Jeanne G'Fellers - No Sister of Mine by Jeanne G'Fellers (reading tree TXT) 📗

the washroom, scared senseless. Typical Aut, no mind control whatsoever. I hear everything he’s fretting over.” Cance stepped over LaRenna’s sprawled figure and jerked open the washroom door. “Get out here, Starnie.”

Starnes timidly exited his hiding place holding a small, neatly folded stack of linens. “Just prepping up some clean towels for tonight.” He kept his gaze down. The perfect squares fell from his arms when he saw LaRenna. He gulped and took a backward step. He’d known they’d hurt her, but surely they hadn’t . . .

“Is she—no!” Black char wafted through the air as he collapsed to the floor. Cance stood over him, bow poised to repeat Brandoff’s attack.

“She’s not dead, but you’ll be if you don’t listen. We had a visitor while you slept, little man. Said he saw you and a Taelach from the base cozying up at the Food Plaza, the same one Brandoff saw your new barmaid with this morning. You turned us in, you sorry little—”

“No, I promised. We had a deal!” Starnes held up his hand to ward off the second plasma arrow that scorched through his shoulder. He squealed and drew into a fetal position, sure another blast would be his end.

“I hate being lied to.” Cance ground her heel into his shoulder. “You knew she was Taelach and you knew we found her out, so why didn’t you run while we were using her?” Cance aimed between his eyes. “My patience is gone, Starnie!”

“He didn’t leave because of me.” Bane sat up in his bed. “I’m the reason. Now let him be.”

Brandoff sniffed at the dutiful dedication. “I say we kill them both. They’ve outlived their usefulness.” She aimed at Bane and smiled. “Shame to do away with such an entertaining storyteller.” The bow whined readiness and Brandoff waved goodbye, finger flexed on the weapon’s manual trigger.

“Stop!”

Brandoff downloaded and looked at Cance, who pointed to the lower level. Someone was knocking on the Waterlead’s front doors. “I’ll go tell whoever’s there that we’re closed today—family tragedy.” Cance laughed at what she said. “Singe the first one who opens their yap.” Tunic collar high, sleeves unrolled to cover her bow, Cance blinked to replace her Autlach lenses and trudged down the stairs.

“Sorry.” She cracked open the door. “Family emergency. We’re closed this evening.”

“Wait!” Trazar Laiman stuck his foot against the doorjamb. “I’m looking for LaRenna. Is she here?”

“Nope. She took off at closing last night with some stocky man in baggy coveralls. No telling where she is.” Cance tried to push Trazar’s foot from the door, but he held his stance.

“I see.” The man Cance referred to was one of Trazar’s sentries and second to him in the squadron’s command. They had walked back to the housing compound together so he knew LaRenna wasn’t around. “You don’t know when she’ll be back?”

“She won’t be.”

“She quit?” Trazar’s unshaven cheeks sank.

“No.” Frustration crept into Cance’s tone. “I fired her for propositioning the customers. Once a whore, always a whore.”

“Oh.” Trazar masked his face into disinterest. He pulled his foot from the jamb, thanked Cance, and strolled toward the Commons. When the Waterlead’s doors swung shut, he backtracked to hunker under an overgrown shrub near the main entrance. He had been lied to more than once in the course of that short conversation and intended to find out why.

“Damn Aut men.” Cance climbed the stairs two at a time. “Always after a piece.” LaRenna stirred when her footfalls neared the top. “She awake?”

“Sort of.” Brandoff snapped at LaRenna’s bare legs with one of Starnes’s discarded towels. “I had to shove a rag in her mouth to stop her confounded moaning.” Brandoff aimed again at Bane. “Now, where was I?” She turned to Starnes. “Here?” Then she bounced back to his father. “Or maybe here?”

“If you must kill one of them then make it Starnie,” said Cance. “We’ll pour our own drinks tonight.”

“No!” pleaded Bane from his bed. “I’m already dying. Spare him and take me.”

“You served as a military medic, old man. I need you to treat this one’s wounds. Here, look her over.” Cance pulled LaRenna within his reach. Her underskirts bunched at the waist as she was moved, revealing a series of bloody streaks that stretched down her inner thighs. Seeing them, Cance glowered at Brandoff. “You idiot! Look at this! I told you not to be so rough. Dammit, you could have killed her!”

“I wasn’t that rough!” protested Brandoff, sounding more insulted than concerned. “And I didn’t do anything to cause that, not when I laid her, leastways. It must be from the knee to the stomach.” Apathetic at best, she aimed squarely at Starnes. “This is becoming tiresome. Any last words for your dah?”

“NO!” called Bane. “Murder him and I won’t treat the woman. She’ll bleed to death where she lies.”

“The old fool isn’t so foolish after all.” Brandoff’s high had worn until she squinted. “Well, Cancelynn?”

“Tie Starnes while I get some bandages for the not-so-foolish one to use,” she replied. “We can’t have our trophy dying before we have the opportunity to show her off.” She turned to Bane. “Aren’t we making a speedy recovery? Brought you medicine, didn’t she?”

“Does it matter?” Bane frowned, brushed the hair from LaRenna’s face, and quickly evaluated the extent of her most obvious injuries. “I need some hard liquor.”

“Sounds good to me but I suggest you try wine first.” Brandoff secured Starnes’s arms behind his back. “Your stomach is probably weak.”

“He doesn’t want to drink it, you half-wit!” Cance replied angrily. “He needs to cleanse the girl’s cuts. Go get some.”

“Uh!” Brandoff stomped down the stairs. “Do this, Brandoff. Now, Brandoff. Who the fuck named you Mother Maker?”

“I’m self-appointed so hurry before I choose to end that sorry excuse you call a life!” Cance watched Brandoff’s tangled mop of hair disappear then turned back to Bane, hesitant to hear his diagnosis. He’d removed the cloth from LaRenna’s mouth and was smoothing out the remains of her skirts. She groaned, fighting him weakly as