Survivors - Jean Lorrah [50]
Did that mean he was innocent? Or only that he could not let go his pretense of innocence-that the best way to persuade her he was falsely convicted was to accuse her?
Dare glanced around, although the cameras that were certainly there were well-hidden. Then he laughed, a hollow, empty sound. “I’ll tell you anyway, because stupid as Starfleet just proved, they’re not so stupid as to expect me to go like the lamb to the slaughter. Starfleet know I’m a survivor-they taught me how to survive.”
The wolfish smile flashed again, and he continued, “There’s a lesson you haven’t learned yet, from the side of the captor, although when we first met you knew it from the side of the victim. Desperation, Tasha. I’m the freest man in this galaxy right now. Do you know why?”
“No,” she whispered, mesmerized by his stare.
“Because it’s all gone, everything I believed in. Starfleet. You. I’m bound by no rules but my own. The only thing left is myself-and that I’ll never let them take. They’ll never get me to a rehabilitation colony. Rehabilitation! Brainwashing-that’s what they do in those hell pits, no matter how they try to disguise it. The patients might seem happy-but they’re drugged or hypnotized into submission until their wills are broken.”
“Dare, you know there’s nothing like that in the Federation! They’re going to help you,” Yar pleaded, hating the anger in his face, knowing the pain it hid. Her love for him hadn’t died in the courtroom. She hated the deed he had done … but she loved the man. “Let them heal you, Dare, so you can come back to me.”
“Come back!” he growled. Then he tilted his head to one side. “Oh, yes-I’ll come back, Tasha. Wait for the day, love. I’ll escape-and then, you beautiful lying bitch, I’ll find you again. Watch your back, Tasha-for one day we will meet again.”
Chapter Six
LIEUTENANT TAHSA YAR was frozen in déjŕ vu as she stared up at the angry face of her captor.
Darryl Adin had made good his promise to escape before he could be confined in a rehabilitation colony-and then had disappeared from the face of the galaxy. He was still in Starfleet Security criminal records, though: there was no statute of limitations on either treason or murder.
Now he had made good his promise to find her again. What did he intend to do with her?
Floods of memory overwhelmed her, less of when she had seen him last than of when she had seen him first, on New Paris, lying helpless at his feet, not knowing what he wanted with her, not trusting—
And, just like the first time, he stooped down to her, examining her for injury. Then he helped her to her feet.
Yar allowed him to give her a hand up, biding her time while they assessed one another.
Dare looked different, although his distinctive features made it impossible not to know him at once. He was thinner than she remembered, yet somehow taller and more imposing. The added height, she saw, came from thick-soled boots, while his costume was an archaic design of black tailored jacket worn open over a gray shirt and black trousers. She remembered learning somewhere that the basic concept of that male costume had been invented in the nineteenth century, variations on it worn by men of power for more than two centuries. Now Dare had adopted it, to good effect.
But his manner of dress was the least of the changes in his appearance. His hair was longer, parted and combed to the side, revealing his broad forehead. Its severity, in contrast to the shake-into-place style he had worn in Starfleet, accented new vertical lines in his face. His eyes seemed to be deeper, more shadowed and mysterious, and yet, against the thinner contours of his face, larger and more luminous.
His mouth was as curved, lips as full as she remembered,