by Celeste Raye
“Why not now?” His grin was meant to be disarming. Clara was not buying it.
Her eyebrow lifted. “I have been here for weeks. I never had to have one before.”
“They want to make sure your system is adjusting without issue.’
Oh. Well, that was plausible. Still, the idea that Renall had gotten worried she might be riddled with some dreaded illness stayed on. She knew there was no way out of the phys no matter how she felt about it too though. “Fine. Can we make it fast? I need to get back to the tables.”
“Not after that skull scrape.” He started walking, and she fell into step beside him. He added, “That is something else I need to check while I am at it. There can be some nasty after-effects.”
“You should have been there for the during,” she muttered.
Marik gave her a sympathetic look. “I have been. It’s awful. For a second I almost wished I would just go ahead and die, it was that bad.”
He had a point there. She let a grin lift her mouth. “Me too. Why do they let those things in here knowing they can do that?”
“Because they have lots of credits.”
Of course. On Orbitary, everything came down to credits.
Marik pointed to a bay bed, and they stepped into the semi-circle of its walls. Clara sat on the edge of the bed, but he said, “It’s full.”
Shit. She glared at him. “I need a cover at least.”
He pointed to a small stack of linen at the top of the bed, and she grabbed at it while he turned his back, fiddling with dials and knobs on the scanners. The mask went over her face. Confusion set in. Why a mask for a phys?
Then darkness took her down.
Clara woke hours later, in her own room. The room was black. Orbitary charged every single soul a surcharge for lights and wicks. Most people cut everything off the minute they laid down at night to avoid overcharging their credits, and to keep from getting a stiff fine for being wasteful with the resources.
She fumbled for a wick, the least expensive and resource using light. It flared, sending a small, slim band of light upward from its casing. Clara groaned as she sat up; her head ached, and she felt sick and slightly weak.
It all came flooding back. Clara staggered out of bed, determined to go have it out with Marik, but she could barely walk. She staggered into a chair just as the day’s bill came into her chamber.
Clara stared at it. The extra cleansing was not in there. Neither was the telecall for the phys—the one where Marik had gassed her for some reason.
She blinked a few times. Her brain felt dulled and fuzzed. Her fingers were sore. There was a distant roar in her ears, and her limbs felt buzzy and queer. She surveyed the bill again, trying to think.
Had she imagined the phys? Fallen asleep and dreamed it? It had felt so real though. But there was no bill for the call nor for the extra cleanse. She frowned, trying to think.
The day’s events unfolded in her mind. She got to the part where she had been attacked on the hall’s floor, and a new question arose.
Had she dreamed that phys? She had to have. Had to have. But—if that was so—had she also dreamed up that romantic encounter with Renall?
“Oh boy.” Her breath came out in a slow exhale. It was possible. That skull scrape had been no joke. She seemed to have dreamed up a cleanse that had never occurred, and a telecall that had not happened, and a phys—complete with a mask filled with gas—that had not happened either.
Relief sliced through her confusion. She didn’t want to examine how she felt about Renall and not knowing for certain if that tryst had been a figment of her imagination should have made things so much worse, but it didn’t. In fact, things felt far better with that uncertainty around it.
Too confused and sick to really process those things, Clara made her way back to the bed and cut off the wick. Her hands folded beneath her skull. Her eyes closed then flew back open as she felt, through all the other long list of complaints in her body, a stinging pain at the base of her spine.
“What the…?” Her fingers crawled around her waist and downward. She pressed softly at the stinging place on her skin. Misery stitched up along her spine. Her eyes went wide. She had felt that pain before.
When her chip had been placed in her body.
Eyes wide, terror creeping in, Clara lay there, staring into the blackness and wondering exactly what was going on.
Her courage had always been what had gotten her through, and it kicked in then too as the day dawned outside her window. She slung the covers aside and stood. She stood and then went to the dresser, yanking out clothes. Dana had made her another dress, but Clara disregarded it. She felt off-center, and the last thing she wanted to do was put her flesh on display.
Besides she had to go to Renall and demand an answer, and if she wore one of those dresses—well. She thought, I didn’t dream that. It happened. We made love. I don’t know what happened after, but I know we did make love. If I wear a dress like that again we may again. I want that, but not before I get answers.
Chapter 11
Not Clara. The two words rang through Renall’s skull. Gratitude hit. She was not the cycle spy. That only left the seamstress and her daughters. And he doubted it was any of them. Maybe it had been the one with low rot. That would make sense. The implants took on differing effects depending on the person.
However, his relief was tempered by sorrow. Dana sat in a chair. She had been gassed and her chip removed, as had her daughter Lois. The other daughter was working a shift and not yet available. Not that they needed her.
They had their cycle spy.
Lois.
The poor simple-minded girl was the cycle spy.
They had discovered too late that the chip had a self-destruct button. That button had been set off by Marik when he had attempted to remove the chip. The fluid he had retrieved had been a perfect match, but even without it, they would have known.
Lois kicked her way off the bed. Her brain was shutting down and all of her systems out of line. She walked and fell; garbled words and syllables came from her mouth. Her nose bled.
Renall’s heart wrenched with pity. He said, “Marik, can you not give her more gas?”
Marik said, “I gave her beyond the lethal dose. There must be some kind of mechanics involved as well. It seems whoever did this to her wanted her to suffer, even in death. It is…unfortunate, but I cannot do more. Unless you want me to inject her with the chloride.”
Did he want that? The chloride gave off a quick death but a brutally painful one. How long could her body continue? How much pain was she already in? Would the chloride hasten her death at all and would the pain be even greater if he ordered it?
He would have to order it. Marik would never. It went against everything he believed in as a healer. Jeval wouldn’t, not because he lacked sympathy but because he was more used to killing in battle than killing coldly and he would shrink from that, and Talon had gone to Dana’s side to check her vitals and to try to avoid the sight of the shrieking and writhing woman on the floor.
Once upon a time, Renall had been possessed of ruthlessness. They all had. Talon still retained that ruthlessness, but the rest of them had had that whittled down to a smaller degree. Even Talon’s ruthlessness did not extend to coldly killing a woman.
Renall knew they would wait it out or wait for him to order that death. He had done it before. Ordered the cold executions of innocents. Had killed innocents himself, in fact. That had been when he had been young and angry, and he had never forgiven himself for those things. They, he and his siblings, had made a pact to kill only when they had to, and when they were in real danger. This order would not break that pact, but the weight would be on his shoulders.
There was a tap at the door. He ignored it. Then the door opened, and Clara walked in. She looked from him to the young woman on the floor. Her face went dark. She screamed, “What are you doing to her!”
She flew at him with her fists up and rage written all over her
face. She caught him on the tip of his chin with one fist; the blow was glancing, and he caught her hands. “Clara, stop.”
“No! You’re killing her! What are you doing?”
He caught her hands. He swung her closer to him. “Stop.” His arms wrapped around her body. His body instantly reacted as soon as her bottom hit his crotch. He grit his teeth. “It is not anything we did to her. She has been used; a cycle spy.”
Clara went limp from the shock of his words. She whispered, “No. That is forbidden!”
He understood her denial. He had hoped to deny it as well. He said, “It is true. Look at her. You can see it.”
Clara cried out, “Help her then! Why are you just standing here watching her die like that?”
Her guts were the first thing he had noticed about her, and they impressed him now too. She was strong and brave and ready to take on the whole world if need be. She would fight for what she believed in. She would fight for her life too. She was a creature so unlike any he had ever known, and he didn’t want to let her go. Not ever.
Chapter 12
Lois thrashed and screamed. Dana, gassed to placidity, sat in a chair seeing nothing of Lois’ struggles. Clara couldn’t look away from that pained and awful writhing. She whispered, “Help her. Please.”
Marik nodded. He knelt beside Lois and used a syringe to administer the dosage. Dana’s other daughter was nowhere in sight, and Clara hoped she did not return anytime soon either. This was enough of a nightmare.
Lois died in a matter of a second. Clara’s hands dug at her clothing then she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, grinding them against the bones of her eye sockets. Even that was not enough to keep the tears from falling.
Renall’s arms went around her. She let him hold her. Jeval said, “We have to talk to her now while she is under and may be able to answer.”
Renall’s hands came up and smoothed Clara’s hair away from her face. She sobbed against his chest, not caring that her tough façade had cracked, not caring that she was in the arms of the being who just kept taking her heart and breaking it. She hurt so much in so many ways that all she could do was lean against him and let the tears flow and the sobs come and sound out.
His body rocked hers gently. His arms held her within his embrace, and his scent filled her nostrils. She knew she should back away, let go and keep on letting go of him until she was really done with him. He was the worst thing she could do to herself. He held way too many cards. She couldn’t win his love, and he didn’t want hers. But no matter how true those thoughts were, her hands held on; and he held onto her in return.
Her sobs began to taper off. Marik and Talon carefully and gently lifted Lois’ limp body and left with it. Clara didn’t have to be told she would be taken to the rejuvenator fields to be turned into fertilizer for the planet’s greenbelts. She didn’t need to be told, and she did not want to know either.
Jeval knelt down in front of Dana. He spoke softly. “I need you to speak with me.”
“All right.” Dana’s wide and unseeing eyes stared past Jeval at nothing.
Jeval asked, “What is your name?”
“Dana.”
“How many daughters have you?”
“Two Sanara and Lois. Lois is dead though.”
Clara jumped. A cry broke from her mouth. She had thought that Dana, deeply gassed, would not be able to see that, and knowing she had cut like a blade. Then Dana spoke again.
Dana said, “It was the fever. I asked her father, my husband, to take a debt for us. To get her into a medi-center and medicine. He said he would, but instead he took on a hunger debt.”
“Lois is dead?” Jeval pressed on.
Dana nodded. “The fever took her. But…” Her eyes blinked, slow and steady. “They brought her back.”
Jeval asked, “Who brought her back?”
“The…”Dana frowned again. Her tongue touched her lip. “Her. Jessica. She brought her back. Said she was Lois.”
Jessica? Clara’s eyes widened. Renall caught his breath. But the most startling reaction came from Talon. He paled and sucked in air. Jeval shot all of them a warning look then asked, “Dana, was it Lois she brought back?”
Dana nodded happily. “Yes. Lois is my daughter. She was sick. Now she is not.”
Renall said, to Talon, “Get Jessica in here now.”
Talon said, “Renall, I warn you. Don’t harm her.”
Electric tension hit the air. Clara looked from Talon to Renall. Something was going on, but she was too weary and sickened by the sudden death to try to understand what it was. Renall spoke softly. “I do not intend to harm her. None of us do.”
Talon went. Jeval asked Dana, “You said Jessica?”
Dana nodded. “But not Jessica. She was…” A vague look filled Dana’s face. She didn’t go on.
Renall released Clara. The heat of his body stayed on her skin, and she clung to that phantom warmth. She felt adrift and lost now, alone in a way she could not even explain.
Talon came back. Jessica stopped and gawked at them all. “What is it?”
Jeval placed two fingers below Dana’s nostrils. He said, “The gas is wearing off. She’s breathing more normally.”
Renall said, “Jessica, we need to know who Lois really was.”
Jessica’s face went white. “Was?”
“She was a cycle spy,” Talon said without even trying to soften the words. “You brought her to Dana. We need to know why.”
Jessica said, “I don’t know. I don’t even recall doing so. I will believe you that I did, but why I could not say.”
Renall said, “Clara, are you all right?”
She’d been swaying on her feet. She quickly gathered her courage. She said, “I am. Is Dana?”
Jeval said, “She will sleep once the gas starts to wear off.”
Clara licked her lips. “What do we tell her about Lois?”
“That she had the fever. That it must have come with her and taken her very suddenly.” That came from Marik. He added, “And that we did not let her suffer. We will also tell Dana she has the fever and quarantine her for a short time just so I can watch her to make certain her memory wipe does not unravel. Or the implants, whichever needs the most attention.”
He said, “I’ll take her now. Talon, you help me.”
It was an order, and they all knew it. Talon dug his heels in. “I think I would rather stay.”
Marik said, “I need your help now.”
Talon relented. He gave Jessica a long look as he passed her. Jeval said, “Jessica, you know I can drift dream, don’t you?”
She nodded. Fear showed on her face as she watched Talon and Marik lead the stunned Dana from the room. “I have heard you could.”
Jeval said, “I need inside your mind.”
Jessica flinched. So did Clara. That seemed so personal! Jessica said, “I would like to know too. So go ahead.”
Clara held her breath as Jeval began. She wondered if perhaps Renall was possessed of the same ability. Could that be that strong magnetic pull she always felt for him?
No.
She could wish it was, but that was not it at all. She was drawn to him because she was attracted by his kindness and his sense of justice and fairness. She was drawn to him because he was attractive and warm.
Oh is so fair? That little voice came back into her head, mocking her. He offered you the chance to be his whore but not his wife. He won’t break that pact because it means more to him than anyone and anything, including you. If he were so fair, he would simply hand you that crypto file and your mother’s chamber keys and let you go with the credits you have earned, just like you told him. But had he offered to do that? No. He will leave her, and he will leave you behind and all so he can fulfill his dreams and without you.
Her emotions were too conflicted where he was concerned. One more reason to just leave him alone. To try to find a way to get the file and her mother and flee from Orbitary and him. She could figure out ano
ther way to get the rest of her family out of serio-max if she had to.
Then Jessica began to speak, and Clara forgot about all of that. “She’s Halsey Miggs.”
Halsey Miggs? The daughter of the highest governor? That made no sense at all. Why would…? Clara looked over at Renall. He looked as confused as she did.
Jeval asked, “Why did you take her to the seamstress?”
“I was trying to save her life.” Jessica wore the same vague and un-present look that Dana had worn. It was eerie and slightly frightening. Clara drew closer to Renall, but that time he did not reach for her. In fact, he stepped closer to Jeval—and away from her, making her heart plummet all over again.
Renall said, “Why was her life in danger?”
Jessica didn’t respond until Jeval repeated the query. Then, “She was sold to satisfy a debt. Private sale. Private debt. The buyer wanted to see her suffer. Watch her pain. I took her to the seamstress before the circuit could be flipped. I thought she’d become an under dweller and that would satisfy the buyer. That she would suffer enough there.”
Clara’s mouth dropped open. She whispered, “That is why they beat her so severely and put her on that ship to Narnlia! She went against the government!”
Renall gave her a nod but didn’t answer. He leaned forward, listening intently as Jeval asked, “Why did they wipe your mind? Why did they take her memories?’
Jessica answered. “They didn’t. I did. I used a black market contact to try to remove the circuit when I realized she would die and that the suffering they wanted was far more. I knew what the ship really did. Brides. They call them brides. But they are not brides. They are chattel and often killed in horrific ways for the pleasure of Magna beasts.”
Renall gasped. Clara stepped back. Jeval stared back at them, his mouth hanging ajar and horror showing on his face. “Magna beasts? It is forbidden to fight the Magna beasts now.”
