Adiron (Corsair Brothers 1)

"It's the best, I think," Zoey says.

"Some of the stasis pods house gladiators," Adiron says, a warning in his breath. "One or two dangerous ones particularly. Crulden the Ruiner's in there."

Zoey looks nonplussed, but Kivian's eyes widen.

"If that's the case, then there's bound to be a bounty or two for their safe return." Kivian shrugs. "We can return them to pay for fuel costs, or turn them over to the authorities to be properly imprisoned."

"Imprisoned?" I ask. "Why?"

"They're killers." Kivian and Adiron exchange a glance. "Killers that are usually pumped full of chemicals and trained to kill whatever's in front of them…so they're rewarded with a nubile female slave. You can't mix them in with the normal population."

Oof. Okay. I have to remember that this end of the universe has different rules to what's acceptable in their society. How ironic that a kiss is considered revolting, but they don't blink an eye at a gladiator tearing his enemy apart. "All right. When do we take the humans to this planet, then?"

"Once we get this ship coded over to Bethiah—"

Bethiah pops her head up from behind a panel and grins wickedly. "I'm glad we came to an agreement on that."

Zoey rolls her eyes. "More like no one wanted to hear you screeching all the way back to Jerrok's asteroid."

"Effective, isn't it?" Bethiah seems unbothered. "Speaking of my ship—I think I'll call her The Sore Loser. You know, after her original owner. What are you planning on doing with Shaalyn?”

"What, you mean we can't leave her in your hold?" Zoey looks over at Bethiah.

"Only if you want me to accidentally 'oops' space her." Bethiah shrugs. "I can make it happen. No one needs to know."

"I think she needs to be given to Jade," Adiron says.

Wait, what? "Why me?" I squawk, alarmed.

"Well, you can't let her go," Bethiah says in a helpful way. "She'll run her mouth and come after you—and your cargo of humans—the moment you let her go."

"You just want her taken care of so she doesn't come after your ship," Zoey mutters, but she looks over at her brother. "Whatever you want to do, I'm fine with."

Adiron just looks over at me.

I stare back, my mind blank. How am I supposed to know what to do with Shaalyn? I mean, I punched her and I enjoyed it. Now that everyone's safe, though, I don't know that I can deem myself her executioner. I shake my head. "I can't."

"She wouldn't think twice about killing you," Zoey says, a hard expression on her face. "Or selling you."

"I'm not saying I like her," I retort. "Or that I want to be best buddies. I just don't want to kill her. Just because she's evil doesn't mean I need to stoop to her level." Is that a flash of disappointment in Adiron's eyes? I feel guilty that I can't be as casual about someone's death as they are. Maybe I'd feel different if Shaalyn had a gun in her hands and I had to rely on instinct. Right now, though—she's neutralized.

"So you'd rather her come after you the moment we dump her somewhere?" Zoey's expression remains hard. "Because that's exactly what's going to happen unless you silence her somehow."

"Does that have to mean death?" I ask, frowning.

Bethiah brightens. "I'll cut her tongue out. Silence, just like you wanted."

"She's got hands," Kivian points out. "She can type."

"I'll get rid of them, too." Bethiah doesn't seem too bothered by this thought.

I press my hands to my face, because now I'm envisioning a handless, tongueless Shaalyn and it's not doing wonders for my stomach. "Mutilation isn't the answer, either." It's clear that we can't let her go, though. This is like when we were back on the Star, confronted with pirates we had to get rid of, somehow. "When we were on our ship, we were boarded by pirates a few times. We'd pretend to be helpless, gas them until they were unconscious, and then toss them into an escape pod from their ship. The gas we used wiped their memories for the prior period and so they didn't know how to get back to our ship—we'd turn off our distress signal for months on end, and no one ever came back around. Can't we do something like that?"

"Drug her, strip the pod of any sort of communication equipment, and launch her into deep space?" Zoey nods slowly. "I don't hate it. It'd be easier to just rid the universe of her entirely, but we can do it this way, too."

I look over at Adiron, and for once, his expression is impossible to read. Is he disappointed I don't have the stones to hang with them? That I'm showing too much conscience to be a pirate? Zoey doesn't seem disturbed at the thought of killing Shaalyn, but just like I can't abandon all those sleeping people to their fates, I can't cold-bloodedly murder a woman just because she's an awful bitch.