The Skin Hunter Series Box Set

by Tania Hutley

  I could kiss him like this forever. If only my exhaustion wasn’t an endless black ocean. I can’t fight the wave of tiredness that hits me. All I can do is close my eyes and let myself drift away.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I wake up with my shoulder throbbing. Cale is fast asleep against me, his breaths long and slow. It’s still dark, with the only light coming from the small, weak bulb near the bathroom, but that doesn’t mean much in Old Triton. It could be morning already.

  Whatever time it is, as much as I enjoyed falling asleep with Cale last night, my wound means I can’t roll over, and I’m too uncomfortable to stay put.

  Moving slowly, I manage to ease myself off the bed without waking him or any of the others. Tori is still snoring, and the other two are almost as loud.

  Before she passed out last night, Tori threw a blanket over the head of the Knight Skin, saying she felt like it was staring at her. Now it’s little more than a dark, hulking shadow, but it’s still creepy. We should have turned it to face the wall.

  I brave the overpowering stench of the bathroom to clean up as best I can under the slow trickle of water that runs from the end of a broken pipe. My arm works a little better today than it did last night, at least.

  When I finally emerge and check the window, the gloom outside isn’t thick enough for it to still be night. Though I can’t check the time on Ma’s band, my guess is it’s late enough that most day-shifters will be getting ready for work by now.

  “What time is it?” mumbles Tori from her bed.

  “Not sure. But it’s morning.”

  She groans. “My brain has swelled. It’s too big for my head and it’s trying to squeeze out of my ears.”

  I go to the table that serves as a kitchen, rinse a cup that smells like it was used for last night’s street brew session, and fill it with water before making my way to her bed in the semi-darkness. “Drink this.”

  She gulps it down. “Thanks.” Then she lies back down and sighs. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you should turn the main light on. We need to get up and start planning our attack on the soldiers.”

  “You can’t switch it on with your band?”

  “This place isn’t set up for it. The switch is on the wall.”

  When I flick it on, the overhead light seems brutally harsh. Cale sits up, blinking. His hair is messy, sticking in all directions, and his jaw has darkened even more overnight. Weirdly, he’s even more handsome when he’s dishevelled. He flashes me a small smile and his small single dimple appears and is gone again, as though it winked at me.

  “Good morning,” he says.

  My stomach flutters. “Morning.” Then I look away. Gareth and Franco died yesterday, and feeling anything but sad is disrespectful to them.

  As they wake, Keren and Spade groan even louder than Tori did, and I get mugs of water for them too. When they’re all finally up, Cale volunteers to find one of the few street stalls that are still operating, and pick up breakfast. Spade goes with him, and they come back a little while later with steaming coffees and hot noodles coated in sticky sauce.

  I sit on the bed to slurp my noodles down. I have to eat awkwardly with one hand because the other arm’s still too sore to move, but I’m so hungry I barely chew. Tori focuses on her coffee, cradling her cup in both hands with her elbows resting on the table, and lowering her head to sip it. Her face looks gray, with black rings under her eyes.

  She doesn’t let me finish eating before she says, “Let’s talk about how you’re going to get inside the Meat Locker.”

  “I called Doctor Gregory.” Cale pauses eating mid-slurp, and looks at me from his seat at the table. “She said she’ll come here to reprogram your chip so you can transfer into the Knight Skin.”

  “The Meat Locker will be guarded,” Keren says through a mouthful of noodles. “Somehow we need to convince all the guards to leave before Milla goes in.”

  “I’m going to call all of the Fist’s section leaders,” says Tori. “They don’t know about Gareth yet.” She blinks hard, then stares down at her untouched bowl of noodles for a long moment before looking back up. “We’ll need their help. To make this work, every Fist member should be there.”

  “A Fist army,” agrees Cale.

  I frown, sucking up the last of my noodles. This isn’t what I expected when I imagined slipping into the Meat Locker to get William. I thought I’d somehow be able to get in and out before anyone could figure out I wasn’t supposed to be there. Now it’s turning into a full-scale battle, and the chance of me being able to rescue my brother seems slimmer by the minute. Not to mention how dangerous it’ll be for Tori and the rest of the Fist to take on the knights.

  “An army,” Tori repeats with a nod. “And we want as many knights as possible to be there, so we can blow apart their heads when they fall. If they drop in other places, we won’t be able to finish them off, and the director will fix their chips.”

  “Need to make a big noise.” Spade wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Get them to all come running.” His grin shows all his missing teeth. “It’s going to be fun.”

  I hold up my good hand, my stomach tight. “Stop. You’re talking about fighting all the knights. That’s suicide.”

  “Not if you wipe their chips quickly enough,” says Tori.

  I shake my head. “There are hundreds of pods in the Meat Locker. It’s going to take time for me to wipe every chip.”

  “I’m going in with you,” says Cale.

  “In your human body? Are you crazy? It’s too danger—”

  “That’s a good idea.” Tori speaks over me. “We’ll need to be in communication with you so we know what’s going on. But I don’t know how to communicate with one of those things.” She motions at the Knight Skin in the corner, the blanket still over its head. “If Cale’s in the building with you, he can keep us updated.”

  “No way. He won’t be able to defend himself.”

  Keren nods, agreeing with me. “Once you start wiping chips and the knights outside start dropping, they’re going to realize what’s happening. They’ll rush back into the Meat Locker to stop you. Cale won’t stand a chance.”

  “We won’t let them go back in,” says Tori.

  “We’ll light them up with so much fire-power, they won’t know what hit them.” Spade sounds gleeful.

  I glare at Tori. “Let’s pretend you can really keep the knights out. What about the soldiers inside who’ll start waking up when I wipe their chips?”

  “You need to kill them,” she says flatly. “I know you think I want to kill them as some kind of revenge for Gareth, but if there were another way—”

  “There might be an alternative,” interrupts Cale. “You think the Fist have any sleeping gas in their weapons cache?”

  Tori frowns at him for a long moment, then her expression eases. “I’ll find out.”

  I let out a long breath, shooting Cale a look of relief. Knocking the soldiers out is the perfect solution.

  Tori pushes her chair back and stands up. “I’ll start calling the other Fist sections. We need to move quickly, before the director figures out we’ve stolen one of her Knight Skins. If we can—”

  There’s a sharp rapping on the door.

  We all freeze, looking at each other. The knock comes a second time, but whoever it is hasn’t said the Fist’s slogan to let us know they’re one of us. Not that I think a squad of knights would knock, but…

  “Anybody in there?” asks a familiar voice from outside.

  I puff out a breath, and open the door. Doctor Gregory gives me a smile, then her nose wrinkles and her hand goes up to cover it. The room’s stench must have just hit her. I’m so used to it now, I barely notice it.

  “Come in,” I say. “Ma’s not with you? Is she okay?”

  The doctor shakes her head as she steps inside. “The poor woman’s exhausted. She can’t have slept properly in years, and her cortisol levels are off the charts. The stress her heart’s under, it’s a
wonder she hasn’t dropped dead.” She puts down the bag she’s carrying, glancing around the small room with a look of horror.

  My stomach writhes itself into a tight ball. “Where is she?”

  “I gave her something to help her rest, and left a note for when she wakes up, asking her to stay put until I get back. She really needs several days of bed rest, and some infusions of—”

  “But she’s okay for now?” I interrupt.

  “If she doesn’t exert herself and gets plenty of sleep, she should make a full recovery.”

  My stomach relaxes a little. The doctor’s right, Ma looked haggard and exhausted. It’s good she’s getting a chance to rest.

  Tori introduces herself and the other Fist members, then goes outside. I assume she wants some privacy to call the other Fist units and ask for their help.

  The doctor strides over to the covered Knight Skin. “This is it?” She tugs the blanket off.

  “You think you can transfer my brain into it?” I ask.

  “Your consciousness,” she corrects, glancing over her shoulder at me. “I can. But I’m worried about the effect the Skin will have on you, especially with the somatoform injuries you previously sustained, proving you particularly susceptible to—”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  She frowns. “I don’t have any equipment here to monitor the effect of the transfer. The only tests I’ll be able to do are rudimentary oral challenges.”

  I have no idea what she means, but I nod. “That’ll have to do.”

  “It would be safer to select a different subject. You’ve already exhibited numerous abnormal effects from a transferral.”

  Cale stands up and moves next to me. “I’d volunteer,” he says. “But even with the weird things that happened to your body, I still think using the Skin will keep you safer than if you were…” He trails off, glancing at the doctor, and I can tell he doesn’t want to let her know what we have planned. I’m pretty sure she’d be unhappy at the idea of an army of Fist members fighting an army of knights.

  “I imagine you and Milla are the only ones who’ve had nano transceivers injected?” The doctor glances at Keren and Spade. With a sigh at their blank expressions, she opens the bag she brought with her, and takes out a hand-held scanner.

  “Your existing nano transceivers have bonded with your neurons,” she says to me. “Which means I can wipe your existing chip and code it with the new Skin’s identity markers.”

  “Wait.” I draw back, my chest contracting. “You’re going to wipe my chip? I won’t be able to transfer into my Leopard Skin again?”

  She gives me a puzzled look. “You don’t have access to the Leopard Skin, do you?”

  “No, but…” I swallow hard. The thought of never getting to be the leopard again makes me feel empty inside. It might not make sense, but I feel like I’m being asked to give up an essential part of myself. Like she’s asked me to carve off a limb.

  “You don’t have to do this,” murmurs Cale, his eyes sympathetic. “I like the idea of your human body staying safe and sound in this room. But if keeping your chip means that much to you, I’ll transfer into the knight instead.”

  I bite my lip, then shake my head. “You don’t know what William looks like.”

  “You don’t have an image of him?”

  By way of an answer, I hold up my arm to remind him I have Ma’s band around my wrist. She probably has dozens of images, but I can’t access them.

  Besides, I’m the only one who understands how important it is to get my brother out of the Meat Locker and away from the director. I promised Ma I’d save him, and the only way I can do that is using the Knight Skin.

  If I need to give up all hope of ever getting my Leopard Skin back, then it’s a price I’ll have to pay.

  I nod at the doctor, trying to push my anguish deep inside so it doesn’t show. “Let’s do it.”

  “Lie down.” She indicates the beds. “And please be aware that I have no equipment to monitor your vital signs. The primary danger is if your real body becomes dehydrated or low in nutrients while your consciousness is transferred. Without any way to administer fluids, it’s vital you don’t stay in the Skin too long.”

  “Okay.” I lie face up on the bed Cale and I slept in last night. It’s nothing like the floating-on-air, high-tech pod I used at the Morelle Corporation, but it’ll do.

  “You’re sure about this, Milla?” asks Cale.

  I’m anything but sure. It’s not just that I hate the thought of letting go of my Leopard Skin. What if using the Knight Skin messes with my head? Or if it does something we don’t expect to my human body?

  “Ready?” Doctor Morelle holds up her scanner. It must be the thing that’s going to wipe my chip.

  Folding my hands tightly together, I force myself to nod.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You won’t feel a thing,” says Doctor Gregory.

  But I do.

  The back of my neck burns as she runs the scanner over it. Maybe it’s my imagination. Perhaps it’s just like when I became stronger and faster because my mind got used to my body being that way. It probably burns because I believe it should hurt to wipe away my leopard, and remove the best part of who I am.

  I let my head fall back on the pillow and stare up at the ceiling, reminding myself why I’m doing this.

  “Now, I’ll encode the new…” The doctor’s words taper off as she goes to the Knight Skin and runs the scanner over the back of its neck, frowning at whatever appears on the screen set into the head of the device. She’s obviously concentrating too hard to be able to finish her sentence.

  Finally, she comes back to me with the scanner, sliding her hand under the back of my head to lift it before I feel the device on my neck again. “Done.” She lets go of my head. “You should be able to transfer into it now. Want to give it a try?”

  I rest my head back on the pillow and drag in a deep breath.

  Unlike my beautiful leopard, the Knight Skin is a monster. I’m both reluctant to transfer into it, and curious to find out what it’ll be like.

  When I reach out with my senses, the feeling of finding a destination and falling sideways into it is so gloriously, wonderfully familiar, I want to groan with pleasure. It feels so much like transferring into my Leopard Skin, my heart leaps.

  Then color floods my vision. With it comes an awareness of physicality. Of my body, tall and strong.

  No, I’m not just strong. My limbs are made of hard muscle interlaced with carbon fiber. My armour can’t be pierced, and my bones are unbreakable.

  I’m invincible.

  I’m hers.

  The thought makes me blink. What the hell? I’m hers? Did that really just go through my head?

  “What’s it like in there, Milla?” Cale is staring at me, at the knight’s face rather than my human body. He has to look up because I’m taller than him now.

  I turn my armored hands over to stare at my palms, amazed at how huge they are. Then I clench my fists, revelling in the feeling of strength that rushes through me.

  “Milla?” he asks again.

  “I feel powerful,” I say. “The feeling’s a lot stronger than the first time I transferred into my leopard.”

  Keren and Spade both stare at me with wide eyes, like the sound of my voice coming out of the Knight Skin is the weirdest thing ever. Cale is wearing a worried frown. Tori’s still outside in the alley, talking to someone on her band. I can pick up what she’s saying, though human me couldn’t hear her at all.

  The doctor tugs a mind pad out of her bag and holds it poised in front of her, ready to record her notes.

  “Tell me about your senses, Milla.”

  “I can hear better.” I scan the small room, noticing all the tiny details I couldn’t pick up before. “And I can see far better. Even better than I could when I was the leopard. I can’t smell like the leopard did though. I can’t smell the way you feel, but I can see the skin on your neck pulsing every time your hea
rt beats.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “And the feeling of power? Can you define it? Is it a physical sensation?”

  I look down at my hands again, trying to figure out what sent such a rush of sensation through me when I transferred. “I just know I’m strong. If I wanted to kill you all and break my way out of this room, I could do it easily.”

  “Kill us and break out of this room,” she repeats slowly, as though I’ve said something fascinating. “Is that something you want to do?”

  “No,” I say automatically. But it’s not quite true. “But I know what I’m for,” I tell her, a little frustrated because all the things I’m feeling are so hard to describe.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The reason I was created. Why I exist. It’s to serve Director Morelle.” I say the name out loud as much to gauge my own reaction to it as anything else. “She owns this Skin. I know that, but I also feel it. I feel like I belong to her.” I drop my hands to my sides to touch the weapons on my thighs. They’re in the perfect position for me to draw and fire as quickly as thinking.

  “Loyalty,” says the doctor. Her pulse speeds up, the slight quiver of the skin on her neck betraying her excitement. “Just as Sentin said. Director Morelle must have analyzed the chemistry of certain thoughts and implanted modifiers in the Skin’s software. What a breakthrough! Think of what would be possible if we can alter—”

  “Don’t sound so happy about it,” growls Cale. “This is a bad thing. Worse than we imagined.”

  “Much worse,” I agree, though I don’t feel shocked or dismayed. All I feel is strong. I can’t wait to get away from them and out of this claustrophobic, stinking room. I want to find my squad and obey whatever orders the director gives me. And as I’m striding down the street, I’m going to enjoy watching lessor beings scuttle to get out of my way.

  I cast a glance at the old Milla lying motionless on the bed. How scrawny and weak she looks. She belongs in a pod, shut away where nothing can harm her.