Rebel by Cheryl Brooks Read Free Book Online Page B

called it sculpting. Funny word for something so marvelous. Kim hardly dared to hope that what Onca had told her was true. If so, the first thing she was going to buy with her money was a big hunk of clay and some drawing paper and pencils for Peska.
    That is, if they ever found her.
    She kept her eyes on Jatki, praying to any deity that would listen that her Kitnock friend didn’t disappear right in front of her eyes. The others had gone missing during the night. Surely Jatki was safe on the street in broad daylight.
    Onca’s voice over the comlink broke the silence. “Okay. I see her now. What’s the signal?”
    Kim raised her hands in front of the comlink pad and cracked the knuckles on the index and ring fingers of her left hand.
    Onca snickered. “That’s it? My, how unique and imaginative. No one would ever accidentally duplicate such a gesture.”
    Obviously he was retaliating for the way she and Roncas had teased him. “It’s Kitnock fingerspeak for ‘All clear.’”
    “You don’t say.”
    “I do say,” Kim retorted. “Haven’t you ever noticed how Kitnocks crack their knuckles a lot when they get together?”
    “I don’t believe I have,” Onca replied. “But then, I’ve always fucked them one at a time.”
    “Onca!” Roncas exclaimed. “Will you please watch your language?”
    Kim had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “Trust me. That’s our signal.”
    “Not much of a signal unless the person you’re signaling can see you, is it?”
    “Better than yelling it out if there are nasty Herpatronian rapists hanging around, don’t you think?”
    “Maybe,” he conceded. “Okay. I’ll give it a try, but it’s still a rotten signal.”
    Kim watched as he pulled over to the edge of the street and opened the canopy of the speeder. After waving at Jatki, he held up his hands and cracked the two knuckles.
    Jatki shook her head and leaned back against the building, her fingertips gripping the rough surface as though she was stuck to it.
    “Dammit, Jatki, I’m not cracking my knuckles again,” he yelled. “You get your ass in this speeder right now . Kim sent me.”
    Instantly, his speeder was surrounded by the nastiest-looking bunch of—to be honest, Kim didn’t know what they were, but they didn’t look friendly.
    “Get in the speeder!” she screamed over the comlink, hoping Jatki could hear her.
    The results were immediate. Jatki dove into the passenger seat, the canopy slid shut, and Onca’s speeder screamed off down the street. The gang of thugs fired a couple of pulse blasts in their wake with no apparent effect.
    “Great mother of the gods!” Onca swore. “Don’t you girls ever go off without me again! Didn’t I tell you it might be a trap? Didn’t I?”
    “Calm down, Boss,” Roncas said. “We need to rendezvous somewhere other than your house in case we’re followed.”
    “Your place?”
    “Oh, hell no,” Roncas said without the proper inflection to accompany her words. “I was thinking we should go to the Palace.”
    “Or maybe somewhere more neutral, like the restaurant district?” Onca suggested. “Jatki looks like she could use some lunch.”
    Although she hated to admit it, Kim was hungry again herself. She was used to the feeling, but if Onca was offering to buy lunch, she would definitely eat it. “Are you okay, Jatki?”
    “Yes,” her friend replied. “And you’re right. It was a trap. I’ve got a tracking device on me.”
    “Must not be very smart crooks if you know it’s on you. Get rid of it,” Onca snapped. “Throw it out in the street.”
    “I can’t,” Jatki replied. “They, um, made me swallow it.”
    “Well, shit,” Onca said. “What the fuck do we do now?”
    Roncas was twittering so hard she was having trouble steering her speeder. “I think having lunch is actually the best thing for her to do.”
    “What? Oh, yeah, right.” Onca chuckled. “Guess we really do need to feed her. A lot.”
    “Better make it someplace