Runner: The Fringe, Book 3 (27 page)

Roberts waited on the steps of the massive sweeping colonnade that ran up to the courthouse.

Careful, detailed attention to lighting made Victoria Roberts appear larger than life. Calm, powder-blue eyes pinned her as Foster led her up the steps.

Half way up, he stopped. With a pinch to her bottom, he stopped her too.

The crowd went silent.

Jynx waited. Foster cupped her bottom, then slowly snaked his hand to his belt. Plucking up something, he demanded, “Half.”

Roberts nodded to an officer who stood well away from her.

“Contract confirmed for half,” Foster said.

She could only guess he’d just received half of the 270Mil in credits.

“Reconfirm identity,” the officer said.

Foster pressed his thumb, then hers, to the screen in rapid succession.

“Confirmed. Foster Nash delivering Jynx Brennan.”

The crowd erupted into cheering and stomping, shaking the ground below not only the step they stood on, but practically the whole planet of Juno. A hundred IWOG worlds and a good portion of those on the Fringe likely erupted into screaming joy as well. Nothing like live feed to keep the populace up-to-date.

Neither Foster, nor Jynx, nor Roberts reacted.

Fondling her ass with a sly, suggestive hand that he let linger so the cameras could record it, Foster leaned to Jynx and said, “Not long now, Sweets.”

Jynx didn’t react. Keeping her gaze on the horizon, she found Victoria Roberts standing there. Dignified in dark navy with subtle gold highlights. Coal-black hair swept to a simple tidy knot on the nape of her neck, like Jynx wore it, in the lab. Before Jynx had hacked her hair off in a pathetic bid for freedom. Roberts could still unfurl her hair, like a dark mythical snake. Jynx could not unfurl hers in a cascade of light. Hard-hacked, her honey strands barely swept her shoulders.

Keeping her mind calm, Jynx unfocused her eyes and looked at a point just over Victoria’s head. Such a gaze would seem indifferent to one looking in.

Closing the distance, she and Foster now stood one step below Roberts. Foster still had almost half a foot in height on Victoria despite her step up. It again reminded Jynx of what a big man Foster was.

Roberts had arranged it well. No cameras or microphones close. “Shackles should have been in back.” Her voice rolled softly as her lips barely moved.

“Not specified in the contract,” Foster returned, keeping his voice low too.

“Smarter that way,” Victoria said.

“Not really. For what you’re gonna do.”

Roberts calmly assessed Foster. “You know what I’m going to do.” Roberts flicked her gaze to the very lethal IWOG officer’s pistol below her jacket.

“Naw. You’re not going to shoot her. Trust me, Vic, you grin right now, nod, shake my hand and take us both up and inside. Media eye will love it.”

Without missing a beat, Roberts did exactly what Foster suggested.

Burbling excitement, the crowd below had to content themselves with speculation as Roberts drew them inside the media-free courthouse.

Foster stopped. “Half.”

Roberts shot him a murderous glare. Apparently, Foster had changed the rules on her, and she didn’t like it one bit. “Give him the other fucking half!” she shouted to her lackey who stood well back.

With the transfer complete, Foster tucked the device to his belt.

“Give me one good reason for this.” Furious at having been denied a moment she’d waited weeks and paid such a high price for, Roberts glared at Jynx, clearly itching to haul out her gun and shoot.

“She’s knocked up.”

Jynx didn’t even flinch, despite the way her heart lurched in her chest.

“So?” Smirking, Roberts asked, “Is it yours?”

“Hardly.” Foster rolled his eyes. “Brandt’s the father.”

“Again, so?” Roberts cast him a gaze that said she drew ready to pull her gun on him if he didn’t get to the point.

“Father’s a reader, mother’s a reader, what are the odds that the brat will be one too?”

Roberts’s eyes lit up with a thousand evil plans. Jynx fought down an urge to scream and run. Why he was telling Roberts this information?

“The teeming masses want her head.” Victoria washed a freezing glance over her.

“Yeah. For a woman like you, I don’t think you’re gonna have a problem putting together a false report. You got the tech-gear to do it.”

A creepy smile oozed across Roberts’s face. “Keeping her prisoner until I can harvest her baby.”

Jynx’s heart kicked hard at the word harvest. Breathing deep, she focused her eyes on the far wall of the grand courthouse as she fought down every survival instinct she had. She kept her eyes vacant and disinterested even as she tried to understand what role Foster played now.

“How was she?” Roberts eyed Jynx from head to toe, coolly assessing her, almost as if they were potential rivals for Foster’s affections.

Foster pinched her bottom. “Sweet. Tight. Way better than you.”

Jynx had to practically bite her tongue not to react to his touch or what he said. Foster had slept with Roberts? Why? Why would any man want to sleep with such a cold and heartless woman? Maybe he’d been a little drunk and full of himself. Much how Jynx tumbled to bed with Brandt.

“Don’t tell me you fell for the little terrorist?” Victoria asked.

“Get real. I bedded her like you wanted. You know I don’t give a shit about anything but my contract.” Foster plucked another electronic gizmo off his belt. “Are you satisfied that the contract has been met in full?”

“Her shackles were supposed to be loose so I could shoot her out there for the crowd.”

“Reader baby. That’s worth a lot more, and you know it. If you’re not satisfied with the contract, then I can take the bitch back and we can renegotiate. Under the watchful media eye.”

Roberts considered.

Emotionless, Foster said, “Round one included the reader restriction, failsafe, hazard pay. Round two? I’m thinking I’m gonna make off like a bandit if you don’t fold.”

Roberts grimaced but signed off on the contract with a snarl and a snap at her assistant.

Lifting his finger, Foster counted to three, cocked his finger to the lurking crowd who, as if on cue, roared beyond the courthouse walls. “Just hit the Tasher. We’re done now, Vic.”

“So we are.”

“If you have half a brain, and I know you do, you won’t keep her here.”

“It’s none of your business what happens now.” Robert’s cool blue eyes turned cruelly cutting as they settled on Jynx.

“Fine. I’m just telling you that security on this place blows. Get her somewhere else, or you’re gonna have a serious mess on your hands with vigilantes and media whores.”

“It’s not your problem, Nash.”

He laughed. “You got that right, Vic.” Foster tilted Jynx’s face back. “Bye, Sweets. It was a lot of fun while it lasted. Thanks for the ride.” Growling, he gave a biting nip to her lips and winked. “I mean rides.”

Flipping his hair out of his eyes, he turned and walked away.

Jynx kept her head held high and gazed impassively at Victoria Roberts.

“And now it’s just you and me.” A smile of pure malevolence crossed Victoria’s perfectly made-up face.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Without a doubt, walking away was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Turning his back on Jynx and leaving her in the care of a crazy bitch sickened him, but he had no choice. He hoped she really did trust him. She’d have to.

Hang on, lovely lady.

Foster knew in his heart, deep down to that sticking place, Jynx loved him. But would she believe in him? If he were in her shoes, he’d hate his ever-loving guts. He amazed himself with what an unbelievable bastard he could be.

Foster strode back through the huge double doors of the Port Belle courthouse. Lights glared into his face. Flicking his head back, tossing his hair out of his eyes, Foster met the cameras with pride. Wicked blue eyes in a shaggy blond face, a massive muscle-bound body, defined by his gear. Look at me, he wanted his stance to say. Look at the big hulking nightmare, the walking erotic fantasy. He’d never consider himself in quite that light until Jynx spelled it out for him.

As if born to the role, Foster played to the people around him and the people watching all over the Void. With his posturing and preening, Foster catapulted himself from not just a name but a face. A body. A whole arrogant attitude. Damn near a fucking parade!

Drink me in, suck me up. I am a dangerous hunk of male and don’t you forget it. I am a living, breathing and arrogant legend.

All around him, the crowd devoured him. Cheering him as they feared him, wanting him as they rejected him. He had been an interloper, an outsider, but they accepted him now because he delivered one they hated more than they’d ever loathed him. Foster Nash could not have done better but by bringing Michael “Overlord” Parkers’ head on a platter.

A nasty sweep of power rushed through him. Foster was an ex-IWOG consumer who turned to the Fringe. The IWOG worlds pegged him as nothing more than dangerous rebel, a good boy gone bad. But now, twenty years later, they celebrated his deviancy for bringing in Jynx Brennan.

Not a one of them realized she was not even remotely guilty of the crimes she’d been accused of. If Jynx Brennan stood on trial for anything, it would be for trusting way too much. Caring way too much. Sacrificing way too much. All around him, humans called for the blood of a woman who had not hurt them but helped them.

Hating his reputation, knowing the falsehood of it, Foster had never admitted the truth of his kind heart until Jynx made him. Foster strutted for the crowds, the lights, the cameras and the spewing, spiraling Tasher reports, while inside, his marshmallow heart ached.

The crowd below swelled with cheers. Letting a wide smile grace his scruffy face, Foster stomped down the steps, still playing it up for the cameras as he made his way along the gauntlet and back to his shuttle. Once inside the door, he bowed to the surging crowd, then lifted his fist into the air. The cheer that followed almost knocked him on his ass.

He closed the door, pressed his palm against the durosteel and hung his head. The IWOG officers had five minutes to clear the area around the
Darn You
so Foster could take off. While he waited for clearance, Foster checked his scanner. A shimmering blip could be seen inside the courthouse.

Most scanners would not pick up the faint traces of the iridescent paint. But his could. He’d discovered it by accident as he’d been checking his equipment. Rather than having to find a way to put a tracker on Jynx, he discovered he already had, thanks to her indulgence with the special pleasure paint.

“Trust me, lovely lady.”

Roberts, being a pigheaded fool, wouldn’t move her from the courthouse now, because Foster suggested it. “Told you security on that place blows. But you don’t want to listen.” Sometimes, stubborn streaks paid off.

Once he received clearance, Foster took off and returned to the
Damn You
. He left Juno behind and made his way to the Fringe.

He couldn’t even imagine what Jynx was thinking now. How he’d manhandled her for a million eyes to see. A trillion by live streaming vid over every channel on the Tasher. Strutting and posturing like an arrogant cocksure male and worse, admitting that he’d slept with Roberts. That thought alone probably made Jynx sick. It made Foster sick. Much like the tale she’d told him of her night with Brandt, Foster could tell such a tale about Roberts. He’d been drunk and full of himself. Victoria hadn’t been that bad in the sack, really, just had a cold edge. Still, it felt good to get in a dig at her. Besides, he wanted Jynx to hear it from him and not be shocked by the news when Roberts brought it up, because Foster knew Vic would.

As he implemented the second part of his plan, he thought that if Jynx lived through all this, she’d probably hate him.

Jynx was scanned, then stripped of her clothes. She suffered snickering jests at her lack of panties. It didn’t faze her. Keeping her head high, Jynx faced the male and female guards with cool indifference. She discovered it wasn’t so difficult to master such an attitude.

They gave her a drab charcoal gray jumpsuit to wear, but they didn’t bother to give her any underclothes. When she asked, they said Roberts told them a little tart like her probably didn’t like wearing them anyway.

Jynx did not react to that either.

Once the guards realized Jynx regarded all their comments with a blank face, they gave up trying to torment her. There was no pay-off, so they stopped. Foster’s advice helped a great deal. Indifference took all the fun out of picking on her.

After two days, they just brought her meals, traded dirty jumpsuits for clean and left her alone. Jynx treated them with an indifference she never had for Foster.

Her cell was far more plush than what she’d had on the
Damn You
as Roberts wanted her comfortable. “For the baby,” Roberts said, her eyes gleaming.

Jynx refused to react to that either.

For the first few days, every little sound made her shoot to her feet in the vain hope Foster had come for her.

Bright thoughts of Foster bursting in to save the day grew dimmer as the days became a week. Security, once so tight, began to slack off as the angry populace held content to wait and see what happened. No one tried to break in to kill her, and Roberts told Jynx this with a triumphant smile. “Clueless imbeciles. They’re treating it like a juicy daytime drama. Breathlessly waiting for the next installment. And I won’t disappoint them.”

Losing hope, Jynx began to wonder if Foster really had played her. Well, maybe he’d done what he could to help her. She wasn’t angry with him, just sad and disappointed. If he really loved her, how could he leave her here? Maybe because he never did love her. He never really said he did. Foster just mouthed the words to her lips. Perhaps all he’d been able to do was save her from a bloody public execution. How could she fault him for that when she couldn’t do any better herself?

Foster looked around the crowded transfer hub again. Nobody paid any attention to him as he made his way to the Port Belle trans. He had buzzed his hair short, shaved his face to within an inch of its life and popped brown-colored contacts in for good measure. He didn’t look anything like the swaggering macho shithead he’d been a week ago, especially not while wearing an IWOG officer’s uniform.