Tarkken

by Annabelle Rex

  Tarkken didn’t think he’d ever understand Marta Kowalczyk.

  The music was audible even as they stepped out of the taxi, a low thump thump of bass that wasn’t quite a sound, heard by his ribs more than his ears. A queue of people had gathered outside the club entrance, other young women dressed like Marta, though most of them in dresses that revealed long stretches of their legs. Men lurked around them, most in shirts and jeans, the white on the edges of their shoes flashing in the darkness as they moved forwards in the line. Marta took his hand and pulled him towards the back.

  “Look at these people,” Marta said, angling her head to glance down the line, even as she kept her body close to his. Close enough that he got a whiff of her perfume - something fruity and sweet. “They’re students and clubbers. They’re here for a good night out, not to plan a riot. I doubt any of them are here for the EHPL.”

  Tarkken didn’t think it was wise to judge on appearances, but he didn’t have to. He reached out, scanning through their emotions. His headache pulsed once, violent and painful, then faded, the relief of reading into someone else’s mind washing through him, leaving him feeling almost giddy. It was the deep connection he really needed, the lack of it making his ability so difficult to manage. But brushing through so many different emotional landscapes helped.

  All the minds here were a riot of excitement and alcohol, some with undercurrents of sadness and regret. Dance and drink the blues away. Some of the men were a little worse for wear, a little on edge. A couple of the women, too, the alcohol they’d already consumed pushing them to the edge of their restraint. But it wasn’t targeted - just a rage at the world and life in general. Violent tendencies unleashed by drink. Not pre-meditated, pre-planned violence against any specific group.

  “I think you’re right,” he said. “I can’t sense any malice in any of them.”

  Marta nodded. “So we go in and have a look round, see what we can see. And hey, if it’s a bust, we can always dance.”

  She did a little shimmy of her hips, a teasing grin on her face, and Tarkken had the strange sensation of heat surging through his body, even as his mind rebelled against it. It was Marta but it wasn’t Marta. And Tarkken couldn’t work out which response belonged to which, even as the fact that he responded to her at all unnerved him.

  “Mm, I’m thinking you probably don’t dance,” she said, misinterpreting his silence. “Far too… important.”

  “I’m not important,” Tarkken said.

  “Yes, you are, Mr Head of Security,” she said, leaning close, partly teasing, mostly just to keep the conversation to themselves.

  He could feel her emotions swirling round him. He couldn’t sense any discomfort among them, still no regret that she’d allowed him access to her mind like this. She seemed to be almost… enjoying his company.

  They arrived at the front of the queue moments later, Marta giving a surly looking bouncer the password. He nodded, then stood aside for them to enter. Marta reached back and took Tarkken’s hand, her fingers slipping between his as if made to fit there. And then the music wrapped around them, and every inch of Tarkken’s awareness was taken up by thudding bass and the smell of sweat and alcohol and the movement of bodies pressed together on the various dance floors.

  And the emotions, so many emotions. The same mix of excitement and sadness and losing control. But pulsing through it all in time with hips grinding into hips, lips touching necks, a current of lust. He could drink deep in this well of emotions, without ever going beyond anyone’s surface. His aching head demanded it, throbbing behind his left eye with a sudden urgency. And wasn’t that what he was supposed to be doing, anyway? Getting a read on the crowd, searching for any hint of something out of place.

  “Wait here,” Marta said, drawing him towards the edge of the room by a high table full of empty glasses. “I’m going to get us a drink. We’ll look a bit out of place without one.”

  Tarkken nodded, watching her as she cut her way through the crowd, her long, straight hair flaring around her. His fingers felt strangely empty without hers between them.

  Tarkken leaned back against the wall, trying to take his mind away from Marta and push it towards the task at hand. But even in a room as crowded as this one, her emotions were like a beacon, luring him in. A delicious temptation.

  Because he could dip into the heads of everyone else here without consequence, but doing so didn’t give him the same feeling of relief that brushing up against Marta’s did. He’d never wanted to be in anyone else’s emotions - too messy, too intimate. But that little dip into Marta’s head had been such a relief, as though how much it hurt when he tried to keep out of her head was perfectly counterbalanced by how good it felt to be inside it.

  And that was a problem Tarkken did not know what to do about.

  Chapter 8

  MARTA CARRIED THE DRINKS CAREFULLY BACK over to Tarkken, trying to avoid getting jostled by the rowdy groups of people gathered round the bar. She had never been to a club quite this sober before. Normally, by the time she passed through the doors, she had a pleasant buzz going, the alcohol smoothing over any discomfort she felt from the sweat and the bodies brushing against hers. Normally she kind of enjoyed it, the animalistic feeling of brushing up against a complete stranger as you moved together to the same song.

  Not tonight, though. The arms and hips bumping into her were doing nothing but annoy her, sloshing the drinks she held over the rim of the plastic cups. After a particularly heavy bump, Marta pulled off to the side to allow a rambunctious group of lads on a stag do filter past. While she waited for them, she glanced in Tarkken’s direction, thinking to catch his eye so he’d know she was heading back to him. Instead, she found herself just watching him.

  He cut a fine figure in his Human clothes. Hell, he cut a fine figure in his usual clothes, but tonight, in a pair of jeans just the right degree of tight around his backside and his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, revealing his lovely forearms… It was enough to make a girl drool.

  “Forearms?” Asha had said to her once, while discussing one of Marta’s recent conquests. “Of all the parts on a man’s body, you love a good forearm?”

  “Mmmm, all that chorded muscle. Just makes me want to have a nibble.”

  And nibbling was definitely on her mind as she watched Tarkken push his hair back out of his face, the dancefloor lights playing over his skin. Which was completely wrong, because this was Tarkken and she barely even liked him most of the time.

  But then - like didn’t have to have a lot to do with anything as far as bodies were concerned. And it had been a while since Marta had someone’s body moving inside hers.

  Too long, if her wild thoughts were anything to go by.

  At least from this distance, she was probably out of immediate emotional reading range. He’d have to be actively looking for her to know what she was feeling - if he was doing his job, then he’d been in everyone else’s heads, not hers. And if there was something Marta knew for sure about Tarkken, it was that he took his work very seriously.

  Much as it annoyed her sometimes, she had to be grateful for that. He was keeping her girl safe, after all.

  “Water,” she said, once she finally got back to him, handing his plastic pint before guzzling half of hers. The bodies on the dancefloor were generating some serious heat, and the back of Marta’s neck was already sticky.

  Tarkken took a much more reserved sip, looking down at her, a faint frown forming on his brow. Not the usual scowl of displeasure - a more curious expression. Softer. Less aggravated.

  “What?” she said.

  “I don’t understand your top,” he said. “It seems to at once be encouraging me to look at it, and telling me off for doing so.”

  “I know, I wear it purposely to confuse men,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “No, not really.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I just like glitter.”

  She shot him a wink.

  “I never know wh
at to make of you,” he said.

  Marta laughed, leaning close to him. “Perhaps you ought to try getting to know me better.”

  The words were out before she had time to realise that she was slipping in to her flirt routine.

  And it wasn’t like she could try to play it off. He would know that’s what she was doing, because he’d be able to see it in the emotions she’d given him permission to look in to.

  So Marta did what she always did when caught doing something potentially embarrassing - gave herself a firm reminder that embarrassment was just a social construct and doubled down.

  She started swaying in time to the music, bumping her hip against his before spiralling towards the dance floor, shimmying as she went. She beckoned him to follow her, but he shook his head.

  “You’re not going to dance with me?” she called, pouting.

  “Being inexperienced in the realm of Human dancing, I think it would be best if I did some observing first,” he said, leaning back against the wall, arms folded across his broad chest.

  Marta found herself imagining what it would feel like to run her hands across it. It was as if now she’d allowed herself to notice his attractiveness once, she couldn’t stop noticing. No matter what she did to try to distract herself, her mind kept looping back round to that body, that chiseled jaw.

  Those arms.

  Marta let go of any tension, inhibition, let her body sway in time to the music in a more provocative way. She resisted the urge to look at him, trying to create the impression she was lost in the music. Could he read such falsehoods in her emotions? Was it as specific as that? He’d said it wasn’t like reading minds, not exactly, but that he could often intuit meaning. Would he be able to tell that she was deliberately trying to beguile him?

  Did she care if he could?

  No, she decided. What was the worst that could happen? Him remembering that he didn’t like her and either ignoring or outright rejecting her invitation. So what. It would be a lost opportunity, but there would be others.

  Maybe not others with an Empath, though, and Marta had to admit - she was very curious about that. If he could read her every mood, sense her every pleasure… It was a tantalising thought.

  The song started to change, the DJ blending the music seamlessly from one beat to another. Marta recognised the rhythm, the opening refrain of one of her favourites. And then she really was lost in the music, letting it wash over her, guiding her limbs as she danced.

  This was why she liked dancing. The anonymous press of people around her - more people than she ever wanted to be near, normally. But here, all of them moving in time with the music, they felt part of something bigger. Interconnected. It was intimacy without having to be intimate. When the music came over her like that, it didn’t matter that she was stone cold sober, that her only company was a man she apparently couldn’t decide if she wanted to punch or screw. Nothing mattered but the beat and moving to it.

  She looked over her shoulder at Tarkken. He was still leaning against the wall, arms still crossed across his chest. But his eyes tracked her every movement. And Marta didn’t think she imagined the heat in them.

  Marta wet her lips, heat blooming in her body in response to his gaze. He definitely didn’t miss that little emotional shift, not from the way his eyes suddenly snapped up to meet hers.

  But before she could say or do something to bridge the space between them, to take what had only existed in their emotions so far and give it physical presence, his attention suddenly snapped to the other side of the room.

  Marta left the dance floor and headed to his side, all thoughts of seduction gone.

  “What is it?” she asked him, pressing close so she could say it without yelling.

  “I thought I felt…” His gaze was somewhere over the heads of the people on the dance floor. Marta looked in that direction and saw a man pushing his way through the crowds by the bar. He wasn’t dressed for dancing, and he had the sort of purposefulness that indicated sobriety.

  “There, do you see him?” Tarkken said. “His emotions are very different to everyone else here. He’s full of rage. But not blind rage like the angry drunks. Focused rage. But also expectation, anticipation. Like, something good is going to happen. Not today, not now, but soon.”

  “Sounds like someone we need to keep an eye on,” Marta said.

  They started moving through the crowd, heading in the direction the man had gone, but trying not to be too obvious about it. They didn’t push or shove, just sidled through the gaps as they appeared, and when the crowd closed in around them, Tarkken reached back and took Marta’s hand in his. His touch felt electric.

  Ahead of them, the man reached a dark corner of the club. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a credit card and held it up to the wall. Marta saw a light flash green, and then a door cracked open. She pushed in front of Tarkken, pulling him along behind her. The man went through the door, leaving it to swing shut behind him. Marta caught it just before it clicked shut again.

  “If we go back there, and we’re caught…” Tarkken said.

  “Then let’s not get caught,” she said, pushing the door open slowly.

  The corridor beyond it was empty now, the man they’d been following turned a corner or gone in to one of the rooms. Marta checked the door had a release on the other side so they wouldn’t be locked in, then stepped through. Tarkken followed, and though she didn’t have his ability to read emotions, she could feel his apprehension.

  The floor was carpeted, so her heels didn’t clack as she crept forwards. The corridor came to a junction and branched off in three different directions. Marta looked to Tarkken and he canted his head to the left. She nodded, taking the left path.

  Before long, Marta could hear them, too. Not emotions, but voices, a low rumble of discussion, followed by laughter coming from one of the rooms. As she got closer, Tarkken grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back to him.

  “There are seven or eight of them,” he murmured right into her ear, voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “I don’t think Ethan is among them.”

  Marta nodded, a little relief blossoming in her chest. If they were caught back here, at least Ethan wouldn’t be there to recognise them. She turned her head, trying not to notice how close their faces were as she whispered.

  “Any idea what they’re talking about?”

  “No, but they’re agitated. Worked up. Anger and excitement.”

  Before they could say anything further, Marta heard the click of a door opening. Tarkken dragged her backwards, pulling her into a dark little alcove, their bodies pressed so close together there wasn’t an inch of them that wasn’t touching. And despite her pounding heart, despite the sudden fear-induced dryness of her mouth, a part of her still registered how nice it felt to be pressed up against him.

  A whistling sounded, footsteps walking down the corridor they’d just been in. Marta stilled, even her breathing going shallow as she tried to be quiet, small. Whoever it was, they turned down the opposite corridor and opened a door.

  “Need a hand with that, boss?” someone called, followed by the rapid sound of approaching feet.

  Marta risked leaning out a little. Two men were stood in front of a door, one passing a box of something to the other. A rattling box. As the man taking it heaved it upwards, getting it in a comfortable position, one of the sides bowed and another, smaller box fell out of it. As it hit the floor, the top burst open, and Marta was no expert, but the small metal tubes that tumbled out of it looked a lot like bullets.

  “Shit,” the man exclaimed.

  “Fucking idiot,” the other man said, his accent Irish.

  Marta reached for her phone. Habitually, she kept it on silent, so it didn’t make a sound as she unlocked it, turned the brightness of the screen way down. Tarkken’s arms went rigid around her as he realised what she was about to do, but if these guys had bullets, then they had weapons, and Marta and Tarkken needed proof of what they’d see
n to give to the police. Plus, she was pretty sure the guy with the Irish accent was going to be Nick Gillespie, who spoke with an Irish brogue whenever he exclaimed his hatred for the Intergalactic Community.

  Marta leaned out as far as she dared, checking her flash was off, then took a series of pictures, not looking at the capture, but at the men, ready to dart back into the shadows if one of them looked her way. But they didn’t, just ducked to pick up the spilled bullets, then turned and walked back towards the room they’d come from. As Gillespie turned to shut the door to the room he’d collected the bullets from, Marta got a decent look inside it, capturing it on her phone to examine later.

  She dropped back against Tarkken, heart pounding as she tucked her phone back in her bag. His heart was pounding, too, she could feel it beating against her back, and for a long moment they just stood together, letting their hearts slow.

  “They’re all back in the room,” Tarkken murmured. “I think we got what we came for. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Okay,” Marta said.

  The music was a dull, directionless throb. Marta had no idea which was the right corridor to take to get back to the dance floor, but Tarkken seemed to know where he was going, and pulled her along behind him, his pace urgent. Marta followed, anxious now to be out of this place - not just these corridors in the back where they weren’t supposed to be, but the whole club. The thought of all those people, innocently dancing the night away while on the other side of a locked door men were moving bullets between rooms...

  Tarkken’s grip on her hand tightened, and she wasn’t sure if it was in response to her horror or something else. Ahead of them, she could see the door that would lead them back out into the main area of the club. They were so close, just a few feet.

  “There’s someone coming,” Tarkken murmured. “We’re not going to reach the door in time.”