The Dreaming: Dark Star (Book 5)

6.3. Make it hurt (Liran)

Liran left Ithabar's office, and was disappointed to see that Sephram was gone. Liran needed to know what on earth was going on. Were the Praetoria looking for him or not?

Ithabar said it was a story to get him talking, but Liran wouldn't put it past Ithabar to straight out lie to get Liran to agree to the deal with Eeya. Or Jennifer. He couldn't trust either of them as far as he could throw them.

Climbing down the hatch to the lower galley, he thought about Adell Ahmadi. It was very possible that Adell had cracked. Maybe whatever juice they'd given him had cracked him open like a pumpkin and all his secrets had spilt out.

Here the long narrow hallway was lit up by organic lights. Some sort of bug — he didn't exactly know how it worked, but he didn't like it. Steering clear of the glow bugs, he made his way to his dorm, and opened the door.

There was Nerezza sitting all alone.

Liran looked for Akim.

"He's not here," she said in Standard.

"Where'd he go?" Liran asked.

"Sephram picked him up right after he picked up you."

"Well, why was that?" Liran asked. What in the hell is Sephram up to now?

She shrugged her shoulde rs, "He didn't say." Then she sat up. "Why, what happened? Are you okay?"

Liran took a deep breath, "No, I'm not okay. Nothing is okay." Liran hated the Standard word 'okay'.

The girl got off her bunk and leaned forward with her legs over the side. "What happened?" she asked again, like it was that easy.

Liran shook his head. She was naive. He couldn't tell her, wouldn't tell her, but he sure wanted to. He sure wanted someone he could confide in, someone he could trust. But how could anyone trust him when his whole life was a lie?

Liran sat down on the lower bunk and rubbed his face with his hands. He just needed some time to think.

Nerezza continued, "Is this because of the police chase? Are you in trouble? Why would they take my brother?"

"Look!" Liran interrupted with a harsh tone, standing up. "I don't know what's going on!"

Nerezza shrank back at his temper.

He took a deep breath and brought his anger under control. "I just need some time to think. Please, Nerezza, just let me sit here for a minute in peace." He held his hand up to silence any response, and then jumped up onto this bunk and lay back. He stared above at the pipes.

Nerezza sat back down on out of view, and stayed totally quiet, thankfully. It really wasn't kind of Ithabar to put her together with him in one room.

He dismissed thoughts of Nerezza and focused on the problem, going through the possible future scenarios with Jennifer. No matter how hard he tried to consider it, he couldn't imagine taking her to find Phiona. Never. He'd agreed to it only to get them off his back, but sitting back thinking for a minute, he knew it was never going to happen.

He could tell her where Phiona was, let them get her themselves... but they might not go for that. Liran could lie. Would lie, in fact. They could not trust him to be honest. Liran took a deep breath. There was only one real option.

He needed to escape.

The real question wasn't if he should escape, but when. His intuition said he should jump now, escape right now in the dark and swim back to the outskirts of Aklavik. Ithabar's 'crew' was banned and probably wouldn't come looking for him.