The Seer (Tellaran Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

“ Why? ”
    “Because tracking you down if you got off the base would take more time than I have. What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded. “Running like that?”
    Arissa narrowed her gaze. “I was thinking, I need to get the fuck out of here! ”
    “And then, what? Where you going?”
    She threw her arms out. “To the market! Who cares?”
    “Why?” he asked sharply. “Is there someone there? I know it’s not your parents. They’re dead, right? Eight months ago.”
    Tears stung her eyes. “Yes.”
    “So, is there?” His jaw worked for a moment. “Is there someone? Someone you were going back to?”
    “Why would I tell you? So you can hurt them too?”
    “You would have been just fine if you’d waited for me like you were supposed to. Arissa, this is very important. Does anyone else know about . . . about you?”
    “My uncle on Apovia knows.” She pushed the wild curls behind her ears. “Feel free to hurt him all you want.”
    “I take it you aren’t close.”
    She gave a bitter laugh. “No, we’re not close! He came to tell me my parents were dead and I had ‘til morning to clear out. No heirs, of course, except him.”
    “Because you’re supposed to be dead too. I saw the ID scan the FleetSecs took. Kassar, Arissa. Apovia. Died fifteen years ago, at age five . ”
    She closed her eyes briefly. “Yes.”
    “Why?” he asked. “Why falsify the records to make you deceased?”
    “Because I couldn’t go to school. Because I couldn’t have the telepath screen. No child , means no scans , means no questions .”
    His expression echoed his appalled sense. “Your parents did that to you?”
    “My parents loved me! What were they supposed to do, Fleet? Hand me over to TelSec? Let me be dissected by people like your doctor friend?”
    He ran his hand through his hair. “All right. Your uncle, but he won’t be looking for you. Anyone else? Anyone on Tellar who will miss you? Who will come asking questions?”
    “Why do you care?”
    His nostrils flared. “I don’t have time for this! Answer the question or I leave you here right now.”
    She studied him for a moment then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I owe my landlady back rent on the room,” she said sullenly. “She’s probably already sold everything I left behind and re-rented it.”
    “Anyone else? Someone who—” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “A friend, maybe?”
    “No,” she admitted, her chest tight. “There’s no one.”
    He gave a nod, his tension easing a bit. “The guards have their orders and if there’s no one I have to pay off, no one I have to keep quiet . . . Okay, good.”
    Arissa gave a short, bitter laugh. “Glad I could neaten everything up for you, Fleet.”
    “You should be. I'm leaving for Sertar in an hour. You're going with me."
    She blinked. “What are you talking about?”
    “I just told you,” he said shortly. “You're going with me to Sertar. You’re going to help me.”
    Arissa stared. “Help you? Help you do what? ”
    “We really don’t have time for this.” He indicated the door with a nod. “Come on.”
    “And I’m just supposed to go along with whatever this is? How do I know you’re not going to lock me up with the blood plague—or something worse?"
    He pulsed with anger. “Arissa—pretty name by the way, I like it better than Tianna – the plain fact is this: you're going with me and you're going to help me because if you don't they're going to haul you out of this cell in a few minutes and put a blaster bolt though your brain."
    Her mouth parted.
    He held her gaze. “So I need your answer right now—are you coming with me or not?”
    She wrapped her arms around herself. "Why? You know what I am. Why do anything for me? Why help me?"
    “Because I owe you,” he said shortly. “If you were Zartani you would understand but to put it simply: you gave me my life and now I’m going to give you yours.”
    He was roiling with inner conflict but he meant