Chapter 54: Manipulation

The door to Rudy's quarters slid open almost silently.

Almost.

He was at the doorway, fight or flight reaction in full effect and a light dose of adrenaline from the exercises he'd been working on pumping through his veins. He could have easily taken an attacker to the ground and pinned him or snapped his neck in the seconds it would have taken said attacker to bring a gun to bear.

No attacker stood in the doorway, though. At least, not the kind who planned on shooting him.

"My apologies," Milissa said quietly. "I, um, didn't know your door was unlocked."

It wasn't, Rudy thought.

"Actually, that's not true," she said. "Is it?"

Rudy shook his head.

"The doors recognize my DNA and unlock. I... I knew you..."

Rudy put a hand on his hip and leaned against the door frame, blocking Milissa's entry. "Didn't want to see you?"

"Yes."

"You're right." He reached for the still-visible edge of the door. It should have closed and locked again at his touch. It didn't. "You're keeping it open."

"Yes," Milissa repeated.

"Don't." Since he couldn't close the door without physically throwing Milissa out and couldn't stop her from reopening it even then, he stalked away.

The door slid shut a moment later. Unfortunately, he could still hear Milissa's breathing in the room.

"Get out," Rudy said.

"Crimson Phoenix, I need to talk to you."

"That makes one of us."

"Please!" She reached for his arm.

He slid it away with a subtle twist. Unfortunately, 'it' was on the side of his body the bandersnatch had bit a chunk out of, and subtle or no, he'd moved it in ways the injury disliked. He felt it itching under the nanopaste and grimaced.

"You're still hurt," Milissa said.

"No shit." Rudy glared at her. "You need to leave. Now. I am not an idiot and I know why you're here. I'll tell you and you can tell your brother, I'm not buying what you're selling. Cheap meat's got no flavor."

Milissa shrank back like he'd slapped her. It did sound like the kind of line Otto would throw at Alarie, Rudy thought, except Alarie usually didn't seem to deserve it and Otto probably would have come up with something nastier.

The comparison almost made Rudy feel bad about saying it.

Almost.

Milissa was biting her lip. Typical. In the dim lighting, he couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw tears welling up in her stratosphere blues.

Rudy wondered if she really felt like bursting into tears or if it was part of the act.

Either way, it was Stephan's fault.

Rudy understood what Lord Kyrillos wanted. A wedge between him and Chloe, the better to pick her up on the rebound. Maybe he actually liked her and was just a manipulative bastard, or, more likely, he wanted her title and her powers. Milissa was supposed to get Rudy out of the way.

She'd done a damn good job so far.

Dammit, it wasn't fair. For once in his life, he'd actually been good! Not that anyone would know it from the way Chloe acted. She seemed convinced Rudy and Milissa had snuck out to the woods together. It probably did look that way.

"I came," Milissa said stiffly, "to apologize."

"Needed, accepted, and done," Rudy said. "Now you can go."

"You don't even know what for."

"For trying to seduce me so Steph would have a clear shot at Clo," Rudy said.

"It isn't..." Milissa's shoulders slumped. Her voice got even smaller. "Isn't just that."

"What else?"

"I called it."

Rudy cocked an eyebrow. "It?"

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"I've always been good with animals," Milissa said, seemingly ignoring his question. She sat down on the bed and buried her face in her hands. "Better than with people. I'm nervous doing it to people, they're too complicated. Stephan does them so well, too, and it's hard to live up to that."

"Milissa." Rudy took her by the shoulders and forced her to look up at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I called the bandersnatch that hurt you," she said flatly. "I reached out and found its mind and brought it to us."

He stared. "Why would you possibly do that?"

"Because I thought if you thought you saved me, you'd like me. I thought that's why you liked Her Highness so much, why you..." She laughed. Not happily. "It was... pretty stupid, I suppose. Petty. Wrong. Awful."

"Try 'crazy.' What if I hadn't been able to save you, huh?" Which, in point of fact, he hadn't.

"It wasn't supposed to be like that," Milissa said. "I just wanted it to come and roar at us and you'd grab me and run or maybe think you scared it off. Then I'd send it away and find it some nice food to make up for using it."

"You thought it would go for that deal?"

"It... shouldn't exactly have had a choice."

Principle! Unless Milissa was crazy or lying – well, crazier than he already knew she was –, she had some serious power in that pretty, vapid little head.

"I didn't mean for anybody to get hurt." She reached up and brushed her fingers against his bandage. "Or, or –"

She sobbed.

"I killed it," she whispered. "Stephan did, I mean, but it was my fault. You got hurt and it got killed and it's my fault."

"That's why you were so shocked that night," Rudy said. "Because you lost control."

She nodded miserably.

"What went wrong?" he asked, horrified and fascinated and, though he didn't want to admit it, more than a little scared. Milissa claimed her brother could control people as she thought she could animals. If that was true...

He felt a chill down his spine.

"I don't know," she sobbed. She leaned forward and pressed against him and wept. "Merciful Principle, I don't know!"

"Milissa…" Rudy's hand shifted up to her dark tangles. He wished he could say something to make her feel better, but the only thing he could think of was liable to make things a hell of a lot worse.

If Milissa was confident enough in her powers to call a man-eating predator and be shocked when she couldn't send it packing, she couldn't have just failed.

Somebody had to have countered her.

Rudy knew only one person who could do it, at least on New Kyrillopolis.

The estate world's lord and master.

Rudy saw the plan as clearly as if he'd drawn it up himself. Or maybe as if Otto had. It was cold-blooded and damned effective enough to be one of the elder Algreil's schemes.

Milissa calls a bandersnatch, or thinks she does. Maybe it's not even her own idea. Hell, maybe neither of them were out in the woods because of their own ideas. Rudy had thought he was getting away from the fuss Chloe and Milissa made over Stephan, but it looked pretty stupid in retrospect. Could he trust that it had been his thoughts leading him out there?

Probably. It wouldn't be the first time he'd done something unwise. Besides, he'd received the anti-telepathy training all members of the Oligarchical families got. A nob as powerful as Stephan might be able to break through, but Rudy didn't think it would be easy or subtle.

It didn't much matter. Stephan could have concocted his scheme on the fly.

Milissa calls the bandersnatch, Rudy thought again. It arrives, and all of a sudden her power fails her, shuts off completely.

If Rudy runs away and leaves her to die, Stephan turns the animal around and walks it back into the woods, or maybe the animal mauls Milissa a bit and then Stephan comes riding in like the Principle-damned cavalry to save her. Chloe in tow. Rudy ends up looking like the galaxy's yellowest coward, the kind of man who would leave a helpless girl to be eaten alive, and Chloe never speaks to him again. Stephan looks like a hero.

Mission accomplished.

If Rudy stays, though, so does the bandersnatch. It kills Rudy. Mission accomplished.

But – and this was the part that made Rudy shudder – it probably kills Milissa, too.

Chloe would be heartbroken over Rudy's death, of course, but she would also feel terrible for poor, bereaved Stephan. Terrible enough to comfort and be comforted by him.

Mission damn well accomplished.

What was a little sister weighed against the power and authority of the imperial line?

Maybe Stephan wasn't that cold. Maybe all he'd planned was to ride in and save the day, Rudy's actions be damned. He'd shown Rudy as powerless, and with Chloe desperate to help her parents, that looked almost as bad as spineless. Without sacrificing anything of Milissa but her feelings.

He'd also had an excuse to show Chloe that Rudy and Milissa were together, alone and away from the estate.

No matter what happened with the bandersnatch, it would have gone Stephan's way. The differences were only of degree.

Rudy looked down at Milissa. She was still crying and hugging him. Her face was pressed to his chest. His bare chest, because he'd been exercising in only a pair of the estate-world's wool trousers.

He was pretty sure he believed Milissa's sobs, and her sob story. He couldn't bring himself to believe she was playing him for a fool.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe she had him pegged and he did have a thing for damsels in distress.

His reason for believing Milissa counted for exactly squat. What Milissa thought or wanted or did was just as irrelevant. She wasn't the one pulling the strings.

Oh crap.

Rudy's hands tightened on her shoulders. He pushed her away. She fell backwards onto her seat. Which was also his bed.

Oh. Crap.

She looked up, startled and hurt.

A gasp from the doorway distracted her and Rudy alike.

Chloe stood there, one hand at her throat, the other balled into a white-knuckled fist, staring.

Milissa coughed out a little choking sound. Her arms fell to her sides.

Rudy took a step toward Chloe. She was still apparently too furious to speak, so he strode to her side. "It's not what it looks like."

She stared at him. Her jaw worked silently.

"It's not, Chloe," Rudy said. He reached for her. He'd explain. She'd listen.

She slapped his hand away. Coldly, she whispered, "I am so damn sick of your lies, Algreil."