In My Skin

by Shannon McKenna

  “You heard me, R-48. Leave the jacket open.”

  Her hand dropped. Her lips tightened until the color left them. She didn’t raise her hand again, but his skin prickled with unease.

  He’d have to keep a close eye on this one.

  Not exactly a chore.

  * * * *

  Metzer put on the janitor’s coveralls and kicked and nudged the man’s limp body into the supply closet. The guy outweighed Metzer by at least sixty pounds, but baggy was better than too tight or too short. He just hoped he wouldn’t encounter any of the other hospital cleaning staff while he was here, or they’d meet the same end as…he glanced at the laminated name badge…Juan Ortiz.

  The less blood, the better. In and out.

  He shoved the closet door shut against Ortiz’s corpse and got his weight behind the rolling cleaning cart. He kept his head down going through the hall, but no one looked up as he rattled by. He glanced sidewise at a doctor walking past but the guy ignored him, preoccupied by his smartphone. Metzer turned the corner toward the morgue unnoticed.

  He pulled the door open and heaved the cart through it. An attendant sat at the desk. He was a big, soft guy with a bald spot and a goatee, also staring at a phone.

  He didn’t even look up as Metzer approached.

  “The other guy already cleaned in here,” he said absently.

  Metzer pulled out his silenced gun. The guy gasped as he caught sight of it. His smartphone hit the floor with a nasty crack. Little colored icons continued to bounce and float on the shattered screen. Some game or other. Fruit flying through the air.

  Metzer showed his teeth. “It’s still dirty,” he said. “Needs to be cleaned again.”

  “D-d-don’t hurt me,” the guy moaned, as the gun barrel pressed into his neck.

  “Shut up,” Metzer whispered. “A body was brought in tonight. Young, skinny, dark hair, lots of scarring. Remember him?”

  “Uh…yes. There was a guy like that.”

  “Take me to him right now,” Metzer said. “Don’t make a single fucking sound. You get anybody else in here, and I kill you both. Understand?”

  “Yes,” the attendant whispered.

  Goatee shuffled along, wincing away from the pressure of Metzer’s gun. Metzer clutched him firmly by his thinning ponytail and jerked his head sharply to the side. He sidled and stumbled, whimpering under his breath, but led him to the back of the morgue.

  Metzer shoved him against the wall, trapping him in the corner behind the drawer the cringing guy had indicated. “Open it,” Metzer directed. “And don’t move one muscle.”

  Goatee pulled the drawer out. The corpse inside fit the description. Short, thin, with buzzed off dark hair, heavily scarred torso. A ragged wound on his chest right over the spot where the capsule should be. That sucked.

  “This chest wound,” he asked. “He came in with it? Or somebody cut him after?”

  “No,” the guy said, bewildered. “Nobody touched him after the trauma surgeon got done. Hygienically bagged and tagged.”

  Metzer pulled out the scanner, programmed to blip at the exact location of the capsule. The long bar lit up with an eerie greenish glow, illuminating the sick-looking face of the sweating morgue attendant.

  Metzer ran the thing over the corpse’s torso. Three times. Not a blip.

  He tried the arms. A slow sweep from the dead man’s shoulder to his blood-darkened fingertips. Outer arm, inner arm. Legs, thighs, and groin. He propped the corpse up, did both of its sides. Swept shoulders, back, ass. There was an object inside his skull, but that was the transponder. No way would Manticore have put a client capsule inside a courier’s cranium. Nobody wanted to hack through bone to retrieve personal property.

  Goatee’s eyes widened, startled, when Metzer thrust his fingers into the gaping wound on the courier’s chest and fished around.

  Nothing in there. Just cold, dead flesh. Someone else had gotten to the capsule first. That pinch-assed dry turd Hale was going to be furious. Shit.

  He seized Goatee’s puffy throat with his meat-slimed fingers, and leaned into his face, squeezing. “Who brought in the stiff?”

  The guy’s eyes rolled. “I think…it was that chick who works in the ER. She came in with him. Saw her in the nurse’s station earlier. They were talking about it. She had blood all over her.”

  “Gimme a name.”

  “Dani,” the guy gasped out. “Her name’s Dani.”

  “Last name?”

  “Dunno,” the guy said. “Swear to God. I just knew her because there was a bet on who could get close enough to read the last name on her ID. Double the money to anyone who could get her into bed. She’s hot.”

  “Who won? Anybody?” Metzer asked, tightening his grip until his fingernails dug in and blood oozed out.

  “No one.” Goatee’s voice was a dry thread.

  Metzer grunted, eyes raking the man’s heavy, sweating face. He hit a button on his phone, and waited for Hale to pick up.

  “Give me some good news,” Hale growled.

  “Not yet. I need info,” Metzer said. “Lemme talk to the new girl.”

  A pause. R-48’s low, even voice came on the line. “Yes, sir? How can I help?”

  “Get into the Munro Valley Hospital’s HR database,” he said. “There’s a nurse. Probably in the ER. Her first name is Dani. I need a home address for her.”

  “One moment.”

  Goatee stared at the pistol barrel, fighting to draw breath through Metzer’s encircling fingers, his mouth slack and trembling.

  “Got her,” R-48 said. “Daniela LaSalle. 2425 Camden Lane, Munro Valley.”

  Hale’s voice blared out of the phone. “Who is this woman?”

  “She’s the one who brought in our stiff,” Metzer told him. “No package, though. Just a big nasty slice in his chest. I need to go have a talk with her.”

  “Take backup,” Hale said. “Four of the new crop. Put them through their paces.”

  “Send R-48 with them,” Metzer said. “Have them meet me at Dani LaSalle’s address.”

  Hale made a growling sound. Tough luck. The jealous old goat wanted to fuck R-48 himself.

  Metzer pocketed the phone and turned to Goatee. There was a brief, awkward pause. “So,” Metzer said. “Um…thanks.”

  The man’s watery brown eyes filled with desperate hope. “Happy to help. Anytime, man. Like, whenever.”

  “No, not really,” Metzer told him. “Just this once.”

  He swung the gun up and shot Goatee directly between the eyes.

  The silenced pistol made a loud thump, echoing in the room like a huge bass drumbeat. Goatee toppled and fell heavily to the floor. Time to get the fuck out of here.

  Metzer strode away from red-splattered morgue drawers, stepping over Goatee. He cracked open the door and looked up and down the hall. No one around to see.

  Good.

  Chapter 4

  That blood wasn’t going to clean itself up. But Dani couldn’t seem to move.

  She sat on a kitchen chair, staring at the lurid smears on the sunshine yellow linoleum. She could swipe and scrub and spritz all she wanted, but from here on out, she was going to see Naldo’s blood whenever she looked at her kitchen floor.

  Getting home was a teary blur. She’d been in no shape to collect her car from the hospital parking to drive home. A cab finally stopped on the street outside, but she didn’t remember paying the driver. She’d just stumbled out and glanced back, confused, as the cab sped off, tires squealing. Like something had scared the crap out of him.

  Huh. She must look bad. Like, Tales From The Crypt bad.

  Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw Naldo’s grayish, waxen face. He’d been unconscious when the EMTs got there. After a few years as a nurse, she could sense when someone’s spark was going out. So she’d known, e
ven as she was driving toward the hospital, that Naldo was going down fast. That there was nothing she could do. Nothing anyone could have done.

  Up, LaSalle. On your feet. Do something. Clean up. But her strings were cut.

  She was used to seeing the aftermath of violence and cruelty. Usually she kept her emotional distance like the professional she was, but sometimes it got to her.

  Like last year, taking care of Dylan. He was a skinny fourteen-year-old boy who had run afoul of his piece-of-shit uncle. Broken bones, lacerated face, cracked skull, cerebral damage. There was an army of heartless monsters out there masquerading as human beings. Preying on the vulnerable. Getting off on inflicting pain.

  They made her so angry, she started wanting to deal death herself. And she was supposed to relieve pain and suffering, not inflict it.

  Dylan had looked a lot like Naldo. Which really messed her up for a while.

  Naldo, the little brother she never had. They had bonded at juvie. Survived over a year at the Riplinger foster home together. He was younger than her by a couple of years. Small, scrappy. Never backed down from a fight. Always ready with a smart-ass remark.

  It was Naldo who first told her that she should be a doctor. She’d laughed at him at the time, but she never forgot it. She hadn’t made it to med school yet, but she was a nurse because of the seed he’d planted in her brain. All because of Naldo.

  You’re tough enough for blood and guts, he said. You’ve got the nerve for it.

  She stood up too fast and almost fell over, hanging onto the kitchen table as her blood pressure whooshed way low. A chilly, sickening rush of darkness.

  She doubled over, waiting for it to pass. Tough, her ass. She didn’t feel tough. Her nerves were for shit. When she straightened up, she was crying.

  Damn. Crying sucked.

  When she aged out of the system, she’d hoped to pull Naldo out with her, but by the time she had a job and a place of her own, it was too late. Naldo was gone. Whereabouts unknown.

  His chances of survival had been slim from the start. He was physically small and pretty, and looked younger than he was. Predators and pervs would find him and use him. Drug dealers, pimps, traffickers. As time went by, finding him became less and less likely, but she kept hoping. She kept herself visible on social media mainly for him.

  Here I am, buddy. Come on out of the woodwork. Anytime is fine.

  She was used to waiting and hoping. She’d hardened herself to that, but not to the grim, flat finality of nothing left to wait for. Nothing left to hope for.

  Dani roused herself and made it over to the laundry closet in the hall. She looked for several frozen minutes at the plastic crate full of cleaning supplies, rags and rubber gloves on the washer, wondering if she had any products that were good for mopping up blood.

  The door to the hall was open. She suddenly tuned in to the racket from the living room. She’d left the laptop on, and it was still streaming a cooking show. Here she was preparing to swab up Naldo’s blood while some trendy chef yapped on about bone broth. Protein, minerals and flavor! Cow juice forever! She had to make that damn thing shut up.

  She stumbled out into the hall like a drunk, stepping through the passageway—

  And started backward with a stifled shriek.

  An enormous dark man loomed in the shadows by the door. Huge. Buzzed dark hair, vast shoulders, all bulked up with black body armor like a commando.

  His eyes gleamed in the darkness with terrifying intensity. “Don’t scream.” His voice was deep, hoarse and scratchy. “I won’t hurt you.” He made a shushing gesture with his hands.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Dani’s back thudded against the wall. “What are you doing here in my house?”

  “We need to talk.” His voice was very calm. “Quietly.”

  “About what?” Her voice shook.

  “Shhh. Keep it down. About Naldo.”

  She exploded into panicked motion, lunging for the kitchen, her phone, her door, the outside, anything to get away. He seized her from behind before she got out of the short passageway between the living room and kitchen.

  She went nuts, writhing in his grip. “It was you!” she hissed. “You hurt Naldo!”

  “No!” He whispered the words urgently into her ear. “No, no, no. That wasn’t me.”

  She fought him, but there was an uncanny quality to his implacable grip. A sinking-into-quicksand feeling, as if he was using her own energy and the harder she fought, the tighter he held her.

  He wound her into a shaking knot, twisting her own arms around her torso and clamping her wrists into his huge fists. Her legs were trapped between his rock-solid thighs. She strained against him, fear rising to a screaming pitch. “What the fuck do you want from me?” She forced the words through numb lips.

  “For you to listen.” The vibration of his deep, quiet voice against her ear sent racking shivers through her, making her legs wobbly.

  She swallowed to calm the shaking. “Fine,” she said. “Talk. Make it snappy.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” he urged.

  Dani let out a bark of incredulous laughter. “Hah! For real?”

  “I won’t hurt you, Dani. I swear it.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to hyperventilate. “Then why not come to the goddamned door like a normal person if all you want to do is to talk?”

  “It hasn’t been a normal day. You never would’ve let me in.”

  “Right! Let go of me! Asshole!”

  “Shhh,” he whispered again. “I came in to warn you that you’re in danger.”

  She twisted in his grip, just enough to catch the flash of his dark gaze.

  “Oh really.” Her voice dripped sarcasm. “Am I. Now there’s a news flash.”

  “Not from me,” he said impatiently. “From the people who hurt Naldo.”

  “What do you know about Naldo? Who hurt him?” She turned to study his face again, and realization dawned. “Wait. I saw you earlier,” she said slowly. “A couple times. You were in the ER. Wearing a lab coat.”

  “Yeah, that was me,” he admitted.

  “I thought you were a new resident, maybe starting an ER rotation.”

  “Nope, not a doctor. I was there to protect you,” he told her. “I’m here now for the same reason.”

  “I didn’t ask for your protection,” she replied savagely. “Whoever the hell you are!”

  “Getting around to that. Now listen. Naldo had a—” His body went still. “Shhhhh.”

  She froze too, waiting. Listening. “What is it?” she demanded, in a whisper. “What in the hell is going on?”

  “They’re moving in on us.” He breathed the words out almost soundlessly. “Don’t make a sound.”

  What the hell? Fear and dread overcame her.

  It was too damn much. All she could do was fight. She was hardwired for it. She yanked one of her arms almost free. Tried to elbow him. Failed. “The only problem I have right now is you! Let…me…go!”

  His hand clamped over her mouth. She pulled back and bit his hand, hard. He pulled his hand free with a hiss of pain, and she started to screech.

  In a blinding instant, she was clamped against his body so tight she could hardly breathe, his hand over her mouth again. So firmly she couldn’t even turn her head.

  He hoisted her off her feet and kicked open the door to the laundry closet, which she’d left hanging open. Hauled her inside, pulling shut the door.

  And there she was, in the darkness in her clutter of brooms, buckets and mops, jammed in between her ironing board and her washing machine with a huge, mysterious, terrifying man.

  So close, he was practically plastered to her body.

  * * * *

  Goddamnit.

  Trapped. In a closet. Stupid fucking bonehead move. Luke had acted without thinking, l
ocked in combat survival mode.

  But they were surrounded, and it was the only move to make. He had to make the best of it. Keep her from making noise. Giving his presence away.

  He’d gotten inside just in time. The hostiles had shown up moments afterwards. He’d seen four thermal heat signatures slinking around out there. Systematic, professional, moving smoothly into position in the overgrown foliage. No unmod would have seen or heard them. Covering every entrance. Probably listening with modified ears, just like him.

  He just hoped they weren’t scanning for thermals. He couldn’t afford to lose the advantage of surprise, outnumbered as he was.

  Now if he could just quickly, forcefully convince Dani to get down on the other side of the dryer while he went out to deal with them …

  But she wouldn’t. It wasn’t in her nature. He needed to calm her down first. Explain that she had to do exactly what he said, this instant, if she wanted to keep breathing.

  But he couldn’t get the words out. At least not without scaring her so badly that she started screaming again.

  Words wouldn’t come. All those long months of keeping silent, refusing to speak to Mark, then Braxton. Resisting interrogation, beating and torture.

  He wanted to howl his frustration, but that wouldn’t help. Her heart was galloping. Stripes of yellow light from the kitchen sliced through the slats in the door and across her eyes. They were wide and brilliant, glittering with angry tears.

  “Hold still,” he whispered.

  Her body squirmed against his, chest to thigh. She was tall and strong. Her head came all the way up to his nose. Her lush tits pressed against his body armor. The sensation made him want to ditch the damn vest. Feel all those curves for real.

  Some other time. He had a job to do. And she absolutely did not deserve the shitstorm that was blowing her way.

  “Dani,” he whispered. “Don’t scream.”

  He meant it as an order, but it came out rough, hoarse. Pleading.

  Slowly, he lifted his hand. Her mouth was slightly open. She was panting. The pink, tender fullness of her lips made him ache down low.

  A tear glittered as it flashed down over her cheek. The sight of it hurt him inside.