This doesn’t change anything, Maia said.
Stephanie took a step closer to Ana. Maia was wrong.
It changes everything.
She reached for Ana, pulling her into a hug. She was going to tell her everything. It didn’t matter if she believed her or not, or if she thought about handing her over to the military. She’d never do it. Stephanie felt the warmth that blossomed in Ana’s heart when their lips met.
It was too soon to call it love, she knew that, but it was a start.
Warmth washed over her and Stephanie felt herself get swept away in the other girl’s emotions.
She let herself get swept away.
Chapter Twenty
He moved across the room like a shadow, dark suit filled with tech that rendered him invisible to the cameras outside the room. There were no cameras here but he kept the tech activated anyway.
He paused beside the bed, staring down at the two figures who lay tangled beneath the silken sheets. Blonde hair shone in the artificial moonlight that spilled through an open curtain. Auburn hair turned dark as mahogany spilled across the pale sheets. He’d seen her before. At the center where they’d grown up.
He remembered watching her and the other succubus class as they trained in the gym, stretching and dancing. So different to his training.
He pulled a small cylinder from his belt and sprayed the blonde, careful not to let any of the mist land on the woman with darker hair. She deserved better than to die in her sleep.
He moved around to her side of the bed. The blonde had one of her legs flung over her and she slept with her hand resting on the other woman’s thigh. He reached a hand out, gently disentangling their limbs.
The succubus groaned in her sleep, frowning as the other woman’s body was removed from her own. Her eyes opened, groggy at first, then slowly focusing on his shadow wrapped form.
She took a breath to scream and he pushed his hand over her mouth, muffling the sound.
“It’s time to go home.”
She kicked him and he let her slip away. She slid off the bed and stood to run. He grabbed her by the hair and flipped her to the ground. She lay there, stunned.
He swallowed.
He knew she had extra pheromones that leached from her skin, the way all of the succubi did, but he hadn’t expected it to affect him. He was suddenly aware of how creamy soft her body looked in the dim light, rounded breasts heaving as she struggled to draw breath. He knelt on top of her, pinning her to the ground while he slid his gloves off, inextricably drawn to touch her skin as he felt her life force drain away beneath him.
His hands closed around the soft warmth of her throat.
“I’m sorry about this,” he whispered, voice rough from lack of use. “But I have my orders.”
* * *
She twisted beneath him, her long legs swiveling around his neck as she used the momentum to flip them both over. She reached for the killer’s tools, finding a thin blade easily among the many hidden pockets of his suit. It slid between his ribs just as easily, just as quickly as she’d been taught as a child.
His hands gripped weakly at her thighs. Blood pooled between his lips and she caught the faint hint of a smile as the light faded from his eyes.
She stood up, glancing down the length of her body and frowned in confusion. She was wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of panties.
Her suit was gone.
She shook her head, trying to remember what had happened.
She’d come in. Sprayed the princess with a sedative that seeped in through the young woman’s skin. She wanted to give the succubus a chance to come to terms with the fact that she was dying. It’s what she would have wanted for herself and it seemed only fair to give her the same chance, since they shared a creator.
She scrubbed a hand over her face.
Somehow, she’d ended up being strangled by another killer.
She glanced down at the body beneath her feet.
Glanced back at the blonde on the bed.
Peered into the shadowy corners of the room.
Where was the succubus?
She moved to the bathroom, footsteps muffled on the thick carpet. The door swung open silently.
She squinted into the dark room. There was something wrong with her eyes.
She blinked, once, twice, trying to get her eyes to work the way they were supposed to.
Maybe she'd hit her head when she was grappling with the other killer.
She gave up on seeing in the dark and reached for the light switch.
She blinked against the glare, searching for the succubus. She froze when she saw her. Red curls making a foamy frame for her ivory curves. The succubus froze with her.
She tilted her head to the side.
The succubus tilted her head.
She crept toward her, steps fluid and cat like.
The succubus crept back.
They met on either side of the bathroom sink. She gripped the basin, staring into the green-gray eyes in the mirror. Her eyes. She shook her head. The memories were all scrambled up.
She was the killer. She remembered growing up, training - how to kill, how to move like a shadow. She remembered the small animals they gave her to play with, before she was old enough to kill bigger animals. She remembered her designation code was Predator 8182, but that she'd always thought of herself as the killer. It was what she was born to do.
But she was a succubus too. She frowned, struggling to call the memories to the surface. It felt like trying to remember a dream she'd had a year ago. The memories of the killer were so much fresher, so much clearer.
"Remember," she told herself. Her voice sounded strange. Low and smokey, with a twang she didn't remember picking up. Was it part of her programming?
"Come on, remember... You ain’t got all night."
That voice. It was so familiar.
She closed her eyes, the scent of a memory blazing a trail through her subconscious.
She was eighteen. Her first time in the outside world. She had a monitor who wore gloves all the time and drank too much coffee. They stayed in a dingy little house on the edge of two horse town in the middle of nowhere, and she was allowed to mingle with people her age.
"Maia?" she whispered.
The voice answered in her mind. You’ve got to get out of here, Stephanie. They sent one assassin, they'll send more.
"But I don't understand."
You don't need to understand, you just need to get yourself somewhere safe.
"But-"
Now!
She spun on her heel, running back into the bedroom. Clothes were strewn across the floor and she lost precious time searching for her bra. She hesitated at the side table, staring at the small gold purse there.
Ana would understand.
Well, she probably wouldn't... Waking up to find a strange man dead on her floor and her girlfriend run off with her cash cards - the ones she used when she didn’t want her purchases being traced back to the princess of Cetus - would be hard for anyone to understand...
But if she knew the truth, Ana would have told her to take the cards and run.
Stephanie leaned over the bed, pressing a soft kiss against Ana's lips. There was so much she wanted to say to her, but the body on the floor was a stark reminder that there wasn't time. Who knew what else they'd send after her. Or how long before they started coming after Ana too, if they could get through her security this easily.
In the end, she settled for whispering, "I wish I could have made it real."
She brushed the tears from her eyes before they had a chance to fall and turned to the body of the killer.
Dead? A new voice whispered.
Stephanie shook her head, trying to clear the phantom sound away. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She glanced over her shoulder, reflexively searching for the sound even though she had a sinking suspicion she already knew exactly where the sound was coming from.
She pushed the thou
ght aside, not ready to deal with it yet, and began to strip the corpse.
Chapter Twenty-One
Stephanie strapped herself into the private ship the killer had taken to the station, grateful it had been code locked rather than bio-locked.
It wouldn’t do for their biological code to be lying somewhere it could be linked to a murder, she supposed, in case the killer had to take a different route away from the scene of the crime.
She punched an exit request in, momentarily glad to have access to the killer’s memories as she wouldn’t have known the flight protocols without him. She moved to log her destination.
Blinked, staring at the co-ordinates she’d entered.
Xinwang. The planet where the corporation had their research center. Home.
The killer had to take the succubus in, since he’d failed to dispose of her correctly.
She shook her head.
You’re not in control here! She sent the thought screaming through her mind, trying to flush any remnants of the killer’s personality away.
She felt something cold and sinister curl up in a corner of her mind, like a snake under a rock but he didn’t say anything.
Ancestor’s save us, Maia swore.
Sorry, Stephanie muttered. She hadn’t meant to shake the girl from her place in her mind. She’d grown almost comfortable with having her there. She doubted she’d ever grow used to the killer.
She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the tension there.
She had to find Sanctuary now.
And when she did, she’d find a way to go back for Caroline.
She felt Maia bite her tongue, not wanting to start another argument. She’d made her thoughts on what had happened to Caroline perfectly clear.
Stephanie punched in the co-ordinates for the last place Ivan Gao had been seen, she’d find him if she had to shake hands with everyone he’d ever met.
Her wrist tingled and she glanced down.
Spencer Evans.
Her eyes opened wide.
She hadn’t heard from him since...
He'd been reassigned to a different succubus. All of the mentors had been after their trials.
She opened the voice call. What the hell is Spencer Evans doing in the same system?
“Hello,” she whispered.
She counted the seconds before his reply. He must have been in the same system, if he had a voice call open rather than a recorded message. But how close was he?
“Stephanie?”
Three seconds.
She wondered if he was on a planet or one of the moons since the lag was obviously long enough that he wasn’t on station.
“What do you want?” She pulled away from the station and set a course for the nearest Garnet Gate.
“You need to come back to the center.”
She thought carefully. The three-second lag stretching to six.
“Why?” she tried to keep her voice neutral.
“It’s not safe to be out right now.”
“Yeah. I got the message from Predator 8182.”
She hacked into Station Security, eliminating records of her ship, and setting up a spy program to alert her when they found the body. Hopefully, she’d be out of the system by that time but it would give her a heads up that they’d be looking for her at the gate, just in case.
“What are you talking about? What predator?”
“They sent an assassin after me. I didn’t even say anything to that reporter.” She felt her shoulders bunching up and forced them down. She wasn’t tense, or scared. She was angry.
“What reporter? Stephanie? What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything and they tried to kill me!”
Silence stretched between them. She listened to the sound of her own breathing fill the cockpit.
“Nobody sent anyone, Stephanie. This is the first I’m hearing about any of this.” He sounded tired. She heard a rustling motion and imagined him running a hand through his hair, the pale tendrils sticking up at odd angles.
“There’s a reporter who’s found out about the corporation. I went to see how much she knew. Next thing I know, Jefferson and Dr. Volkov are ordering me back to the center and then there’s an assassin in Ana’s room.”
She waited for his reply.
Three.
Two.
One.
Zero....
“Spencer?”
“Who’s Dr. Volkov?”
She frowned. What was he playing at?
“My monitor. Dr. Mingyu Volkov.”
Apprehension stole through her, making her chest tight and her breath short. Why didn’t Spencer Evans recognize the name?
“Stephanie, you haven’t had a medical monitor since you were eighteen.”
No. She knew Dr. Volkov. He’d been with her since before she’d left the corporation.
After you saw Caroline, Maia said.
Shut up.
“We can help you, Stephanie. If you come back to the center. We can help you deal with the symptoms.”
“Like you helped Caroline?”
She was nearly at the gate. She joined the queue, logging her flight path and destination as she lined her ship up with the twin spinning wheels.
She watched the ship in front of her fly inside. The wheels began to turn. Faster and faster, a field of bright light formed between them and she turned away.
When she looked back, the ship was gone.
“We’re making new discoveries all the time.”
“Not fast enough to save any of us,” she said.
She guided her ship between the wheels, centering it as best she could.
“Please, Stephanie. Let me help you!”
The wheels started spinning and she closed her eyes against the glare.
“I don’t need you, Spencer Evans.,” she whispered. “I can help myself.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Spencer Evans clasped his hands behind his back, standing in front of Dr. Kelsey's desk. Dr. Kelsey had pushed her desktop coms unit to the side so that the hologram of Agent Jefferson was standing diagonally between them.
"Had Stephanie mentioned anything about Dr. Volkov to you before?" Spencer Evans asked.
A muscle in agent Jefferson's jaw jumped. "No."
"Did she display any other symptoms of paranoia or hallucinations?" Dr. Kelsey arched one perfectly manicured brow.
"Not that I was aware of."
"Not that you were aware of?" Spencer couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice. How did a trained operative miss someone losing their grip on reality right in front of them?
"If she was sick, she was keeping it together well. You know she made contact with the Princess of Cetus?"
"Did you order her to contact the Princess?"
"No… An opportunity presented itself. She confirmed permission to continue the relationship. We got a lot of good information."
“Thank you, Agent Jefferson.” Dr. Kelsey said. “You're relieved of your post. Please return to base and await new orders."
“But-"
“That's all, Jefferson." Dr. Kelsey shut the coms.
"Do you think her Dr. Volkov has anything to do with Caroline?" Spencer Evans asked, rocking on his heels.
"It seems like too much of a coincidence to be otherwise."
"How did we miss this?"
"I didn't realize you'd been on her case the entire time."
He cleared his throat. "Since I was reassigned to working on the cure, I've tried to keep abreast of any experiments who might have been suffering symptoms."
"Hmm," Dr. Kelsey pursed her lips.
"If Stephanie has been hallucinating the same Dr. Volkov that Caroline used to see, then that confirms our hypothesis that the schizophrenic symptoms are contagious."
"Stephanie only had contact with Caroline once after her return from Ecrune. Are you trying to claim that you organized it on purpose to test your hypothesis?"
Spencer Evans ducked his head but d
idn't say anything.
"It would seem to confirm your hypothesis. I’ll have an extraction team sent to retrieve Stephanie. Their reports will be sent to you."
"Thank you, Dr. Kelsey."
She removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment before glancing back up at him. "She trusted you once, Dr. Evans, maybe she will again."
* * *
Ana stretched, waking up slowly as the morning light cycle poured through her bedroom window. She rolled over, reaching a hand across the sheet for Stephanie. She frowned, shifting further across the bed. Her eyes flew open.
"Stephanie?" She pushed herself to a sitting position, glancing around the room. She blinked trying to clear her sleepy morning vision. There was something on the floor.
Ana screamed. Her hand flew over her mouth, trying to stifle the sound belatedly.
Her bedroom door flew open, a burly guard entering with his stunner drawn. He scanned the room quickly, going from the body on the floor to Ana alone in bed.
Rogue Memory Page 10
