Dying For Space (Sunblinded Trilogy Book 2)

by S. J. Higbee

  His face the colour of spoilt milk, David opened his mouth.

  “Nah. You said plenty. I got things to do.” I made for the door and no one stopped me.

  *

  Three weeks’ later, returning from work early after a truly putrid day, I opened the door and found Norman standing in front of Elsbeth’s open wardrobe. Hell in a black hole – I didn’t even know he was back! “Good evening Father.”

  He took a long time to turn around to face me, his eyes smouldering and his grin twisted into lethal mode. Clearly, I still wasn’t forgiven for having sold Elsbeth’s dresses.

  “I hear you’ve been busy in my absence.” His growl was layered with threats.

  “What d’you want, Daddy Bear?”

  I’d seen Norman happy, angry and grief-stricken, but I’d never seen him afraid before. His eyes widened. His face turned a sickly green and he took a few stumbling steps backwards. Before coming to a halt by Fido, immobile and useless in the corner.

  He took a deep, shaking breath and grinned, baring his teeth. “Oh, very good, Elizabeth. And where did you get that little phrase from? Who’s been coaching you?”

  How come I’m not scared, anymore? “What phrase are we talking about?”

  He fumbled in his tunic pocket and produced a cigar. “Daddy Bear, of course.”

  “We sometimes used the name when I was a little girl” I locked looks with him. Are you going to mention it was Elsbeth’s pet name for you? “If it upsets you, I won’t use it, again.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.” He jammed the unlit cigar into his mouth, before continuing, “You been busy spending your stolen creds on a heart for your lover.”

  “We’ve already been over this. It’s been a difficult day. I have a headache. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a shower and go straight to bed.”

  “Yes!” It came out as a roar. “I do mind, you cred-hugging little piece of bilgescum! Flouncing around with an escort, like you matter. Sliming around your poor old father to grab everything you can, starting with your dead sister’s possessions!”

  “Except that you didn’t tell me those dresses belonged to Elsbeth. You had them wrapped up as if they were new and made out you’d bought them for me!”

  Snatching the cigar from his mouth, he threw his hands in the air. “Oh, it’s my fault for wanting to please you now, is it?”

  He’s enjoying this! I clenched my fists. “You keep mouthing such nonsense, I swear your tongue is going to tie itself into knots! What I want doesn’t come into it. Never did. What you want is Elsbeth back, isn’t it? You want me looking like her, acting like her…” Thrumming with sudden fury, I stabbed my skinny chest. “What I – me – Elizabeth – has to offer doesn’t come into it. IT’S NOT ME YOU WANT!”

  That’s telling the slimer, Lizzy! Yeah…

  Panting, trying to zone out Jessica’s triumphant howl, I knew I’d gone too far.

  He stilled, looking around the room. As soon as I saw where his gaze rested, I knew what he was about to do. And launched myself at him to knock him off-balance. Get in the way. Anything to stop him. But I was too far away and he was standing far too close to Wynn’s statue. He shoved it, hard. In slo-mo, I watched it topple off the shelf I’d cleared for it.

  “Nooo!”

  The sculpture’s outstretched arms took the full force of the fall. One hand snapped off and two fingers splintered off the remaining hand. The nose was chipped. I scrabbled on the floor, picking up the broken pieces. “Oh no. Oh, no, no, no… Oh, Wynn… How could you? How could you do this to me? Today of all days!” I wailed, as grief crashed through me.

  He hauled me to my feet, his fingers digging into my upper arm as he marched me to the Elsbeth’s half-empty cupboard where he shook me so hard, I bit my tongue.

  “You see this wardrobe with all her finest clothes gone? What you’re feeling about that sorry lump of modcrete is how I felt when I saw that her things had disappeared. Never to be seen again!” His fingers grated against the bone in my arm. For an agonising instant, I thought he was going to break it. When he finally let me go, I stumbled and fell to the ground.

  I wept, my heart breaking for the loss of Wynn all over again, as the one thing I possessed that he’d made just for me was in pieces in my hands. “If I’d known it would hurt you so I’d never would’ve sold them. Sorry, sorry…” I cradled the fragments from Wynn’s broken sculpture, rocking with utter misery.

  Norman knelt beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. “It’s smooth, Lizbeth. I can see that you are truly sorry. That you didn’t mean to hurt your old Daddy Bear. It’s prone. Shh, now. Don’t you fret, so. We can fix this thing.”

  Oh, how can you? It’s broken… All broken… Just like Wynn. I want to die… I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. Two years – and it could’ve been yesterday… It’s just too hard… Maybe I said it aloud. It was something of a blur.

  “Elizabeth! Pull it together.” Norman shook me, again, twanging all the sore spots where he’d recently gripped me. And he slapped me across the face. Hard.

  That stopped me. Except… inside I was still howling for the damage to my beautiful statue. I looked down at the broken hand, recalling the fizzing delight of talking to Wynn while he made the drawings for this piece. He was a talented artist and his sculptures had always found a ready market. My fingers closed over the modcrete ones, releasing the resin scent. I closed my eyes. Wynn’s hair and clothes – even his rags – had smelt of it.

  Norman hugged me to him. Tightly. Blocking out the smell of Wynn and further bruising my bruises. I bit down on a whimper of pain. There was no point. It would only anger him if I complained. Because, now I understood. Completely.

  Oh yes – the General loves me. So long as I’m the daughter he wants. Otherwise, he’d bend me to suit his tastes. And if I couldn’t bend, then he’d break me. How come it’s taken me this long to see it?

  A question I’ve been asking myself this last year. I tried to screen Jessica out as Norman finally released me. I needed her ‘I-told-you-so’ about as much as I needed the General’s arm around me.

  The door-tune wailed.

  “Ignore it. Elmir is stationed outside. He’ll give any importuning young hound the flickoff, right enough.”

  I dropped back to the floor, scrabbling for the broken fragments of Wynn’s statue. “There are no hounds.”

  “There will be. Don’t you fret.”

  The door started sliding open, as George’s voice rose over the General’s guard, “He’ll want to hear this. Trust me—” He stopped in mid-sentence as he took in the scene and turned to Norman, his eyebrows raised.

  “We had a bit of a falling out, Lizbeth and me. Daddy and daughter bilge-crud. You know the sort of thing.” Norman was actually wriggling.

  George had always struck me as a peaceful person. But as he stood in my room looking around, he radiated quiet fury. “You hit her, William?”

  He scowled. “She was hysterical when her statue got broken and she lost it.”

  “I see.”

  While mopping my tear-blotched face, the hot-hurt cheek throbbed from Norman’s blow and I tasted blood.

  Norman snapped, “What was so important that you had to intrude, George?”

  Number Two was still looking down at me. “Don’t think it matters, right now. I thought it was important. But I see there are other priorities I should be concentrating on.”

  I tensed, waiting for the General to snarl at him. Tell him to mind his own prodding business. But Norman only sighed and shook his head, as if it was all somehow beyond him.

  George has got Norman by the bollocks. They’ve been together since forever. Bet there’s a planetful of skeletons that George knows about. That’s why they’re normally so careful around each other. So why is Number Two suddenly treading all over Norman’s boots?

  Jessica could babble all night about this stuff, if she wanted. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

  Don’t you dare roll
onto your back and put your paws in the air! You need to figure this out, or you’ll be trapped into being Elsbeth for the rest of your days.

  I tried willing Jessica into silence. Wishing – for the nth time – that she’d go and haunt the crypt where her body lay.

  “Elizabeth, you solid?” George knelt beside me.

  “Of course she is!” Norman growled. “I’ll send a medic to fix the cut on your mouth. C’mon, George. She’ll want to be left alone for a while.” His grin was tender as he added, “We’ll see you at dinner, sweetheart.”

  “I can’t make it tonight.”

  His brows beetled together as he drew breath to argue.

  But I got in, first. “Wynn died two years ago, today.” My grip on the broken hand tightened. “As I’m sure you recall.”

  “Of course. Didn’t want to remind you of it. Obviously.” But he was lying.

  And as he jammed the cigar back into his mouth and headed for the door, we both knew it.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  All the pent grief I felt for Wynn broke open at Norman’s destruction of his sculpture. If I’d known he would damage it, I would’ve kept it out of sight. Oh, Wynn…

  Memories I’d boxed up for so long, spilled out. I recollected the night of Alisha’s wedding when Wynn whisked me away from the reception to show me this piece. We’d been awash with excitement at the prospect of running away together, which didn’t happen, thanks to Norman, who assured me at the time, the day would come when I’d be grateful that he’d stopped us.

  “He’s been gone two whole years!” I howled into the pink and silver clutter of Elsbeth’s space. “When am I s’posed to feel glad you stopped us eloping?”

  Amid the anger at the General’s spite, was the ugly fact that I’d seen the calculation in his face. He’d known how much I cherished that statue and in his vile mood, he determined to deliberately damage it with the sole intention of hurting me. He’d been successful beyond his wildest dreams – I was desolate. The bleak memory of his snarling triumph as he shoved Wynn’s beautiful work to the floor kept scrolling through my brain like a looped holo. And ached far more than my swollen cheek, bitten tongue, bruised shoulders and arms.

  I think I was also mourning the loss of Fina, Rick and Romeo. There’d been no opportunity to grieve properly for any of them. It seemed that everyone who got close to me was doomed.

  I up-vol’d Elsbeth’s vile-rave tunes to the max and paced around her crowded room, unable keep still as I plunged into my personal black hole. The screeching vocals and tuneless dissonance mirrored my despair. Gritty-eyed with exhaustion and footsore, I couldn’t keep still. As soon as I stopped striding around the room, I felt a prickling need to either break something or run. Run away from Restormel and never return. That was clearly an impossible dream – Norman would haul me back in no time flat. As for the impulse to smash up my surroundings… I’m clearly my father’s daughter, with the same shoddy instincts.

  Only the recollection of the disgusting mess Norman had made of Fina’s room kept me from sweeping Elsbeth’s pink and silver flotsam off her shelves and crunching it under my boots, ripping up the stupid feathered fans and satinweave gloves littering her walls, while hurling her so-cute collection of dance-dolls into the many mirrors…

  So I kept pacing until I must’ve fallen asleep.

  *

  I muzzily surfaced at around 0500 hrs with the music still pounding loud enough to buzz the bones in my body. Which was aching more than enough already, seeing as I’d finally fallen asleep draped along the back of one of the mega-sofas. Still three-quarters asleep, I killed the noise and fell back onto the sofa.

  I next opened my eyes to see a scowling Norman and some man I didn’t know bending over me. It would be satisfying to claim that I spat in the zilcher’s eye. Or sat up with calm dignity and requested they leave while I changed out of yesterday’s sweaty clothes. Instead, I merely turned to face the cushioned back, numb with despair. When they brought me breakfast, my throat closed at the very notion of food. I drank some coffee, knowing that if I didn’t, I’d get a crunching headache halfway through the morning. But couldn’t even finish the cup.

  A thick curtain walled me off from everyone around me and I couldn’t summon up the energy to bother. What’s the point? Of anything? Everyone I’ve cared for at Restormel is either dead or gone. Or proved himself to be a sliming monster who only cherishes me so long as I could act like his other daughter, Elsbeth. The one he really loved…

  “You spoiled girls are all the same. Don’t get your own way and you turn on the tears or prodding sulk.”

  I didn’t bother turning to look at him.

  Leaning over the sofa, he grabbed my arm, yanking me round to face him. I squealed as his fingers squeezed the bruises he’d left the previous day.

  “Speak to me, Elizabeth!” he roared over my pain sounds.

  “Ah – let go! You’re hurting – you’re hurting!” An angry flicker made me add, “Just for a sodding change!”

  The young man with him cleared his throat. “Maybe this isn’t the way…”

  Letting me go, Norman swung round to him. “You telling me how to treat my own daughter?”

  He stepped back, flushing. “No, not at all, sir. I wouldn’t presume—”

  “Ah. Here you are, William.” George strolled into the room. “Thought I’d find you here. Would you give us a few moments, Doctor?”

  “Of course.” The young medic all but ran for the door.

  Norman glared at his Number Two. “I’d be careful if I were you, George. The frequency of your visits to my daughter’s bedroom will be causing comment.” He fumbled in his pocket for a cigar.

  George raised an eyebrow and locked looks with the General. “Mistakes were made last time around. Mine was that I stood back and let it happen.” His voice hardened, “I won’t be tripping over that event horizon again, William.”

  I shut my eyes, willing them to take their quarrel elsewhere and leave me alone.

  You paying attention to this? Because if you’re not too sunk in your pity-pit, you should be. Something major is going down, here…

  Norman evidently agreed with Jessica. “You threatening me?” his subsonic growl pimpled my skin.

  “Why would I?” snapped George.

  I lay still and held my breath.

  “But you need to take care, William. Elsbeth’s stunts angered or disgusted most of the personnel on the base, however that’s not the case this time round. There’s a bunch of folks around here who reckon our little Elizabeth is the best thing next to a full airpac. You can’t black her eye and bruise her…”

  What! The prodder blacked my eye?

  “If that useless medic had treated her last night, the bruising would’ve all faded by now.”

  “You can’t beat him with that stick. Couldn’t make himself heard over her ear-holing music.”

  George isn’t a vile-rave fan, then.

  “I take your point,” Norman muttered. “Felt like old times having that pounding out around the place, didn’t it?” A blast of heavy scented smoke told me Norman had lit his cigar. “Often enough I close my eyes and listen to her talk – and it could be Elsbeth.”

  “And you’re still missing the point, General. It won’t sit well with anyone if you go on knocking her around. Let’s face it, she looks like she’ll blow away in a stiff breeze. And while Elsbeth would sashay down the corridor trying to look like a female version of you, Elizabeth has everyone – men and women alike – wanting to protect her.”

  It was unpleasant, listening to this discussion. George must know I’m awake. Why is he saying this stuff?

  Because he thinks you need to hear it, of course! All that bawling has softened your brain, Lizzy if you don’t bother to listen. Information is power. And we need a lot more Intel if you’re going to keep safe around this double-dealing monster long enough to figure how to escape.

  Jessica sounds afraid… I tried not to think about that. J
essica was rarely frightened when alive – and I hadn’t heard her this twitched since she’d died.

  “But then she went and pulled that stunt with her lover-boy – bending all the rules to get him a new heart. That sort of move will aggravate the boys and girls right enough.”

  “Most’ve the negative bilge-babble was flushed away when she let Joshua Pitt have the heart. Since then she’s earned credit for making a hard decision to save someone she didn’t know. And most folks are coming around to the view that there was nothing between her and Dain.” George’s voice dropped, “Which is starting to raise some hard questions we don’t want asked. Like how he got shot, for instance.”

  I bit my lip. Does this mean Norman was at the bottom of Romeo’s death?

  Surely that doesn’t come as a surprise, Lizzy? Never mind ʼbout that now – just listen!

  “What’re you saying, George? That I need to watch my back – that Lizbeth, here, is making a move for my position?”

  “No, of course not, William. And you don’t think so, either. Or you’d have already dealt with her.”

  My skin prickled. Dealt with me – in what way?

  “What I am saying is that everyone reckoned Elsbeth was a spoilt piece who needed the odd slap to keep her in line.” George paused. “Whether that perception was deserved or not, it meant that whatever you did to her, folk on the base were prone with it.”

  I suppressed a shiver. My life might be vac’d but leastways I’m not Elsbeth.

  “But if you’re seen to be handing out the same medicine to Elizabeth, you’ll quickly find yourself up to your neck in it.”

  “And is that another threat, George?”

  Number Two sighed. “No. It’s me watching your back. As always. And telling you the truth as I see it, even when you don’t want to hear it.”

  That’s a message for you. George is drawing a line in the sand. He’ll try and keep you safe, but his first loyalty is to Daddy Bear, here.

  Yeah, Jessica. I can listen, too…

  “Apart from anything else, you majorly need to cut her some free air. She’s running on empty just now. She must be. I’ve looked at the hours she’s logged in Procurement – and that’s not including the work she’s doing from her room—”