That meant Dez had led them off-ship and somehow lost control? Cyra stared unseeingly, sipping the tea. With every minute that passed, her confidence in Dez’s safety winnowed away.
“Captain?” Bodi’s voice brought Cyra back to the galley. “They’re asking to speak with you.”
Cyra set her cold tea down and went to Bodi. “On the comms?”
“Derrain is waiting for you outside.”
“Right.” Cyra blinked as she processed the words. “Dez?”
Bodi shook her head. Veda took Cyra’s hand. “I’ll go with you.”
Cyra nodded and let Veda guide her out of her ship. The mining company contact sat in a sheltered vehicle. Cyra took the front passenger seat and Veda sat behind her.
“We apprehended a suspect.”
What did that have to do with Cyra and her crew? Unless it was Dez? But they couldn’t think Dez would so something like this. “Who?”
“The name Jarn Ardkin sound familiar?”
Cyra shook her head.
“He’s admitted to planting the bomb on your ship.” The man steered away from the large office down a narrow road that had been recently scraped clean. He sped faster than such a narrow road warranted.
“The bomb didn’t hurt my ship.” Nothing made any sense.
“Your, um, crew member. Dez?”
Cyra grabbed the man’s arm. “You know where Dez is?”
He swung the control hard in the opposite direction, bringing them back on the road.
Veda gripped Cyra’s shoulders. “Don’t kill us before we find Dez.”
“Sorry. But?—?”
Derrain rubbed the back of his neck. “Your man, he removed the bomb from your ship and tried to dispose of it. Crazy shit really. There was no way?—”
“No.” Cyra closed her eyes and wailed from deep in her soul. “Please no. Please don’t tell me?—”
“He’s not dead. Not yet.”
Cyra sucked in a ragged breath, tears streamed down her face. “Yet?”
“He was hurt pretty bad.” Derrain pulled up in front of a long low building with windows spaced symmetrically out from the double door that occupied the middle.
Pain radiated from every cell in Dez’s body. He couldn’t be dead. There was no way dead would hurt like he did. He tried to open his eyes to see if he was alive, but even his eyelids hurt. He groaned involuntarily and could have screamed from the pain in his throat. Apparently, he’d tried to breathe fire recently. What happened? HadThe Treasurecrashed? Where was Cyra? He was breathing too fast but could do nothing to stop it.
“Dezmuhnd? Dezmuhnd, can you hear me? You need to calm down.”
The man’s voice wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.
“Sedate him.”
“No,” he croaked despite the shards of pain that sliced through him. “Where’s Cyra? What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
Dez shook his head a tiny amount, choosing to torture his aching muscles instead of testing his throat again. He must have been near death because he’d never felt so bad before in his life.
