The Debt Collector (Season Two)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  When we arrive at the Sterling tower, I pay the cabbie and help Zachariel out of the back seat. I loop an arm around his waist, and he drapes his around my shoulders. As we stroll across the Sterling lobby, we look like a couple—a strange, goth couple with my skin-tight collector suit and his trenchcoat and jackboots—but he’s leaning on me like he might not be able to stand on his own. I casually lace my fingers through his hand hanging off my shoulder and flush a little life energy into him.

  He gives me a dirty look.

  “Hey,” I shoot back, “you need to look not-dead if we’re going to get through security.”

  “I already have a badge.” He disentangles his fingers from mine, breaking the transfer. His hands shake, and he seems almost drunk on his feet, but he manages to bring up the fake ID he used to get into Sterling the first time, back when he retrieved me from the lab. Which is where we should head first, to get Miral. Then I can use the internal phone system to track down Wyatt.

  I give Zachariel a tight smile as we approach the weapons scanner. “I guess I won’t have to vouch for you, then.”

  We swipe through security, but Johnson, the guard I’ve known since I was a child, does a double take on both of us. He’s too shocked at my wild hair and black suit to greet me, so I don’t push it by trying to engage him in small talk. My suit sets off the scanner, but he waives us through. I slip my hand around Zachariel’s waist again—just because I’m not sure he’s going to make it to the elevator. The car is full with people leaving for lunch, but empty during our ride down to the lab. I swipe us in and pass the retinal scan, letting out a sigh of relief once we’re inside. Somehow it feels safe here, even though I know there’s nowhere that’s truly out of Gehenna’s reach.

  The cybernetics stations are unoccupied, but Miral never takes lunch: I hope today isn’t the one day she goes out for Chinese food. Zachariel and I lumber to the back, and I pause at the door to the ultra clean room. In my haste to get here, I didn’t really stop to think about what I would find.

  Miral and Wyatt should know everything already: although I didn’t explicitly say, I am a debt collector, in the note I left on the hand-held and gave to Wyatt, he and Miral should have easily read between the lines. If not, Jax was on a collision course with them. Besides, how else could I go under cover with Gehenna, a collector death cult, to learn their plans? But if Miral doesn’t know already, I’m going to have to tell her… and facing her disappointment in me and horror at what I am temporarily cements my boots in place just outside her door. I can’t think of a single thing to say to her. I’m a debt collector, and I’ve put your life in danger. Come run away with me now. I can’t even picture those words coming out of my mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” Zachariel says, hand braced against the wall of the clean room. He looks worse with each passing minute, and I don’t know what I’m going to do about that either.

  “I don’t want to sound ungrateful.” I bite my lip and eye the door. “But I think it might have been easier to stay dead.”

  He gives that a justifiably skeptical look then examines the door. “Well, your friends probably won’t agree with that.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Wraith.” He’s chastising me now. “Your friends need to know they’re in danger. And that they can’t stay here.”

  That snaps me out of my anxious self-absorption. “Right.” I tap up the security code for the clean room on my palm screen and hold it up to the embedded security camera. “Alexandra Morgan Sterling.” With a soft tone and a hiss of vent air overpressure, it grants me access. I stride through the air curtain, and Zachariel lumbers in behind me.

  Miral is sitting at her workbench, her small frame perched on the stool, but she’s not working on cybernetic eyeballs, and she doesn’t even have her electric-white bunny suit on. She’s wearing her favorite hot-pink sari while her hands wave in front of a screen. She has a holo-visor on, so she’s clearly hunting something on the grid. Her earbuds must not be in because she hears the door open. Her tiny mouth twists into a snarl even as she wrenches off the holo-visor to chew out whoever has interrupted her work.

  Her face goes blank when she sees me. Then she drops the holo-visor on the bench, slides off her stool in one quick swish of pink silk, and runs over to throw her tiny arms around me. Tears jump to my eyes as she awkwardly presses her cheek to my shoulder. She’s so short she barely comes up to my chin. I manage to get my arms around her. Her grip is fierce, and it’s all I can do to keep the tears trapped behind my eyes.

  She squeezes me then pulls back and grabs hold of my shoulders. Anger is still a volcano rippling just behind her eyes. “You scared the living crap out of me, Alexa! What in god’s name are you doing?”

  I’m flummoxed for words.

  She doesn’t bat an eye at my suit—which makes sense, since she designed it—but her glare quickly shifts to Zachariel looming at my back. “Who is this?” she demands.

  Words find their way to my mouth. “He’s a friend, Miral.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Are you making friends with these debt collectors now?”

  Oh god… she doesn’t know. My knees feel weak.

  “Only some of them,” I mumble.

  She backs up, pulling me away from Zachariel, like he’s some kind of threat, in spite of my words. We get all the way back to the bench and her screen before she stops.

  “We read your note,” she whispers, as if that’s going to stop Zachariel from hearing us in the cramped lab. But he stays by the door, silent, leaving me alone to face this bundle of worry and judgment. I should come clean as quickly as possible—we need to move—but the words are still scrambled in my head. How do I tell the woman I love like a mother that I’m one of them… one of the bad guys?

  I have to start somewhere. Excuses seem like a good place. “I would have stayed to explain, but I couldn’t—”

  “I know, I know,” Miral cuts me off. “What can you do when they’re holding you hostage? You do exactly what they say. You stay safe until you can get away. That’s what you do. I understand. Wyatt was angry, but I told him to stuff it. You couldn’t help those things you did. What were you going to do? Let them hurt you? No. You’re too smart for that.”

  My mouth is flapping but no words are coming out. This is going to be harder than I thought, and I thought it would be impossible.

  “I have to tell you something,” I say.

  Her sharp eyes hone in on me. Nothing more comes out of my mouth.

  I look down at my suit, the one she made for me. The one she repaired and enhanced—it’s the only reason I’m alive right now. I made her complicit in all of it, without her knowledge. I’ve lied to her for years. And now I have to tell her the truth.

  I drag my gaze back to her scrunched-up face. My eyes plead with her to understand. Her face opens a little with alarm, like she already knows. But I’m sure she just suspects something is wrong. She doesn’t know the wrong thing is me.

  I force the words out of my mouth. “I’m a collector, M.” I can’t make myself put the debt part in there… I know not saying it doesn’t make it less true. I just can’t force myself to say the word, out loud, in front of her. Not yet.

  The whites of her eyes show a ring of surprise around the liquid dark. She leans away. My heart lurches as she runs a horrified look over the suit, putting two and two together and coming up with the entire thing in one fell swoop. Because she’s brilliant. The only mystery is how I kept this from her for so long. My stomach clenches, waiting for her words like an arrow hurtling toward me.

  “The suit,” she says, and it’s full of indictment. “You haven’t been using it to jump off buildings.”

  My whole body is in a state of distress, rigid and fidgety at the same time. My hands clench and unclench. A nervous sort-of laugh climbs up my throat, but I choke it back down.

  “Actually, I have jumped off a few.” I can’t even begin to explain why. “It’s a long story.”

  She’
s shaking her head, backing away from me, looking over her shoulder again at Zachariel. I’m glad he stayed by the door now.

  “You are one of them,” she says, but it’s weak. Like she can’t believe it.

  “I’m not one of them.” I take a step toward her. “I mean, I’m a collector like them, but I’m not like them, M. I’m not.” I realize I’m just repeating it over and over, as if that will convince her. “I went along with what they wanted so I could stop them. They’re doing terrible things, M, and now…” I take a breath for courage. “… now you’re in danger, too, and I need you to come away with me. Away from Sterling. They know who you are, and they’ll come looking for you here. They’ll come looking for me here.”

  A deep frown has taken up residence on her forehead. Her eyes have narrowed, and she’s flicking looks between me, my suit, Zachariel by the door, and her screen, which is still lit up with the holo-interface she was using. It’s blurred, but I can see pages of information about Lifetime in the media. Miral’s on the board of Lifetime, just like I am—I’m glad she at least understood the threat to the organization we’ve both worked hard to build.

  Her roaming gaze settles on me again. “How long have you known?”

  “A long time.” The agitation in my body ramps up again.

  “How long?” she demands, like this is crucial information.

  “Since Glenn died.” The words come out, but my throat closes up after them. A full shudder runs through my body. Now she knows. The full measure of my sins is laid bare. My eyes well up at the horrified look on her face. I shouldn’t have told her. I should have held it back, kept it close to my darkened soul, never revealed it. Why on earth did I tell her? Why did I let that spill out like it was nothing? As if I didn’t kill a boy because of what I am. I can’t even begin to answer that question in my head. My body caves in on itself. It feels compressed and stretched tight at the same time. Like it’s been turned inside out and everything that I am lies exposed on Miral’s biosculpting table, waiting to be examined. Waiting for her to realize the full extent of the monster I am inside.

  I expect her to make a run for it: flee the lab while she can. Get as far away from me as possible. Instead… she edges toward me, reaching out her tiny, brown hands toward my face. First one, then the other. I don’t understand what she’s doing until she touches me, a hand on each cheek. Her face is close and serious, and through the shimmer of tears, I can see a tremendous pain on her face, like she’s somehow absorbed my wretchedness through her hands, and it’s found a way into her squinted eyes and furrowed brow. Her thumbs brush along my cheeks, and a stray whisper of vent air cools my skin.

  She’s wiping my tears.

  I’m so stunned I just let her.

  Then I realize: she knows what I am, and she’s touching me.

  “Oh, Lexy,” she says, her voice soft. “How hard this must have been for you.”

  Then my face wrinkles up, and I sob. All of it spills out at once. Tears run down my face, rivers of emptying pain. Miral pulls me down to her tiny shoulder. I hold her and sob again in the crook of her neck. Once it starts, it’s a flood. Her small hands pat my back as the crying shakes my body. I fight hard to rein it back in, to deepen my breathing, to stop the gushing of tears… to have some kind of control. I hug her hard, then pull back and turn away to wipe my face.

  I still don’t have words, but when I finally look at her, she has a small smile that, impossibly, makes me grin. The tears threaten to come back.

  “You know,” I say, my voice still warbled from the sobs. “I didn’t think you would ever hug a debt collector. Not on purpose, anyway.”

  “I didn’t think one would ever bother me in my lab quite so frequently.” Her mock glare makes me laugh. It’s short and hiccupy, but it floats me above the tiled floor of the clean room better than any life energy high ever has.

  I manage to pull that back and inject seriousness into my voice. “How would you like to take a vacation, M? Because you can’t stay here. Not until it’s safe again.” I don’t know if it will ever be safe again. I glance at Zachariel by the door. He leans against it, looking pale, but he gives me a small smile. Maybe the Feds will have a place for all of us in Witness Protection. I don’t know. I just know that we have to leave Sterling.

  Miral doesn’t say anything, she just starts packing her things: the screen, her goggles, a few microtools. She slips them all into a small box that looks like a shipping container for bio-gel, judging by the biohazard sign stamped across it. Lastly, she scoops up a small glass case with her microbuds off the bench.

  “Where are we going?” she asks, box tucked under her arm. There’s no judgment on her face, just determination. I don’t think I’ve ever loved her more than in that moment.

  “To find Wyatt,” I say. “They’ll be looking for him, too.”

  Her face pinches in a little, but she just nods and spins toward the door of her clean room. Zachariel steps aside as the tiny brown whirlwind in a pink sari gestures him out of her way. She activates the door and strides out. I slip an arm around Zachariel’s waist and help him hobble after her as fast as we can.

  One down, one to go. I only hope I won’t have to break down in sobs to convince Wyatt to come with us.

  Miral is convinced Wyatt is in the executive suite. She says he’s been occupying my office like it belongs to him. I don’t even want to think about the implications of that, but as Miral and I whiz up to the 100th floor with Zachariel leaned against the burnished silver wall of the elevator, I can’t help thinking this is a mistake. We should have called him down to the basement. Or arranged for him to meet us somewhere else. But convincing Wyatt to leave is something I’ll have to do in-person anyway, and we don’t have time to mess around with worrying about what the exec suite will think of me strolling in with a debt collector on my arm.

  I boost Zachariel with some life energy when Miral isn’t looking. He doesn’t protest, which tells me he’s even worse off than he looks. The fact that he’s not making wise-cracks about my break-down in the lab, or really saying anything at all, is what alarms me the most. I don’t know if my life energy bursts are helping—maybe he’s right and the damage is irreversible—but the sooner we get out of Sterling, the sooner we’ll have a chance to figure something out. Maybe his handler at the FBI will be able to help. Maybe he can find a doctor for debt collectors. Being on the run in LA is the least best option for him.

  We gather all kinds of stares as the three of us hurry across the exec suite toward my office. Zachariel lumbers under his own power, but his gait only makes his debt collector attire more sinister. My electrified hair and skin-tight suit make me look like a refugee from a slasher con. Even Miral is a force to be reckoned with, on fire with determination in her pink sari, clutching her box of lab goods. We’re intimidating enough that no one dares to even whisper as we pass.

  Miral slaps the button to open my office door and charges inside. Zachariel and I follow fast on her heels. I close the door before I bother to see if Wyatt is even there. When I swing to look, he’s sitting at my desk… with Jax standing next to him and peering over his shoulder at his screen. Jax’s face opens in surprise when she sees me. Wyatt rises from his chair so fast it sails out behind him and slams against the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office. A heartbeat later, Jax pulls out a gun and points it at Zachariel.

  “Whoa!” His hands fly up, and he stumbles back toward the door.

  My heart spasms, but I quickly step in front of him, so Jax will have to shoot through me. “Goddammit, Jax, put that thing away!”

  She slowly lets it point to the floor. Wyatt’s mouth hangs open as his eyes roam both my skin-tight black suit and my protective stance in front of Zachariel. He has to wonder what’s happened to me, not least because the last time he saw Zachariel, he was trying to slash into the lab.

  “Alexa?” His voice is guarded, and his attention flicks between me and Zachariel. “Are you all right?” What he’s really asking is,
Who the hell is this?

  Zachariel drops his hands and braces himself against the wall by the door. Miral keeps quiet, holding off to the side and watching.

  “It’s okay,” I say to Wyatt, my hands up to reassure him. “He’s a friend.”

  Wyatt’s suspicious glare only darkens as he gives Zachariel another look, taking in his black trenchcoat and boots. “So you’re friends with debt collectors now?”

  Dread trickles through me. But of course—if Jax didn’t tell Miral, she wouldn’t tell Wyatt. I glance at Miral, but her lips are pursed. She’s going to let me handle this, which is only right. Even Jax is still trying to piece it together: how I got free, got here, and with Zachariel of all people. The thing is, everyone in the room knows I’m a collector except Wyatt—I can’t just spill that and force him to deal with it in front of everyone. I need a moment alone with him… as long as I can be sure Jax isn’t going to shoot Zachariel when my back is turned.

  Thankfully, she decides to tuck the gun back in a holster under her arm. “Nice of you to finally show up,” she says, throwing me a lifeline. “I told your boyfriend here not to worry—that you’d find a way to break free of those assholes. Didn’t expect you to bring one with you, though.”

  Heat rushes to my face with her casual mention of Wyatt being my boyfriend—which he’s not, irrespective of the couple of kisses we’ve shared. Wyatt seems embarrassed by it, too, staring at the screen on my desk and turning red in the face. I’m sure Jax just assumed there was something between us, given the state Wyatt must have been in since my absence. Then I realize Jax’s words are more than that—they’re code, along with the small shake of her head, telling me what I’ve already figured out. Wyatt doesn’t know.

  “Sorry for the delay,” I say to Jax. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.” That’s directed at Wyatt.

  But that only surges back his anger. “Didn’t mean to make us worry? What did you think that note would do?” His sky-blue eyes dare me to explain… everything. The bad acts. The note that read like a suicide letter. The absence and the drama and showing up with a debt collector who is apparently now my friend.