Avalon

What about Cora? What does she deserve?

Jeth closed his eyes, doubt making his head swim.

“What’s your answer?” Renford pressed.

Just names. Nothing more. And I don’t have a choice. Not now.

“Jethro?” said Renford.

Jeth looked at him and said, “Sierra Hightower, Vince Mallory, and a little girl named Cora.”

An intense, nameless emotion crossed Renford’s face. Surprise? Alarm? “Thank you, Jeth. This is most helpful. Leave the comm line open so I can triangulate your position. As soon as I’ve got it, I’ll send my nearest ship to fetch you.”

Jeth sighed, relieved it was over. “How long?”

“An hour, at most.”

He nodded, and Renford ended the connection.

“Well, that went well,” Shady said. “So, we’re really going to trust this guy?”

Lizzie shook her head. “We should’ve just called Hammer. Renford gives me the creeps.”

Jeth didn’t reply, although silently he agreed with Lizzie, at least about the creepy part.

Should’ve gone with the devil you know, a voice whispered in his mind.

Jeth ignored it. Renford was the best choice. The only choice, now. Hammer wouldn’t give a damn about Milton. Or Avalon. And Jeth hadn’t forgotten about Renford’s offer to tell him the truth about his parents.

But in the end, choice didn’t matter.

When a ship finally arrived a half hour later, it wasn’t an ITA ship at all.

It was one of Hammer’s.

Chapter 22

THE FIRST PUNCH STRUCK HIM IN THE GUT, JUST BELOW the rib cage. The second landed higher. Jeth felt the rib snap in a bright burst of pain that radiated outward like a bomb. He tried to hunch over to lessen the agony, but firm hands on his arms held him upright and in place.

Sergei Castile grinned at Jeth, pleasure making his broad face glow.

“Isn’t this a little beneath you?” Jeth said between shallows pants. “I didn’t think Hammer would use his general for something as mundane as a beating.”

The two Malleus Guards holding Jeth in place tightened their grip on his arms, fingers biting into his naked flesh. They’d stripped him down to just his pants the moment they’d forced him into this cell, just minutes after their arrival at Peltraz. To Jeth’s shock, he recognized one of the Guards as Trent Danforth, the smelly, oily man who had once run tech ops for the Shades. Jeth hadn’t seen him in a long time, not since he’d been caught betraying Hammer. Danforth was horribly changed—twice as big as he used to be and with all traces of his former personality gone. He was nothing but a shell wearing Danforth’s face.

Sergei’s fist collided with Jeth’s jaw. Starbursts shot across his vision.

“I volunteered especially for you,” Sergei said.

Jeth spat blood. “Glad to know I rank so high.”

Sergei adjusted the glove on his right hand, pulling the protective inner layer snug over his knuckles. The outer layer consisted of a material as hard and dense as metal.

Jeth eyed the glove, trying not to flinch. “Does it make you feel like a big man, beating up on someone who can’t fight back? Or maybe you just get off on it.”

Sergei’s answer landed against Jeth’s cheek and nose. Blood spurted from both nostrils and tears stung his eyes. A kick to the stomach followed next, obliterating any desire Jeth had to continue taunting.

Sergei rained down blow after blow, his fists as merciless as mallets and the Guards’ grip on his arms as unyielding as steel. Jeth tried to turn his thoughts inward to block out the pain. He refused to cry or beg or ask the questions burning in his mind. Where is my sister? What are you doing to my friends? More than once he lost consciousness, only to be revived again when the Guards dumped ice water over his head.

Delirious, Jeth wasn’t aware of when it finally ended.

He awoke sometime later, lying on the hard floor of the cell, his body damp from the puddle of bloodstained water beneath him. He forced his swollen eyes open and saw a pair of black boots so polished they glistened even in the dim overhead light of the cell. Only one man Jeth knew wore boots so clean and expensive. He craned his neck and saw Hammer Dafoe standing over him, hands on hips, his expression made of stone.

Jeth lowered his head, content to lie there as waves of agony rolled through him. He’d known trouble was coming when Hammer’s ship arrived for them instead of Renford’s, but he’d never imagined pain like this. The mind was incapable. It’ll pass soon, Jeth told himself. It had to. Either that or he would die, and even then it would still be over.

“Get him up,” Hammer said.

Jeth squeezed his eyes closed as rough hands grabbed his arms and hauled him up. Bare feet slipping in the muck, Jeth groaned from the effort of trying to gain his footing and support his own body weight.

Hammer grunted disdainfully. Jeth wanted to scream at him, but that would require expanding his lungs, and there was nothing he wanted to do less at the moment.

“Set him down over there,” Hammer said. “Doesn’t look like he’s man enough to stand on his own.”

The Guard dropped him onto a concrete bench in the back of the cell hard enough that his teeth clanked together. With a massive effort, Jeth managed to stay in an upright position, his back propped against the wall.

“Leave us alone,” Hammer said, and the Guards left without a word.

Jeth leaned his head back and gave Hammer the fiercest glare he could muster, a difficult feat with the swelling around both his eyes. “Where’s my crew?”