Learning the Hard Way 2 Read online

  But when Keelan had found out just what Mike knew and was capable of, he’d gotten an idea.

  Rainer had given him Mike in exchange for three jobs. Two of them were finally done—one courier and a couple of prisoners, the Blood Brothers, who had made an attempt on Rainer’s life in the canteen. All had gone smoothly until he’d found materials in the Blood Brother’s cell regarding an escape plan. Then one of Rainer’s followers had found them in Keelan’s cell, and his options had been reduced to two. Kill Rainer’s follower and suffer Rainer’s sadistic mood. Or let the follower run and tell Rainer about Keelan’s escape plan and then suffer Rainer’s sadistic mood.

  The decision had taken all of half a second—one dead follower. But Rainer’s thirst for revenge was postponed. It was probably something cowardly and discerning—a way of thinking that Keelan couldn’t wrap his mind around. Rainer hadn’t even mentioned the murder, and after a few days, Keelan was beginning to hope that he’d let it go. But it was far from reconciliation Keelan saw in his eyes.

  The agreement between Mike and Keelan was pretty cut and dry. Mike would teach Keelan all he’d learned as a mercenary and as an elite soldier. In return, Keelan would keep the prisoners who wanted to hurt Mike at bay. That Keelan had lost his temper and punched Mike a few times was a different matter. And not something he was very proud of, as Mike figured the deal included that Keelan wasn’t allowed to hit him either.

  He especially wasn’t proud of having done so after having saved Mike from getting raped in the shower room. Since then, Mike had looked at him differently. It had taken Keelan a while to recognize what his eyes held, but he’d finally realized that it was trust. It had been many years since he’d seen that in another person’s eyes. When said person looked at him, that was. He’d learned to live without it, which was why it was so strange to find it in Delta Zeich. But it was nice. Only one question haunted him. Can I trust him, too? Does trust automatically go both ways?

  He hoped. Enough to make two plans for escape.

  The plans were almost ready, but there were a lot of details that still needed attention if Mike was coming along. Mike had the knowledge which they would undoubtedly need, since the lessons would be far from over and the majority of Keelan’s new knowledge was only theoretical. Mike knew all of it in praxis.

  He felt torn, though, because the feeling was based partially on hope and not what logical thinking dictated—never trust anyone but yourself.

  Mike still taught, and after almost three months as roomies Keelan had changed his opinion of the merc. He discarded the idea that they were becoming friends, though. A lifer and a mercenary? What a pair!

  Chapter Two

  Late one night, Rainer came to Keelan’s and Mike’s cell. He seemed calm and smiled joylessly. He closed the door behind him and turned to look at Keelan. “Last job. Last job, and then we renegotiate your job description.”

  Keelan nodded silently. “Who is it this time?”

  “Black-eyed Burton. He’s been groping my... toys as you call them. It’s getting annoying, really.”

  “Burton? I have to kill Black-eyed Burton?” Keelan exclaimed, surprised.

  “What?” Rainer asked coldly.

  “Yeah, no questions, I remember the deal.”

  “Good,” Rainer drawled and left the cell.

  “Black-eyed Burton, well there goes a challenge. Even a fish can piss him in half.”

  “Black-eyed Burton, that’s that weird little guy with entirely too much self-esteem, right?” Mike asked.

  Keelan nodded.

  “How the hell did he survive in here?”

  Keelan shrugged. “His endless charm. Oh wait, he doesn’t have any. I have to admit that I like his killer gaze.” Keelan hid his unease behind a smile. Something was off about the job. Something about Rainer. But it was the last job. No more payments on Mike.

  “When do you leave?”

  Keelan sighed and slumped in his chair. “Now, I guess.”

  “You ever regret a kill?”

  Keelan looked at him, but Mike didn’t seem to expect an answer. Had he ever regretted a kill? No, but with Black-eyed Burton he wasn’t too proud of the circumstances. The last time Mike had asked that question, Keelan had just killed the Blood Brothers. They had it coming. Trying to kill a guy like Rainer never just went away. Keelan had drowned one of them in a toilet. He’d pierced the lungs on the other one and tucked him in for an everlasting nap in his bunk. But Black-eyed Burton was about as defenseless as the courier Rainer had him kill. The courier had been far away in the dream-crystal high along with his cellmate, so to walk in and nip a hole in the guy’s throat artery and then let him exsanguinate was no feat.

  Black-eyed Burton was a threat to no one. He was the comic relief of the day, especially when he tried his killer gaze on people.

  So, was he sorry about this job? He had nothing personal riding on it. Just Mike.

  Keelan got up and left the cell without speaking another word.

  Black-eyed Burton had a habit of walking the corridors at night, and it didn’t take long to find him sneaking, or at least attempting to sneak around.

  Keelan moved to stand just behind him. Then he grabbed him and held him immobile against his chest with one arm, covering his mouth and nose. Black-eyed Burton struggled briefly but stilled as he heard Keelan speak. Why he said it, he didn’t know. Maybe Mike’s question had gotten to him more than he’d thought?

  “Sorry Burton. This isn’t personal,” Keelan whispered. Just a job, always just a job. Keelan rammed the blade into Burton’s chest, piercing his heart. A barely audible scream escaped between Keelan’s fingers before Burton’s lifeless body slipped from Keelan’s arms and landed in a crumbled heap on the floor.

  Even though Keelan was happy the last of these weird jobs was over, he didn’t feel the relief he’d expected. But it was finally over.

  No more favors, he thought as he lay down on his bunk and closed his eyes.

  Keelan glanced irritably at the door as a knocking awoke him the next morning. He sat up and stretched loudly.

  “You gonna get that?” he asked and looked to the top bunk. He heard Mike turn over.

  “You’re closer,” Mike said, grinning.

  “Come in!”

  The door opened, and one of Rainer’s followers came in. “Rainer would like to talk to you, Keelan,” the follower said and left the cell.

  Keelan sighed and got up. That was quick, but couldn’t he at least have waited until after breakfast?

  Mike half-turned in his bunk to look at Keelan with an amused look on his face. Keelan smiled and left the cell. The follower was waiting for him.

  Rainer stood outside his own cell with an insidious smile on his face. The follower entered the cell, but Rainer held out his arm to lead Keelan further down the corridor.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Rainer said as he led Keelan through corridors he’d never been in before. “Over the past many months, you’ve managed to learn the majority of the rules in here.”

  “Knowledge is one companion in life you’ll always need,” Keelan said.

  Rainer nodded, smiling as he turned to face Keelan. “Well, in that case, you have an opportunity to learn something new today.”

  Keelan stopped, too, awaiting the rest of the lesson.

  Movements alerted Keelan, but before he had the chance to reach for his knife, he noticed the uniforms appearing on either side of him. Five guards jumped him and dragged him backward into a room.

  “Today’s lesson! When a man with no obvious fighting skills can survive in a place like this, it means someone up top is keeping an eye out for him!” Rainer said while kicks and blows rained down on Keelan as he lay defenseless on the floor and tried to block the majority of what the guards had to dish out. “Black-eyed Burton had someone keeping an eye out for him. Fat good it did him last night when you murdered him! You will never rise to my status in here! You are too barbaric, nothing but an animal! You think with you
r knife!”

  Finally, the guards backed off, and Keelan rolled onto his side and spat out blood and a tooth. Then he curled up on the floor again, trying to cover his ribs from more kicks and blows which would probably follow soon.

  “I told you that we would renegotiate your job description today.”

  Had Keelan had the air for it, he would have said that he quit, but taking the circumstances into consideration, he didn’t think it was either the time or the place.

  “No one will ever take my place in here. No one will win if they try to conquer me. Did you really think I didn’t know? That I hadn’t figured you out? Did you really think that you could outsmart me?” Rainer sneered and kicked Keelan.

  Keelan had been duped, and he hated it. Anger boiled in his veins, but his survival depended on him keeping calm. If he tried anything, the guards would most likely bludgeon him to death.

  “You get some time to think. I expect you to know your place when you come back... if you come back.”

  The guards hauled Keelan to his feet and dragged him through another door in the room.

  “Oh yeah, and your little pet?” Rainer laughed. “Don’t worry... we’ll take good care of him while you’re gone.”

  Keelan’s stomach dropped. The tone of Rainer’s voice didn’t bode well for Mike, and he feared the worst now that he wasn’t there to help keep him safe.

  Keelan’s legs wouldn’t carry his weight, especially not at the pace the guards set. They continued down a long lattice gangway of sorts. He was dragged past doors half the normal size on his left. Across from the doors was a wall of glass giving a clear view of a dead planet. A guard opened one of the small but heavy doors, which hit the wall with an ear-deafening thud.

  “You should have left our informant alone. He was no threat to you,” a guard said, and punched Keelan in the face. The two guards holding Keelan up shoved him through the small opening. The door slammed shut, leaving Keelan in a small, dark room.

  So that was why Black-eyed Burton had to go. He was an informant, and in return, the guards kept him safe. Wonder if Burton had something on Rainer?

  Rainer used him to set me up, but why didn’t I see it?

  I hadn’t planned to take over Rainer’s turf. Didn’t even think he feared me that much. But I know that now. I know his weakness now.

  When I get out of here, I’m gonna find Rainer and show him just why he should fear me. Looks like I have enough time on my hands. Better use it constructively. I need a good plan for Rainer’s departure from this world.

  This time, it’s not a job. This time, it’ll be personal.

  Chapter Three

  After a month in a small cell, bad food, and almost no water, the thought of revenge was sweeter than ever.

  Keelan had moved around as much as the small space allowed so his muscles wouldn’t grow stiff, sore, and useless, but he hadn’t succeeded as well as he’d hoped.

  Footsteps sounded on the gangway, but he’d heard that often enough, and thus far it hadn’t meant he was getting out. A ruckus sounded by the door and light cascaded into the small room. Keelan shielded his eyes. Had it really been that long since he’d seen light?

  “Come on, Hunter. Time for a shower. You certainly need one,” a guard said.

  Keelan crawled out and managed to get up on shaky legs while a headache threatened somewhere behind his eyes. The guards took a firm hold of his arms and guided him. He kept his eyes closed, as the light coming through the glass provoked a headache. He was on his way back underground, after having spent God only knew how long in a dark box, and he didn’t even want to see a sun. Life in prison certainly was strange.

  Finally, in the shower room, Keelan stripped out of his mold-stinking and filthy clothes and got under the sprays. He stayed there as long as possible, enjoying the soothing effect on his aching body. Showers in the hole consisted of a bucket of cold water thrown at him through the door once in a while.

  “Finish up, Hunter, or you’ll go straight back to isolation,” a guard yelled. “Fresh clothes for you here. And a towel.”

  Keelan groaned and stepped out, got dressed, and followed the guards to the big iron doors. A guard opened enough for him to squeeze through.

  A strange silence met him, and it continued as he walked the corridors back to his cell. People looked at him while trying not to.

  Rainer stood by the door with an insidious smile on his face as Keelan passed him on his way to the cell. “Welcome back.”

  Keelan neither looked at nor answered him—he just continued to his own cell, fearing that someone had found the blueprints of the prison and whatever else he’d readied for the escape.

  But that wasn’t the first thing that registered as he entered the cell. It was that Mike wasn’t there and that the room no longer smelled of him. Or smelled like it was even in use.

  “Where is he?” Keelan asked coarsely.

  Rainer chuckled behind him. “One thing at a time. Have you had time to consider the place of things?”

  “Yes,” Keelan answered quietly, not looking his way. Instead, he did a discreet scan of the cell to see if any of his hiding places had been disturbed. It didn’t look like it.

  “So, what’s it going to be? Can you behave from now on?”

  “Yes,” Keelan answered. For a while at least.

  “Good. You should get your pet back within a few days. The medical staff isn’t done with him yet.”

  Keelan’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Get some sleep, and we’ll talk more in the morning,” Rainer said and left.

  Keelan stood rooted to the spot. He felt like shit. Not just physically, but because Mike had previously accused him of having gone back on his word. Back then he had hit him, so it had been his fault. The remark still stung, and his thirst for revenge grew with the thought of what had happened to Mike.

  Keelan closed the door and checked that the blueprints and details still were where he’d left them. Finding them untouched, he smiled tiredly and reclined into his bunk, relieved at being able to stretch his legs fully and not having to sleep on a hard-stone floor anymore. Sleep claimed him quickly, and he slept the night through.

  Keelan woke with a start and sat up as someone opened the door. It was Mike, and he looked like an abstract painting with a plethora of blue and yellow.

  “Hey,” Keelan said.

  Mike just stared at him with his one good eye before he made his way past Keelan and with what looked like painful pride, fought himself up into his bunk.

  “Who did this?”

  “Like it matters to you,” Mike snapped. “Just leave me alone, you’re good at that.”

  Keelan remained still for a while and just stared at the battered man. He finally nodded to himself and took a seat. Guilty conscience crept in, and he tried to push the mental images of what could have happened to Mike aside. But it wasn’t Keelan’s fault—it was all Rainer’s game. Couldn’t Mike see that? It irritated Keelan, but it irritated him even more to see Mike suffer like that. Changes to Mike’s breathing revealed that he was crying, and Keelan watched how he wiped away tears.

  Keelan sighed, got up determined, and left the cell.

  It was a strange walk through the prison’s corridors. He hadn’t used or trained his senses to catch the details of his surroundings in what he now knew was a month in isolation. Still, it was no problem sensing the change in people. They still stepped aside, but not the way they used to. He’d lost their respect.

  That’ll change. It all began with Rainer, and it will end with Rainer!

  Keelan finally found what he was looking for. With puzzled and skeptical eyes on him, he got what he came for and left in a hurry.

  Mike still reclined in his bunk with his back to the room when Keelan returned.

  “Here Mike. This might help you a bit.” Keelan held out a small vial with two tiny blue crystals. Mike half-turned in the bunk and stared wide-eyed at the vial.

  “Thought you said no,” Mike sn
eered sarcastically.

  “There’s a time for everything, Mike. This—” Keelan shook the vial lightly, “—is a time to forget pain.”

  Mike stared at him for a while, doubt flickering in his eyes, but he finally reached for the vial with a gauze-wrapped hand.

  “What did they do?” Keelan had barely finished the sentence before Mike sent him the most convincing killer gaze he’d seen in a long time. Keelan backed away and left him to his high.

  Mike held out the small vial and smiled to himself. He carefully poured them into his hand and was about to lie down. Keelan pretended to busy himself with something else, but he noticed Mike’s stolen glances and that he tipped the crystals back into the vial. It pained him, because it meant Mike didn’t even have enough trust in him anymore to believe that Keelan would protect him while he got the rest he so obviously needed.

  Keelan took a seat and listened to Mike’s breathing. It sounded like he’d fallen asleep, but it wasn’t a peaceful slumber. Keelan did the only thing he could—he watched over him while once again contemplating the consequences of his absence.

  Rainer came by about an hour later. “I see you got your pet back.”

  “Wanna do this in your cell?” Keelan growled and got up.

  “Okay.”

  They went to Rainer’s cell, where Keelan sat in the offered chair and tried to ignore Sal’s nervous glances.

  “Well, time to look at your new job description,” Rainer said and smiled lopsidedly at the words.

  Keelan remained still and waited to hear what Rainer had come up with.

  “As you may remember, you eliminated some competition a while back,” Rainer began and made himself comfortable by crossing one leg over the other. “That has given me a new area to control.”