh, I will be,” Haas said.
Voyt relaxed slightly. But Li could see, through Sharifi’s single good eye, what Voyt couldn’t. She could see the look on Haas’s face.
“Did you think I didn’t know?” he asked Sharifi. “Did you think I’d just stand back and let you fuck her?”
But Sharifi didn’t hear him.
All she heard was Bella’s voice. All she saw was a beloved face bending over her. All she felt was Bella’s hand touching her, taking the pain away.
She reached out with one hand, a gesture that was no more than a breath, a tremor. Li was the only one who heard the soft snick of the trigger.
As Sharifi died something gave in the rock above them, booming and cracking. A hot blast of air pulsed down the gangway, hitting hard enough to knock Bella to her knees.
“Run!” Voyt yelled, but his voice was lost in the roar of falling rock.
It’s going to kill them, Cohen said.
She heard Voyt scream and fall, but the sound seemed to come from far, far away. She saw Haas pass a hand over Bella’s brow. She felt him slip off the shunt just in time, just the way