"Who do you work for? What faction are you?"
"Does it matter? Here you are, and that means payday for me. Come on."
"No."
He leans forward, his other hand darting out to seize my arm. He brings the knife over and sets its tip against the blue-green vein of my wrist. He could slit that vein in one easy motion, before I could heat his skin enough to do any damage.
"It doesn't matter to me if you die, you know," he says. "If you refuse to come with me, I'll kill you, and I'll go on my way no richer or poorer. You come with me, you live, and I gain. It's that easy, sweetheart."
A shadow falls over the table, and a deep voice interjects, "I thought you were saving me a seat."
My skin thrills and tightens at the sound of Rak's voice. "This man insisted on stealing your spot."
I don't look up at Rak; my eyes stay focused on the knife tip, poised against the pulsing vein. One quick movement, and my blood will gush out over the table. We have no extra nano-patches, so I'll be dead quickly.
"She's coming with me," says the bounty hunter.
"You're going to make that kind of scene here?" says Rak quietly.
The man laughs, like metal scraped over stones. "I live for making a scene."
"Think about it this way," says Rak. "I'm not letting you walk out of here with her. And if you kill her, you'll die the next second."
"You think you'd best me in a fight, boy?"
"Oh, I know I could, but I've got more than skill on my side." Rak swivels slightly to give the bounty hunter a glimpse of the gun strapped to his hip. "You won't make it to the door."
"I've got a gun, too."
"Then I guess we'll see who can draw faster. You really think you can shoot me and control her at the same time? She's tougher than she looks."
The hunter's mouth puckers with indecision. Then he withdraws the knife and releases my wrist.
"Got me this time, boy," he says. "Watch your back."
Pushing back the chair, he stands and strides out of the bar.
"Are you all right?" Rak says to me.
I'm shaking, and I hate myself for it. "I'm fine. I had it handled."
He frowns. "No, you didn't."
"Why are you always stepping in to save me? You're not my rutting bodyguard! Let me handle things on my own for once!"
Eyes narrowing, he leans in, so close I can smell the faint aroma of soap on his skin and hair. "So I should let you die? Or be taken?"
"Just give me a chance to work it out on my own. I'm not as dumb or helpless as you think."
He pulls back. "I don't think you're dumb or helpless."
"You called me an idiot! And your stepping in to save me all the time proves that you think I'm weak."
Biting his lip, he straightens and strides back to the bar. I continue dislodging sand grains from the table and cursing in my head until he returns with two packages and two silver bottles.
"We're taking our meal with us," he says brusquely. "Come on."
We don't speak on the short walk back to our room. Once we're inside, I kick the door shut behind me with unnecessary force.
"Listen," I say. "I know you think I'm a stupid stuck-up rich girl from Ceanna who has no clue about the world outside my perfect little happy life—but you're wrong. I know a lot more than you think I do. I can handle more than you think I can. And your condescending tough-guy-in-charge attitude is annoying. I want it to stop."
He sets the food and drinks down on a narrow table by the wall. Then he faces me, arms folded and eyes burning. "You're ridiculous."
My cheeks flame. "I'm not. I'm as smart and tough as you, and I'd appreciate a little respect."
"Since when have I not respected you?" His voice rises. "I spoke to you when I wasn't supposed to. I disobeyed orders for you; I got you out of that building and across the desert. You know what I want, Zilara? A little gratitude! You think I don't know that you're smart and strong? You're the toughest, sharpest, most badass girl I've ever met, no exceptions."
I'm paralyzed, staring at him.
He's not done yet. "You want respect? Respect is me debating politics with you and trying to find out more about you and not killing you when I was supposed to. It's me not touching you in any disrespectful way, not even when you were lying beside me, asleep. Respect is me keeping my distance and keeping you safe at the same time. You've got my respect. Now why don't you give me some credit for not being the thick-skulled barbarian you think I am?"
During the tirade he came closer; but his nearness doesn't threaten me. Instead, I feel something else—a tingling in the air and all over my skin. An uncomfortable, insistent feeling, like an itch, along with the utter certainty that the itch would be satisfied if I were touching him.
So little space between us. I could reach out and lay my hand on his chest.
He's waiting for an answer.
"You're not a thick-skulled barbarian," I say slowly. "I know that. And—thank you—for what you've done." I had a point, somewhere in all this, before the nearness and the tingling started—I need to remember what my argument was. "But could you try to let me fend for myself more? Give me a chance to surprise you, instead of jumping in like my almighty savior."
He nods, his breathing slower. "I can do that."
"I'm hungry, and tired, and that's not helping my mood," I say. "Let's forget this, and eat."
The fight unlocked something between us, and the silence feels comfortable as we unpack our meal. My packet contains some kind of gravy-covered meat, alongside fried potatoes and seared vegetable stalks. I've never tasted anything so delicious; but after our deprivation in the desert, we have to pace ourselves with the meal and the water. I force myself to take small sips, tiny bites, so my body can adjust.
Our stomachs full, we lie back on the bed, side by side. Oddly, I want to move closer to Rak, to feel his heat and tuck my head down against his chest like I did out in the desert. But this bed is wide enough for two, and the temperature in the room is perfect—there's no need to huddle for warmth.
I glance at him, but his eyes are already closed. He's going to sleep. As I should.
But not before I get a good look at him.
The short sleeves of his shirt expose the scars on his arms. There's another scar at his temple that I never noticed before, a pale line over his tanned skin. I reach up with one finger to touch it, and then I pull my hand back. What am I doing? That would be crossing a line.
What is wrong with me? I can't possibly like this rough, conflicted Fray rebel. No, this is raw physical attraction, an animal thing. A deep primal instinct, the female seeking out the most likely mate in the immediate zone.
Mate?
I'm an idiot for even thinking the word.
I turn over, with my back to him, and I close my eyes.
Sometime in the night I wake, with the certainty that I heard a soft click at the door to our room. I'm paralyzed, listening, Rak snoring at my back.
Another tiny click. The room is swathed in shades of indigo and black, the door to our room a navy rectangle against the deep gray of the wall. Is it my imagination, or is the door moving? Ever so slightly, ever so slowly, easing open?
I'm lying nearest the door. Rak's gun belt is on the other side of the bed, slung over a chair. If I call to him, if I reach for it, the person at the door will hear and spring in, and probably shoot us both—or at least shoot him and take me.
On the small dresser near me stands one of the silver bottles we bought with our meal. It's made of a cheap, thin metal, but it could potentially do some damage. I slip my hand out of the sheets and seize it, holding it behind the corner of the dresser out of sight of the doorway, warming it as fast as I can, as hot as I can. A red glow suffuses the metal.
The door is definitely opening. There's a black shape sliding through, outlined against the faint light of the hallway.
While the figure is coming in, I need to catch him off guard. I whip up the blazing-hot metal bottle, and I
fling it right where the head should be.
Thanks to years of playing aeroball, the heated projectile strikes true. There's a huff of pain from the intruder, and I shove Rak off his side of the bed with all my strength, landing on top of him as the first gun bolt whizzes through the air. It catches me across the shoulder, crackling over my skin. Pain sears through my flesh, and I cry out.
Rak lurches under me, tossing me aside, reaching for his gun belt. He snags the gun and returns fire across the bed, not even looking, just pointing the weapon over the edge of the mattress and firing indiscriminately. The bolts sing across the room, back and forth, scoring the walls behind us and sizzling when they strike the blankets.
Angling his head sideways, Rak peers over the bed and takes another shot. A man's voice cries in pain, and Rak rises higher, shooting again, and again.
Something—a gun?—clunks to the floor, and then a larger something collapses too.
Rak stands, weapon aimed, and stalks around the bed. I rise on my knees for a cautious look. The intruder sprawls in his slick red blood, his gun lying beside him. The bounty hunter from the bar.
Rak swears and kicks the gun farther from the dying man's twitching fingers. "I should never have slept while he was here, in the same town. I should have known he'd come after us."
"We were too tired and starved to think clearly," I say. "I should have known, too. We should have barricaded the door, or something."
He glances at me. "That would have been smart."
Quickly I inspect my shoulder wound. It's not deep, but it hurts. We'll have to get our hands on another nano-patch, or at least a bandage.
I slide over the bed and step closer to the hunter. "What do we do with him?"
Rak sighs. "People on this floor will have heard the shots. Someone will be here any minute. We could tell the authorities he broke in, but they're probably going to recognize you. There will be questions—bribes to pay, that I can't afford."
The authorities. If the authorities come, I can tell them who I am. I can get away from Rak.
Why doesn't the idea make me happy?
As if he's reading my mind, Rak says, "None of your father's Peace-Keepers live in Ankerja. The leaders here are supposedly neutral, although they're mostly Fray with a Vilor sympathizer or two. You won't find refuge with them."
"Then we have to leave."
"Not necessarily." He's eyeing me in a way I don't like. "Not if you hide."
"Where? Under the bed?"
"No, too obvious. In one of the other rooms, I think."
"I'm supposed to knock on doors and ask someone to let me in?" I can't believe he's suggesting this.
"Yes," he says. "And do it now, Zilara, before anyone comes. You'll be fine, you can burn anyone who tries to bother you. All you need is somewhere to lay low until the authorities investigate." He's wrapping my dinner leftovers, the other bottle, and my shoes in the extra towel. He shoves the bundle into my arms. "Take this, so they don't know a second person was in here. Go."
"What about security vids?" I say, stepping over the body in the doorway.
"This place only has them outside, and I doubt they even work. Go. Now!"
I hurry down the dimly lit hallway, passing one door and halting before another. I knock twice. There's a sound from the opposite end of the hall, where a few steps lead up to the lobby. Voices, footsteps.
"Hurry," Rak hisses, leaning out the door of our room.
I knock again.
A blond, bleary-eyed man opens the door. "What—"
I shoulder my way into his room before he can say anything else, and I push the door shut behind me. "Hi there. I need to hang out here for a while, all right?"
"Sure." He grins, a slow, sleepy grin, and I realize he's the one who whistled at me when I came out of the shower.
"Not like that," I say. "You go back to sleep. I'll just sit here for an hour or so, and then I'll go."
"Oh." He looks confused, but he ambles back to the bed and climbs under the covers. By the light of the dim bedside lamp, I can tell he's in his mid-twenties, with a lean, attractive face.
In a few seconds he's sound asleep again. I sit in the chair, waiting. Eventually I lean my head back against the wall and doze. The twinges of pain in my shoulder and the buzz of the nanites over my burned left hand keep waking me up.
When someone taps at the door, I jerk awake and leap to open it. Rak is standing outside. "They're gone," he whispers. "Didn't even ask me many questions. Just assumed the guy was trying to rob me." He glances past me at the man sleeping on the bed. "Any trouble?"
"None at all."
"All right, then. I think we can finish our night in peace."
Back in our room, I step around the smudges of red-brown blood on the carpet. Someone tried to sponge most of it away, with limited success. It reminds me of the stain Vern's blood left on the floor of my prison room, back at the Fray base.
We shove a table and chair in front of the door, not trusting the finicky scanner lock this time.
"They should have a mechanical lock or a chain on these doors, as a backup security feature," I whisper as we slide into the bed again.
"Old-fashioned," Rak says, yawning.
"Effective."
"Until someone kicks the door hard enough."
We're lying face to face. His skin glows golden in the light from the small bedside lamp. I've never seen him like this—relaxed, the angles of his face softer than usual, in spite of everything that just happened.
"You saved us," he says.
"I did, didn't I? He would have shot you and dragged me to who knows where."
He returns my smile. "Proud of yourself?"
"Very."
After a minute, I say, "You had me take all my things with me, so they wouldn't know I was in the room—but the woman at the desk checked us in together. She would remember that a girl came here with you."
"Yes, and the investigator did ask about my companion. I told him I hired you from a different town, and we were supposed to stay here for a few nights. But you got a better offer from someone down the hall, so you weren't in the room with me when the man broke in."
"You told them I'm a prostitute?"
"Servicer," he corrects me. "Servicing is not illegal here, and they wouldn't be likely to check up on it. And as long as they didn't see you, they couldn't recognize you as someone important."
"I've gone from hostage to wanted woman to servicer," I say, sighing. "How much lower can I go?"
"Don't despise servicers." His frown surprises me. "Most have good reason for doing what they do. Survival, or protection."
"I don't despise them." But I do. I don't understand how a woman could sell her body that way.
"You've never been that desperate," Rak says.
I stare at him. "Can you read my thoughts?"
"No. Why?"
"Sometimes it's as if you know what I'm thinking."
His lips part like he's going to answer, but he doesn't. Instead he lifts his hand—slowly, cautiously—and reaches toward my face. I barely breathe.
9
His eyes liquid darkness, Rak smoothes back a lock of my hair. As he does it, his fingertips graze my cheek, my jaw, my ear, leaving trickles of heat wherever they touch.
"What are you doing?" I whisper.
"I don't know. Sorry." He flips onto his back, head angled away from me.
"It's fine. Really."
It's an admission, and an invitation. Although the second the words slip out, I want to bite them back.
Rak doesn't answer, or turn toward me. After a few minutes, he rises from the bed, taking his pillow with him, and tugs the blanket out of his pack. He throws the pillow onto the floor and lies down, pulling the blanket over him.
Frowning, I sit up. "You're going to sleep on the floor?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you're getting the wrong idea about all this."
"Me? I'm the one getting the wrong idea
? You're the one who touched me."
"Touched you?" He scoffs. "I moved your hair. You women, so self-obsessed, thinking that every man wants you."
"Don't generalize," I say. "There are plenty of self-obsessed people in the world. My self-obsession has nothing to do with gender."
"So you admit that you're self-obsessed?"
"Maybe. But at least I admit it. I know exactly who I am. Do you? Because I think you're hiding from yourself. You pretend you're one of the Fray—you talk and act like it sometimes, but deep down, you're something else."
His eyes, half-hooded, gleam at me in the low light. "What am I then?"
"A sad, lost, lonely boy, looking for redemption or for revenge—you're not sure which one."
He's so still he could be a stone statue of a man lying on the carpet.
Why doesn't he say something? I stare at him as hard as I can, as if that will force him to talk to me. His eyes are black slits under his lowered eyelids. Is he asleep?
"Stop staring at me, Zilara," he says. "Go to sleep."
"I will if you'll talk to me first."
"Stars above, what did I do to deserve this torture?" he groans. "What do you want me to say?"
"Something. Anything. What do you think about what I said?"
"Which was—"
"You're sad, lost, and lonely—you know."
"You're absolutely right, Zilara, that's exactly who I am. You summed up my character, my past, present, and future, in a single sentence. Congratulations. Now go to sleep."
I wait in the silence for sleep to come, and while I wait, I think about my next move. Earlier in the night, I was willing to sleep peacefully beside Rak and put off planning an escape until morning—but the attack by the bounty hunter has made me realize how precarious my position is. I need to act.
Rak is right about one thing—with the combination of Fray and Vilor sympathizers here, and no presence from my father's Peace-Keepers, this town isn't the best place for me to come forward as the daughter of Magnate Remay. But if I could get my hands on a communicator, I could contact my father directly. I know his personal wave-code—all I need is a device powerful enough to transmit the signal. If my skull-port was in place, that would be easy. Most modes of communication depend on skull-port tech—the transmitters are either integrated right into the port itself, or provided via data sticks or other skull-port attachments. Since I don't have my port anymore, I need a stand-alone communication piece I can use—an old-school device. And I'm not sure where to find one.
Rebel of Scars and Ruin (The Evolved Book 1) Page 8
