by Mary Weber
Heller snickered. “You think?” Then shot Sofi a sheepish look.
She frowned.
Ms. Gaines put on her sympathetic face, but all Sofi mainly noticed was Corp 13’s CEO Hart behind her. What was he doing there? “I mean, what parent wouldn’t be concerned when her daughter sleeps with half the employees and FanFight gamers. It’s been a growing issue with Sofi, and we’ve struggled with how to support her.”
“Whoa.” Claudius froze.
“What the heck?” Heller balked at the tele.
Sofi’s mouth went dry.
“In fact, multiple of our own employees here have come forward to . . .”
Ms. Gaines kept talking, but Sofi stopped listening. She didn’t care. She stared at the screen and tried to find the air that had just left the room. Crack, crack, crack—she could practically feel her insides fracture at the anger and mortification warming her suddenly icy skin beneath the awareness of Miguel’s gaze. Her throat squeezed.
She blinked and lifted her chin, and refused to take her eyes from the screen. Refused to look at him. To see his expression. To see any of their expressions.
Yes, she’d had relations with two employees in her mother’s Corp last year—though it’d been just another way to spite the woman who years ago, long before Sofi had ever even kissed a boy, had suggested privately that Sofi’s excessive flirting was undermining her CEO image.
“You need to think of how your behavior reflects on me with the company,” Inola had whispered. “Over-friendliness can be misconstrued and your excessiveness seen as weakness on my part. What will they think if I can’t even lead my own daughter?” Sofi had been fourteen at the time and had no clue what over-friendliness even looked like, let alone how it was different from basic friendliness. She still didn’t know.
But her retort of “perhaps I’d know how to behave better if you’d been there to tuck me and Shilo in at night” had earned her a week in “therapy” and launched Sofi’s mission to prove her mother right. To prove that CEO Inola’s daughter wasn’t the perfect example of whatever the power woman needed her children to be. She was her own. She was Sofi.
Even if sometimes she couldn’t remember who that was anymore.
“That’s not right,” Heller said. “What is she doing?”
“Sacrificing me for the Corp.”
“Why?” Heller’s gaze was confused. Infuriated. “That’s not what—”
“Because they need to distance themselves in case I really did blow up the Colinade.” Could he really be that ignorant after all this time working for them?
Miguel looked over. His face emotionless. Unreadable. “Did you?”
She almost laughed and, for the slightest second, wished she could say yes just to see the shock on his face. Instead, she shook her head. “But I’m currently hunting down who did. And I’m guessing it’s not Corp 24.”
“Same.” He offered an apologetic smile.
She nodded and lifted her gaze. To hide the sting that was still burning as, in the background, the tele had moved off of Ms. Gaines. She put her headphones back on and watched Miguel’s and Claudius’s mouths move as they talked together. From what she could read of their lips, it had to do with one of the individuals replacing another at the Delonese meeting they were headed to.
When she glanced back up at the tele, the news was back to showing pics of the before-wreckage and then those of the construction already begun to rebuild the stadium, which, from the number of workers and around-the-clock shifts, would be done within days. As if this drama warranted all the emergency attention—like it was the only thing going on in the world.
As if impoverished families and black-market babies weren’t suffering far worse.
As if families weren’t grieving the loss of the players and gamers.
As if her survival wasn’t cause for hope but rather a threat to someone’s image—and a convenient target for blame.
Was it her mom’s perspective as well or just Gaines’s? Something told her it was the latter.
She watched the screen a few more minutes, then returned her gaze to Miguel, who was just logging back in to his handscreen. Moments later her eyes drooped heavy—the events finally catching up with her as the rocket ship rocked and the ice-planet waited. She let her mind wander as she drifted in and out, and the heavy bass of her music slowly lulled her into blackness.
26
MIGUEL
MIGUEL SHUFFLED AROUND THE NOTES ON HIS HOLOSCREEN and went back to ignoring Sofi. Ignoring her eyes, her humiliation at Gaines’s accusation, her dimple on that one cheek that showed when she was furious, and those giant headphones that were too far out of style to possibly come back in. He cleared his throat and kept right on flipping through data.
As his guilt ate him alive for his part in pushing her into that world.
The first time he’d seen Sofi, she’d been just another girl, albeit slightly more interesting with the whole gamer thing going for her. Another head of rich brown hair and beautiful eyes, attached to silky brown limbs beneath a blue slip of a dress that floated around her like sky around Earth.
What he soon discovered was her brilliant mind could read a room like a coded cipher, and he’d watched her twirl a flyaway piece of that punk hair in its punk ponytail while speaking to a Corp 9 donor, sharing her idealistic thoughts about the world and her absolute disdain for the Delonese. As if they weren’t standing right in the same dang room.
He’d liked her spunk. He’d liked the whole package. Even those headphones she wore alongside the owl necklace at her throat. “To cut out the noise and nightmares,” she’d eventually told him.
But if her weirdness had caught him, it was her innocence that stole him—and all too quickly he found himself fascinated by something he couldn’t dismiss.
And that had been the game. That was always the game—using them as much as they used him before the women could gain leverage or secrets to sell, always under the guise of trying to tame him or own him or be in any way enough for him.
When the truth all along was—they were all enough. More than enough.
He wasn’t.
He gave a caustic laugh.
To his madre he’d been everything as a child—her mi cielito. And to his padre and extended family he’d been exactly what was expected—el mano. Until they’d been killed at a family fiesta when he was nine, in a terrorist attack during the Fourth War. They’d only lived in Old Colorado for a year.
He’d been out running the streets with his new friends and came home to a hole in the ground where his estate used to be, and the knowledge that he’d shirked his duty to his family—to be there, to have done something to defend them. And he’d lived with that shaming voice ever since—that he hadn’t been enough. Until, over time, it became a driving force. Like an empty stomach always starving for approval and needing others’ attention to feel full. To feel real. To feel valuable.
To be the man he’d failed at for his family.
And thus had begun another round—but with Sofi.
“Ambassadors, this is your captain speaking. Please feel free to now move about the cabin, and enjoy the rest of the flight.”
Miguel looked up from his handscreen and stretched out his neck. Then his arms. Claudius had turned off the news in exchange for a vid game he and Heller were playing. Or rather, Heller was destroying him at. Miguel smirked, then dropped his gaze to Sofi.
It had taken a month—his longest time ever. Pursuing her during the FanFights and then after, as her initial rejection transformed into interest of her own. Until one sun-drenched late afternoon when he saw the look in her eyes. The look of innocence offered, if he wanted to take it.
He almost did take it.
If it hadn’t been for the hope in her smile that hit him at the core, and with it, the dawning slowly erupted that whatever she offered, for the first time in his life, he could give nothing but passion and a few good intentions in return. Because with Sofi . . . She’d s
omehow managed to make him think he was exactly enough.
It had scared the vida out of him. So bad that he’d risen from the couch and walked out, and had never spoken to her again.
It wasn’t until the next morning, though, that he’d woken with the realization of what Sofi had truly done.
She’d ruined him for what he’d been.
And he’d broken her at a soul level.
Miguel shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. And continued with his notes.
That had been a year and a half ago, and no one but Claudius knew he’d never slept with another person since the week before he met Sofi. That he’d spent every day striving to be the person she had believed he was and that he slowly learned to believe in too. Because she truly had been different.
He narrowed his gaze at his handscreen in front of him and tried to dismiss the fact that now here she sat across from him. Back in the center of his thoughts and in a controversy worse than she could imagine. Looking like everything he’d tried the past eighteen months to forget.
He switched back and forth between a few files—negotiations to start with the Delonese as well as a plausible explanation for Sofi’s and Heller’s presence.
And chose to pretend he didn’t care whatsoever, as over the next six hours the girl who’d changed everything about his internal world slept.
Until, eventually, he glanced up and caught the look on Sofi’s face.
27
SOFI
SHILO WOKE TO AN EERIE STILLNESS THAT SUGGESTED the cargo ship had landed. The kids around him were stirring and starting to whisper.
“We’ve stopped.”
“Where are we?”
“Ouch, you’re pushing me.”
He blinked and rubbed the sleep away and then scrubbed his hands over his arms to warm up. Where had the ship landed? And how long would it take to find out?
He promptly scrunched up against the metal wall to make himself as small as possible and waited—for someone to come, for a door to open, for any freaking explanation of what was about to happen next.
Half a minute went by and the ship shifted beneath them with a clunk. Then a huge bay door shot open with a swish, letting in a draft of muggy air and dim light. He shielded his eyes.
Voices. People were speaking in a foreign language that was at once eloquent and terrifying. The boy closest to Shilo suddenly nuzzled against his side with a whimper. Poor kid. He slipped his arm around the boy’s shoulders as gradually Shilo’s eyes adjusted enough to see the others in the ship. Maybe thirty of them from what he could guess. He squinted and peered out the bay door just as the speakers strode into view.
Humans. But not humans. They were too tall, too perfect.
Delonese.
They stepped in and began rounding up the kids. And prodding them out the door.
“Shilo, no!” Sofi’s seat shuddered with the ship’s tilting as her eyes flew open. Her stomach lurched and she yanked against her chair straps—to get to him before it was too late—to rescue him—
A soft hand slipped her headphones off while another gripped her arm. She shoved it away because she had to try, even if she couldn’t stop him or save him from what was coming.
“Sof, it’s a dream,” a voice said.
She trembled and blinked. What?
The fingers clutched her hand as she yanked up to touch the necklace at her throat. Oh. She swallowed and blinked harder until her vision cleared and the room came into focus, as did the eyes in front of her. Miguel. He was holding her arm steady, as if willing her panic to fade into his fingers. She took in the ship’s cabin, the white chairs and dark windows—and inhaled.
“You all right?” Miguel’s hand felt her forehead before cupping her cheek and tipping her face up to examine her eyes.
She nodded and pulled away. “Bad dream.”
He cocked a brow. “Like the nightmares you used to have?”
“Yes. No.” She paused. “I don’t know.”
He rubbed his neck and awkwardly quirked his mouth, as if unsure how to proceed. “Want to talk about it?”
She pressed her fingers against her thighs. The images were stronger this time. So intense she was drenched in sweat. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Clearly.”
Something in his tone, in its light teasing, eased her tension.
She relaxed. “For reals it’s fine.”
“Right. And yet here we are with a few hours to spare. So
good gad, please, do share.”
Oh. She smirked. He’s bored. “Let’s just say they’re getting more realistic than the medical-type dreams I had when you knew me.”
He waited quietly.
Fine. She wet her throat. “It’s like I’m tracking with Shilo, experiencing everything he’s experiencing over the past two days.” She glanced out the window at the planet looming so close. “And what I’m seeing isn’t comforting.”
“Not comforting how?”
“As in, I’m seeing what he’s seeing, as if in real time. And it’s of the Delonese.”
“Have you had these with him before? Like, in the past?”
She frowned. “Not that I remember. Not like this.” She squinted at the planet. As if . . .
She glanced at Miguel and abruptly realized she was leaning toward him. She pulled away. “Could something about the Delonese or their atmosphere possibly project or magnify a mental connection?” The idea actually freaked her out. To have them influencing her head . . .
Miguel settled back. “Es posible. But it’d be strictly an external influence. As I said, they can’t get in your head.” He rubbed his neck. “What are the images of, exactly?”
“Shilo on a cargo ship with a bunch of other kids. Thirty maybe, all Shi’s age or younger. This last dream—they’d just landed and the Delonese boarded and surrounded them.”
“Do you recognize any of the kids?”
What? She frowned, then shook her head. “It was too dim.”
His gaze turned thoughtful. “What did the area outside the ship look like?”
She tried to concentrate—to think back. “A metal-type warehouse with shiny white walls and floor. I don’t know—everything felt hot and stuffy and overly bright. And they were dressed like guards and more medics.” She shook her head and gave a self-deprecating smile. “Sorry, it’s weird. I don’t even know what to think of the dreams.”
“Weird maybe, but that doesn’t mean invalid.”
She caught his eye. What was that supposed to mean? That he believed they were real? That he trusted her? She looked away, only to realize Claudius wasn’t in the room. Neither was Heller. She frowned again.
“Heller’s in the bathroom,” Miguel said. Great, now he was reading her mind. “And Claudius went to bed.” He shrugged. “Like I said before, I believe you.”
His honesty struck like a gut-punch. She almost let out a sardonic laugh. She recognized that lilt—that tone—from a year and a half ago, and yet it still evoked emotion as if it were yesterday. She went to pull her gaze away but stalled at the look in his eyes.
As if for an instant he was exposing his soul—past all the exterior flirtations and women and drama. She bristled. How many times had she thought that before?
Remember what he did. What he does to every woman he meets.
With that thought came the ache. The gut-cleaving hatred of a fifteen-year-old girl whose mother had suffocated and shamed her in firm attempts to shape her. And in her wide-eyed innocence she’d fallen for her first crush—and believed his words and promises that she was different. Only to realize a month later that the only thing different was his changed phone number and the way he never looked at her again. The following evening he’d appeared on the tele with a new sports car and girl. His smile just as adoring and promising and intoxicating for the public as it had been with her.
And Sofi spent a week crumpled up on the floor. Barely eating. Barely speaking. Until her mom stopped by to inform her she�
�d assigned Sofi and Shilo to the next set of games and training started now.
And that was the end of her ignorance of ever being used again for someone’s gain.
She opened her mouth, then shut it as Miguel’s expression shifted to concern. Ha. He probably thought she was crazy after all. She rolled her eyes.
He didn’t react. Just studied her. “So, tell me. Why would Corp 30 want their CEO’s daughter and lead gamer?”
“I told you—to distance themselves.”
He was shaking his head. “I mean back at my house. You said the thugs could’ve been Corp 30 and Gaines has an interest in making you disappear for . . . good.”
Oh. She let a smile tweak her lips. “That I’m actually not sure of. My gut says it’s to do with Shilo and the explosion, but perhaps it’s to hide something of her own. Either way, I’d prefer my freedom,” she added dryly.
“Seems fair.”
“Although I’ll ask you the same. Because from what I heard, they were blackmailing you.” She curved an ironic smile. “You have twenty-four hours,” she said in the gunman’s accent. “So what do they want you for?”
Miguel’s entire body went still. As if—what? As if he’d expected her not to notice they spoke only to him and not her? That they clearly had an agreement with him? A handful of snarky comments entered her head, but she just waited.
He inhaled. “Someone has decided I should help sway public opinion against Corp 24. Seeing as I know nothing of the situation, I’ve obviously been hesitant to do so.”
“Hasn’t stopped you before,” she almost quipped. Instead—“You don’t know who?”
He shook his head. “No idea.”
“Well, what are they using against you?”
It was his turn to open his mouth, then close it and remain silent.
“I see.” Back to his inability to be trustworthy—because if he was that averse to saying it, it must not be good. “Still haven’t learned to trust, I see. Or is it that the vulnerability will kill you?”
