Fortune's Detour: Prequel of the Deka Series by Abigail Schwaig

by Abigail Schwaig

  “Angels; are you serious?”

  “I am. And I’m sorry to do this over the Comms; it’s just that I thought you’d appreciate the heads up instead of hearing about it next week or even on the fly.”

  “Yeah, that’s true… I’m just. Um. Don’t know what to say.”

  “Obviously, we will do everything in our power to keep this from escalating to that point, but it is good to be aware. We want you as safe as possible, and if that means stashing you on a farm somewhere, we’ll do it.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” I paused, head spinning. What would this mean? “But that would mean I couldn’t live here and go to academe and talk to the people that I’m close to, right? For their protection as well as for mine? What would happen to my parents?”

  “Yes to all of the above, unfortunately. As for your parents, we would post some bodyguards inconspicuously on them at all times until it is very obvious that they are not a target. Not to worry, it would be a priority.”

  “Okay.” That was nice to know, but leaving home? Leaving the University of Trect because of Federation Witness Relocation, even if I hated school, was not what I had in mind for an escape option. And leaving my friends? That would break their hearts as well as mine. I felt like curling up in a ball, but gritted my teeth against the impulse. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

  “What happens if I wind up confronting David about it?”

  “That decision is ultimately up to you, Natalie. It’s your relationship, and you know David better than we do. Maybe confronting him will serve to bring him on board with us. It’s worth a shot. If you do decide on that course of action, do it out in the open where we have eyes on you and can protect you if he reacts negatively.”

  I swallowed nervously. Reacts negatively- as in shooting me or turning me into a mini cytoplasm farm…

  “Just be careful, and keep wearing the pendant.”

  ~

  4811/4/2/8

  David insisted he see me a few days later, after I had “recovered”. I promised to meet him on the beach; the exact same spot where I met him slightly less than two months before.

  I gripped the silver dolphin hanging around my neck, flying, rising above the waters in a glorious display of strength and individuality. Within it was a small listening device that was water-resistant. As long as it was alive, it also served as a homing device for Sam to find me if I needed help. I only had to squeeze it twice in my fist for it to activate and alert my Federation sanctioned protection.

  I nervously bit a fingernail while sorting homework papers on the floor. I had a couple of hours to go before meeting him. Leaning against my violet comforter, I wondered what was worse, waiting for the time to go faster or hoping that time would stand still and stop altogether.

  A few hours and bitten nails later, it was time. The solar star would set soon. I jumped up, feeling the adrenalin pulsing through me, studying forgotten. It didn’t matter- I wasn’t going to pass my tutorials anyway.

  I had been in my bathing suit and a cover-up for most of the day after coming home from academe. I trembled. And I hadn’t even walked out of the house yet.

  ~

  “What are you talking about?!” He was furious, striding up and down the beach. His face was livid, and he spat out words at me, words that burnt like acid. I flinched.

  “What have you done, Natalie?” He was in my face, his eyes boring into mine.

  “David! Stop it, you’re scaring me.”

  He just looked at me, disgust and anger on his visage, hands on his hips. “Good.” He was seething.

  “I don’t have to listen to this.” I shook my head, deeply hurt. “I guess we had nothing very special if it can all fall apart like this in the blink of an eye.”

  “NO. Life is fragile- everything falls apart when someone you love betrays you.” His look seemed to say that I was the one who had betrayed him.

  “Hold up there- you’re the one who dragged me out to Tera knows where to witness you dropping off your package of human cell fluid, all the while USING me to add credibility to your status as a newcomer in town. I’m the one who has been betrayed.” I paused, feeling tears prick my eyes. “I just hoped you were different, and I thought you were. But this is the way it is.”

  “You find it easy, don’t you? Being the victim. You don’t have to wait your whole life, desperately, hoping for forgiveness. You’re the one who gets to pass judgment. You’re the one with the clean conscience. You’re automatically in the right. Safe in the ethics war.” His face was viciously tortured. “You think you’re so good, just because you’re clean. But you’re not. You’re just as dirty as I am.”

  I could barely breathe- he gripped my wrists in a blind rage, pushing me down. I bit back a scream. I fell, into the densely-packed and smooth sand of the evening.

  He strode away, the solarset burning him in a dark gold halo. He didn’t look back.

  I cried, watching him go. I didn’t get up, didn’t try to go after him. My ankle hurt; it had endured most of the impact. The sand was cold and wet, and it soaked my wrap skirt through and through. I couldn’t hold it in, I cried bitterly. I didn’t try to wipe away the tears. There was no one to care and it would just get sand in my eyes. I cried harder.

  The solarset was glorious, even more so than usual, if that was possible. The only balm for my inner ache was beauty and I soaked it up, ravenously craving more to fill my wounds and gashes. In the midst of it all, I convinced myself that I was glad David was no more.

  I was lying.

  ~

  4811/4/2/9

  The next morning, I was on the Comms with Sam. My pendant had picked up the entire conversation I’d had with David the day before- the accusation on my part, his attempts to deflect and then his admittance, and finally his violence towards me when I wouldn’t lie to the peacekeepers for him.

  It was now on record- enough to prosecute him and his buddies who worked for the cartel. However, this meant that I was now in danger and the plans to relocate me had commenced.

  I didn’t think about it too much- if I did, I knew I’d just hate it all the more before I even found out what living a new life could feel like. My parents were safe from David- I’d never told him about them, and my friends had never met him either. My grades at Trect were already shot to Giga so it didn’t much matter that I wouldn’t be able to finish the career program. I didn’t even care that much about Oceanic Exploration Science. All the oceans on Tera had been charted already and my parents wouldn’t have liked the idea of me going off-world. Well, the off-world part was going to happen now- they had no say so in the matter.

  I sighed, rummaging around through my closet for a bag to shove some things in. I wondered what protective custody was like. Probably a little like cyber prison. I’d watched a documentary for academe once on an experimental place like that on Hecta. It made me want to be sick, it was so horrifying. Imagine, being locked in restraints and sedated for years while your brain roams through a labyrinth, all created by your own past misdeeds. Once you had experienced and re-chosen and re-lived each choice in your life that caused you to commit the crime, it would evaluate your level of sincerity and would create a system that calculated when you would learn your lesson and had become “rehabilitated.” The worst part of it was that most of the inmates just ended up going stark raving mad. The experiment had been kept in place, though. And for some criminals, I had to admit, it seemed a worthy punishment.

  All of a sudden I heard something. I froze, ears alert.

  Nothing.

  Must have been a vehicle or a neighbor… there it was again! A scritching, scraping, metallic jiggling noise.

  I lost my head. I don’t know why- maybe it was because I was thinking of cyber prisons or maybe I was just afraid that David’s men would come charging through the door to shoot me and stick needles in me or something sadistic. I jumped inside the closet and pulled the door shut behind me, leaving my Comms on the bed.

  Don’t ask me h
ow I knew that the back door was being screeched open, I’d certainly never heard one being broken into before. Whoever it was, they must have picked the lock or something. It was an ancient lock.

  I distinguished two separate weight-shifting creaks as the floorboards gave way. And now, I, genius, was stuck in my closet…without a Comms.

  Who were they? I had a bad feeling about this, right at the back of my brain, fuzzy and pricking, like someone was standing a breath away from my neck.

  This couldn’t be a random break-in. This had to be connected to David’s cartel. Why else? Why else would anybody target such a poor, quiet, old neighborhood unless they knew exactly who they were going for?

  I felt panic rising through my chest; blue angels, I was drowning in it, gulping it down. I clawed the closet walls with numb fingers. Would they search everywhere? Were they looking for cash? My photos? They’d probably confiscate my Comms, especially since it was an upgrade and doubled as an e-port. My Comms! I peered through the slats of the closet door. It was lying on my bed, face-up, blinking wildly. If I had had it with me…

  But it was too late to venture out of the closet now. Or was it? I eased the door open; they weren’t quite in the kitchen yet. I darted to the bed, snatched it up, and jumped deftly back into the closet, silently pulling it closed right as a figure passed my bedroom doorway to enter the living space of the house. I couldn’t say who it was. I hadn’t seen enough to know if it was even David or not.

  Finally my breathing calmed a little as their footsteps took their sweet time, pacing out the place.

  I called Sam Marshal. He was competent; invested. This was his job; he’d be the one to call. I desperately tried to soothe myself with these facts. My Comms was dialing; I held it pressed against my chest to hide the colored lights.

  My eyes darted around the room, adrenalin pumping through my veins until I felt so sped up that it seemed the rest of the world would need years to catch up to me. My duffle bag was squashed into a lump at the foot of the bed. That would give me away. I opened my mouth in a silent gasp. It was too late to grab it now; a flicker of movement caught my eye.

  I clenched the Comms hard to my chest as David walked into the room, gun drawn and carefully pointed down. He stepped agile and light, like he had done this maneuver a thousand times before. The hairs on the back of my neck trembled and I felt my sinuses prick with the unidentifiable feeling that something was there, hanging around my face like a web.

  I had teased this boy, tickled him, held his hand, and laughed carelessly on the beach with him. I had kissed him and meant it. And now I realized that I had no idea who the man in front of me was. I felt a hollow, cavernous, pitted place within myself expand and contract. I felt very real fear.

  “Hello?”

  The Comms! Sam had answered. “Hellooo,” he said again. His voice, thankfully, did not carry. I think I would have laughed if I wasn’t in the middle of a house robbery/ kidnapping/ break-in/ whatever.

  “Sam! David is in my room with a gun. I’m hiding. There are two of them. Please help.” I whispered the words so softly, I was afraid Sam would not be able to hear me. I didn’t dare repeat myself; the air conditioning had just switched off. My house wants me dead.

  David halted, touching the depressed coverlet where my Comms had just been. Blue angels. It was obviously still hot. He glanced around.

  “Copy that. Don’t panic. When he leaves the room can you get out a back way- maybe a lavatory window or porch or something?”

  I trembled with adrenalin, staring at David and hoping he couldn’t feel my eyes on him.

  “Doubt it,” I whispered micro-softly.

  “Ok. I read you. Whatever you do, don’t hang up. I’m on my way.”

  I nodded in the darkness, feeling wings beating in my heart. Or maybe that was just my pulse. I felt like I was in the middle of running a marathon.

  David’s face was inscrutable. What was he doing? He laid a hand over the spot, sucking the heat away with his fingers. Then he smoothed the coverlet, glancing around for observers.

  All of a sudden I was unable to bear standing in my cramped closet for one more second so I shifted my weight. The twinge in my muscle vanished into thin air; the physical comfort was like a fresh breeze.

  The wooden floor boards in here were mercifully quiet. Not so in other areas of the house, though. I didn’t have to strain to hear floorboards mewing in the kitchen and then hear the fridge door jangling with all of the mini yogurt cups and cold green tea bottles. I heard a muffled grunt. (Everything was muffled through my white louvered closet doors.)

  “One of those health freaks.”

  I peered closer through the slats, thankful that I had tripped and fallen into them this morning, shoving them down to face outward to the bedroom instead of inward in the closet. The only reason that David couldn’t see me was because of that small detail.

  I felt muddled emotions as I looked at him.

  What would he do? Search my whole house until he found me? If he did, he wouldn’t go away empty-handed. And I’d leave in a body bag when the peacekeepers and Sam finally arrived…

  Was he smiling?!

  “She’s not a freak, just health conscious, sinner.” The slight grin on his face vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. I wondered if he still felt anything for me. If he had ever felt anything at all.

  I tried to stretch my cramped legs again without making a sound, but apparently David heard something and his ears perked up.

  He looked straight into the closet doors. If he had been able to see through them, he would have gazed straight into my eyes. I barely covered my mouth just in time to suppress a gasp.

  His face grew hard and he fingered his gun.

  Blue hells. I’m dead.

  Then something extraordinary happened. He laid his gun down on the bed and walked close to the doors, as if inspecting them for worm rot. “If you’re in here…” He sighed, toying with the louvers. “Wait exactly 5 seconds while I distract him and then bust out of here- running like you’re on fire. I…” His eyes searched the slats, trying to piece together mine. He looked mournful, sad, if only for a moment. I felt my heart melt a little towards him. And I hated myself for it.

  I pressed my face up against the door, wanting to hear what he would say-

  And then the other man showed up, stalking in heavily. He kicked a houseplant over.

  I jerked back, shrinking into the shadowy recesses of my closet, waiting for him to start spraying the interior with bullets. And so it begins: The destruction of my little home to satisfy a drug lord. Ivy’s ceramic home was now cracked in two. RUDE! Despite the fact that Ivy was a plant, I watered her very carefully every day and was fond of her. So, back to the bullets. Except there were none. I had expected him to pull out his machine gun (all criminals had one, right?) and splatter my house chock full of his mechanically lethal little hornets.

  But no.

  He flopped his greasy, tan body on my comforter. He moved around, got himself comfortable, and even laid back on the bed, talking about how hard and stressful his, or rather their line of work was, all while sniffing my lavender pillows. I still didn’t know what was going down on the tenth tomorrow. Unless they were talking in code.

  David slowly gathered his emotions together and turned back to face the guy, wearing his mask. The mask that convinced you he was bored. He even joined in the trash talk. Grease-man leapt up, leaving a mark on my comforter that made me cringe. That’s gonna leave a stain. What kind of moisturizer did he use? Was it body lotion or did his skin just naturally secrete horrific substances? What was it? Worm’s fat? Nut oil? Whale blubber? Ugh.

  I gritted my teeth and clenched my fingers between each other in a very painful hold. Pain usually helped to clear my mind of all other thoughts. It wasn’t working so well right now. It could be ten times worse, I thought morbidly. They could be burning the house down. At least be thankful for that…

  No, wait. Mr. Blubber was fiddling w
ith his lighter, talking about what items of mine they could use to create the necessary starter. Adrenalin spiked my blood, leaving me feeling light-headed.

  I glanced at David. His face was taut, ever so slightly. The five seconds were up and his plan had been foiled. It looked like I would not be getting out of here any time soon.

  I would have to bide my time and hope Sam could get here before the place was turned to ash, and me in it. By this point, I was sensible enough to realize that David wouldn’t save me. Not this time. He would watch out for himself, alright. He’d see how it all played out, and then make his move. Just like the calculating snake he was.