The Pack-Retribution (12 page)

She eyed them skeptically. “What are you paying for, boy?”

“Nothing. I just see you have kids here. They need to eat.”

“Yes.” Her hand grasped the credits. “Thanks. But you better get out of here. There’s some folks that come and go that don’t like you clean ones hanging around.”

Valens looked confused. “Clean?”

“Yes. If you haven’t noticed, we are outcasts. Women and children whose husbands decided to work the crime gig. Too bad that didn’t work out. They left all of us to live off scraps.” She shrugged, a look of disgust on her face. “If I’d known my scum of a husband was going to get involved with selling flesh again, I would’ve stayed on Earth with my family. No, he was chemically rehabilitated, they said. Told me, we’d have a new life on Mars.”

“Ma’am, if you want to go back to Earth, the Security Force could help you.”

She shook her head; tears welled up in her eyes. “I can never go back. I’m a disgrace. My family warned me he wasn’t no good. I…cursed them, stole from them in order to pay my way here. If I go back, I’ll be tried in court. I may even be sent to the Waters to be executed. I can’t do that to my babies. They deserve at least their mother around.”

“I understand. Do you know who Freaksheep hung with? How he got clean? I’d sure like to know how…you know, with my dad having the same problem kicking his dream habit.”

She got a stricken look on her face. Then she glanced down at the other woman at the fire pit who stared at her in terror. “Can’t talk no more. Get out of here, now, before…before you find trouble.”

A little girl ran up behind Shamira. She jumped with surprise and the girl put her finger to her lips as if to tell her to be quiet. The urchin slapped Shamira on the leg and ran off, stopping to look back as if she wanted her to follow.

Shamira tapped Valens on the shoulder. “Let’s go.” She walked quickly in the direction the little girl had run. The girl seemed to slow from time to time as she led them out of the perimeter of the village.

The others followed until the girl stopped several feet ahead. Hesitantly, Shamira approached the child. She figured the kid was around twelve years old. “Hi, do you know where we can find Freaksheep?”

The girl looked around, agitated, playing with her fingers.

Hedi sighed then reached in her pocket. “Want some candy?”

The waif licked her lips and reached to Hedi’s outstretched hand. “That guy…don’t ask for him ‘round here.” The girl stuffed piece after piece of the soft candy into her mouth while Hedi kept handing them to her. “He’s still around. The other two left though.”

“You know the other one’s name? Why they came here?” Shamira asked.

Another piece of candy was popped in her mouth and she greedily licked her fingers. “They need people.” She swallowed the candy, poised to enter the next piece. “Ya’ know, grownups to work the caves. They killed one of our elders that told him he should leave. The guy with Freaksheep, one was named Tiny. Uh, and the other man’s name was,” she frowned, “Keeper.”

Hedi gasped and dropped the candy she was handing to the girl.

The girl scrambled to pick up the dropped pieces. “But he’s gone. They go to the fiend pits to recruit druggies. At least that what my mom whispered to Ms. Addie.”

Shamira’s head jerked toward the slight sound of a click from a gun. Before she could react, laser fire flew through the air to hit her square in the shoulder at the nape of her neck—just below the area void of her technosuit protection. It glowed from the burn. She felt as though a hot poker pierced her skin. The sting was so intense she bit down on her lip to suppress a cry of pain.

Licking heat from her raging power within, it snaked up her stomach and into her chest. She growled and charged off running in pursuit of the shooter. With a tap of her foot she was in the air. The others were at her heels. Sand kicked up against the dark setting of the night, and she pushed her super imposed vision ahead. Her attacker sped away on a quad wheeled sand buggy. His long jacket flying in the wind behind him, he picked up speed and disappeared behind wind-blown sand.

Shamira stopped, chest heaving, as anger and the loss of the hunt filled her with aggravation. She landed. The others caught up and dropped beside her.

“I don’t know about this.” Anthony scanned the wide spans around them.

“I smell a trap.” Kurt narrowed his eyes and pulled out his gun. “A bad one.”

“I hope it is. I’m in the mood to kill someone today.” Shamira peered into the night.

“Did you hear who the girl said were Freaksheep’s friends? The Tiny guy…I don’t know him, but Keeper… Do you think?” Hedi pulled out the collapsed saber Shamira gave her.

Suddenly, blast after blast rained on Shamira and her team. They ducked low to avoid the fire. For a moment the onslaught stopped. A flash—a direct flash of light—revealed their attackers’ covered faces. In an instant, Shamira realized, they were surrounded. Men, too many to count, appeared out of thin air. With a click, they exchanged fire.

“Protect your faces!” Shamira yelled and yanked down her protective flexible mask. Her suit activated and a faint buzzing sounded in her ear at the nanonytes manipulating her adrenaline to give her enhanced strength.

A crouch here, a twist there, as she dodged the laser fire aimed at her. She closed in on several of her opponents before she was surrounded from behind. They charged in on her. Shamira slid into a split, punched one in the groin, then flipped her foot around to land a powerful kick to another. One attacker flickered out of sight. The other punched her in the face.

Her head flew back from the blow and she brought it forward with force to head butt her attacker in the nose.

He cried, “Ugh! I’ll kill…”

“Try it!” She landed punch after punch on his face to his chest. She couldn’t help the rush of pleasure filling her. Spinning around, she landed a roundhouse to his head. She dropped to jab him, but he disintegrated into ash before her eyes. It didn’t stop. No rest was insight, as others attacked her from behind. She went into a melee of attacks through her assailants. Shamira’s chest burned.

Hedi screamed and the others fought around her. Shamira couldn’t get to them, she wanted that creep who took a shot at her and started it all.

Someone grabbed her neck from behind and another masked man came up in front her. “You’re not dying today,” he snickered. “But I’m going to beat you up good so you wish you did.” He tossed a club from hand to hand.

Shamira forced herself to relax. His partner tightened his hold on her neck. Anger, vengeance and her beast of energy lay waiting within. She’d let him take the first hit, and then she’d get her turn. She smirked.

The guy swung the club at her ribs. She winced. Dropping her head forward, she feigned a grimaced. Laughing, she jammed her head backward against the man holding her arms. She snaked an arm around the bent-over attacker. And balanced on the guy’s shoulders while she lifted her legs up and around the attacker facing her before he could land another blow.

“Ugh.” A look of surprise crossed his face.

She tightened her legs. Yanking her legs closed, she roared, until she heard a crack. His body jerked and turned to ash. The attacker behind her recovered, and pushed her off him. She stumbled while trying to right her stance. He hit her over the head with the butt of a gun.

The throbbing blow forced her to her knees. “Uhum.” A fresh flow of adrenaline pumped through her. She attempted to regain her senses.

An elbow came down at her. Rolling away, she screamed at her assailant. He scrambled after her as another dove for her. She flipped up and around to land out of their reach, then yanked out her gun and shot one, then the other to the ground. Their bodies instantly turned to piles of ash. Shamira covered her nose briefly as the wind blew their remains around her.

Hedi yelled, “Knives! I need more.”

Shamira ran to Hedi and reached into her belt for the star. Flicking her wrist, she released it. The star cut through three of the men between her and Hedi. Their screams were cut off in an instant as their bodies fell to ashen heaps.

She and Hedi fought back to back. “Tap the saber’s handle twice with your thumb. It’ll extend knives out of the blade.”

Hedi lifted her arm. “Oh yeah, I like this.”

Several more attackers closed in. Shamira dug in the pouch on her belt and took out six small metal balls.

“There are too many!” Hedi called. She broke away from Shamira.

“I’m about to even the numbers!” Shamira eyed each of her targets while balancing to kick a charging opponent in the face. Mentally, she commanded the balls to attack—another of Valens’ creations that worked on her brainwaves and mental commands. The balls shot through the air. Metal nets extended from within them. They wrapped around the heads of their victims, choking off their airways. One after another fell to their knees. Ruthlessly, they fought against the tightening nets.

Shamira pulled out a truth tick from her belt. She landed a kick to the burly man’s face in front of her. Before she could attach the truth tick to his neck, he grunted and dissolved into cinders.

Heaving gulps of putrid air, she turned to help the others.

“Cover!” Mitch yelled.

At Mitch’s code word for gas mask, she tucked in her form-fitted hood and pushed the small button inside. It activated the built-in gas mask that tightened the stretchable material over her mouth and nose. The clear flexible visor protected her eyes as she rolled onto her stomach.

Mitch whistled then threw a smoke bomb into the foray. In an instant their attackers disappeared within the black smoke.

Shamira crawled from beneath the edge of the dark cloud, looking for surviving opponents. She caught a glimpse of the man on the quad and kicked her shoes on to follow. Gun aimed ahead, she fired twice. He fell off the quad. It sped forward without him.

She dropped to her feet and straddled him as he attempted to crawl away. Rage pulsed through her. She punched him and held his arms up on the side of his head. “Who are you! Who’re you working for? Keeper?”

The pale man’s face gave away nothing. He coughed. “You’ll find out soon enough. Snake…and Keeper kill painfully…” He laughed and squeezed his right fist. Black lines of poison crisscrossed on his face. Agony blossomed on his face briefly, before he turned to ash.

She vomited from the sour odor and pushed her hands in the sand to get the stink off.

“Who was he? What’d he say?” Valens asked from behind.

“He didn’t say, but I’d bet he was Freaksheep or Tiny.” She stood up and wiped her hands on her pants. She glanced over at where they’d come from to the heaps of simmering ash from where their attackers had succumb to their self-inflicted poison before they could be captured for questioning.

Kurt kicked at a black spot of ash. “Those were assassins. Good ones. If Keeper’s involved, how the hell did he not get caught by the Force?”

“If? It’s not like a name like Keeper is common. Hell, this stinks. Bad. Real bad,” Dion said, his hands fisting and opening only to fist up again.

Mitch sifted the dirt mixed with cremated ash through his fingers. “I don’t think we need to tell anyone about this. That is, if we expect to be promoted. Hell, or get completely kicked off the force at this point.”

Shamira sighed. “You’re right. I don’t want to be the one to report this and go through another interrogation.”

“Ditto,” Anthony replied.

Shamira tapped on her glide pads. “Let’s get out of here before more of them come.”

Chapter 19

They hurried back to Shamira’s home. No one spoke. She was glad for the quiet because it gave her time to focus on what the last guy said to her. “You’ll find out…soon enough, soon enough…”

Shamira couldn’t shake the feeling that the threat was personal. She’d never seen him before in her life, but if he was working with Keeper, then Keeper was more than likely the puppet-master. The guy had looked at her like he knew her—had a hit on her. She didn’t know much about Keeper though. Nothing except that he was part of the kingpin branch of Monev. Someone, as far as she knew, who should’ve been dead.

She stopped her bike at her driveway. Valens sat back. He gave her a final hug and got off the cycle. Shamira just sat there, her fingers tightening on the handlebars. Her adrenaline kick from the nanonytes should pull back and force her to normal strength. It wasn’t. Her skin was still prickly from the energy and anger. The strength from within her body, and not generated by the suit. She took several deep breaths before Valens’ hand came down on her shoulder. She jumped.

“You okay?”

Shamira groaned. “Yeah. Just keyed up.” She forced out, “Don’t…want to be touched.” She gulped. “Sorry.” Her eyes closed against an unshed tear. The look of hurt Valens gave her made her ache when she had to push him away. It couldn’t be helped. Sometimes…she was afraid he’d be the first person she hurt if she lost control. She could lose him forever.

He moved his hand.

Opening her eyes, Shamira swung her leg over the bike and the others walked over. “Pearl, park.” She couldn’t look at Valens and didn’t feel as though she had the right considering how she treated him at times like these.

Hedi’s hands were shaking. She handed Shamira the collapsed saber that looked like a small club. “Keeper. I know I didn’t hear that kid right. God, I hope not.”