“Of course, we’ll be in trouble if he checks in person. . . .”
“We’ll jump that bridge when it crumbles under us.” I don’t want to think about Johnny’s wrath. Or Johnny, period. “So my plan”—I say and then sit up, folding my legs underneath me on the bunk—“is to free the Touched on Entra.”
Ben stops circling in his chair. “No way.”
“Well, you wanted to sneak them off the ship and store them somewhere until the K-Force could pick them up. That’s stupid. If Johnny figures out that they’re gone, and they’re all in one place, it’s only a matter of time before he finds them. Right?” Ben opens his mouth to object. “But if we release them on this forest planet, they’ll be much harder to find. They’ll certainly scatter, and then how easy will it be for Johnny to round them up? Not at all, right?”
“Rain . . .”
“Plus, they’ll be free. Who knows? Maybe not being locked up and starved will set something loose in their minds. You said it yourself: they still have hunger. Humanity. They deserve freedom.”
“My plan might have been crap,” he admits. “But that plan is crap as well.”
I bring my hair back and braid it. “It’s not genius, but even you said that Entra’s our last chance to save this group. After that stop we’ll be in the dead zone. What’s it called?”
“The Static Pass.”
“Right. And you said that the K-Force are on the wrong side of it, which allows Johnny to just go about his business. We can’t let him deliver all those people into the hands of that slaver. And this way the Touched aren’t waiting on the help of some phantom space cops who may or may not ride in to save them.”
Ben gets out of his chair and paces around the cabin. “Have you thought this through, Rain? I mean, have you thought through the aftermath? If you’re too close to him, if you’re still red-tagged, he could take his anger out on you—even if he has no idea that you’re in on this.” He stops moving. “He could punish you just to make himself feel better.”
I look away. “Or you.”
“I am one of his favorite punching bags.” He sits beside me so hard that the whole bunk bounces. “He could do anything if he realizes that they’re missing. I mean, he’ll most likely keep up appearances as a passenger ship and head to the Edge, but if things go crazy, your already slim chances of getting out of here with Walker decrease significantly.”
“I have thought about that.” I pick at a small hole on the knee of my pants. “You still have to get off this ship. You said yourself that the K-Force are out there. Maybe when you rejoin them, I’ll come with you. You can get me and Walker to the Edge.”
His hand moves over mine, but at the last second, his fingers curl into a fist that doesn’t touch me. “Hell.”
He stands and palms the release to open Melee’s door. “I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything. Recovering me or anyone else is not one of the K-Force’s priorities. Especially after all my years of failure . . . regardless of who my uncle is.”
On the walk back to Johnny’s quarters, Ben is too quiet, and then, the whole ship blares.
SCHREECHEEENSCH! SCHREECHEEENSCH!
I fall to my knees on the swinging catwalk, clutching my ears against the siren. The red light flicks on and off, eerily matching the glowing scarlet on my wrist. Ben is swinging around in a circle, confused.
“What do we do now?” I yell without being able to hear myself. “Did we set that off?”
He screams something back, but I can’t hear. He’s panicked; the color is draining out of his face. Through the breaks in the siren, we hear footsteps. Running footsteps and many of them.
“We need to hide!” I shout, but he just gives me a confused look. I get right in his face “HIDE!”
He blinks awake, pulling me by the arm from the walkway. We haul down a corridor, and he beats his fist on a wall until a panel pops free, and then he shoves me into a very narrow space. He slips in behind me, snapping the piece of wall back in place.
The flashing alarm light is now just an outline to the panel.
And we are in the dark.
The siren stops after a minute, and the space is so small that I can’t get my arms free to rub the tingling sensation from my ears. I work my jaw while Ben twists so that he’s leaning into me, almost on top of me.
“Did we just set that off? I thought you shut the alarms down!”
“Shhh,” he says. “There are going to be crew members all over this hall. And don’t blame me, I did my best with the feed, but I’m not perfect. And Johnny’s been updating the system behind my back.”
“Will the alarm wake Johnny?”
“Nothing’s waking Johnny before that drug wears off.”
I breathe a sigh that must knock right into Ben’s face. He’s so close that I can feel the heat of his body, but I can’t see a damn thing. The edging glow of the lockdown light doesn’t reach into the wall space, and my bracelet does nothing outside of coloring my arm with a bloody tinge.
“Are we—”
Ben presses into me as a warning just as voices sound outside. A number of crew members bark commands back and forth. The loudest being, “Check every room.”
“Hell.” Ben’s lips are against my ear. “They’re looking for us.”
What may be hours later, I try to shift toward the wall but only succeed in knocking into something that jolts my back. I jerk forward, smashing full-bodied into Ben.
“Stop moving!”
“Something stung me.”
“A bared electrical pulse. There are dozens in here. Just try to stand still.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re the one leaning on me.” I twist until my hips are off-center to his. “If you wanted to be in the dark with me, you could have just asked.”
Crew members return through the hall. Ben and I fall into a dead silence, and my idiotic words linger as being entirely too slutty or flirty. Or both. If you wanted to be in the dark with me? Good lord.
The voices move further down the corridor.
“What are you complaining about?” he whispers. “You’re the one who kissed me.”
“I was joking. Just kidding!”
“If you were kidding, why are you blushing?”
“You can see me?” I back up into the pulse and receive another electrifying jolt in the shoulder. “You can see in the dark?”
“I can see a scale of temperature signatures when there’s low light.” There’s a smile in his voice. I clear my throat and try to think about something other than how very close we are and the fact that he can freakin’ see my body heat.
“You Mecs really are evolved.”
He breathes an annoyed sigh and leans back, causing me to tilt into him in the narrow space. “You’ve really got to stop thinking that I’m super human. If I was . . . well, we wouldn’t be in here, would we?”
I prop my arms on the wall beside his waist and lock my elbows for maximum distance. “I don’t get why you’re so embarrassed about being Mec. You could have been born on Earth City, losing your friends and family one after another like a string of old lights.”
My throat gets tight, but I can’t seem to stop. It’s been too long of a night—too long of a run through the Void. “You could have been walking across the square one day only to look up into the eyes of someone committing suicide. Someone falling over you like human rain.”
Ben doesn’t say anything, and I stare into a corner of the wall space that I can’t even see. “Just ignore me,” I manage. “Being shut in here is making me say stupid things.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I won’t ignore you. You’re not the kind of person that anyone could ignore. No wonder Johnny is in love with you.”
“He isn’t—”
“He is, Rain. It may only be Johnny’s brand of lusting love, but seriously, he’s hooked.”
My cheeks blaze with embarrassment as I remember how I mauled Johnny’s lips before that line of passengers. “Yeah, well, I’d rathe
r not talk about him.”
“All right.” He’s quiet for another long stretch of minutes. “I’ve been doing some more research on the whole Touched phenomenon. I think it’s genetic, and that’s a sort of specialty with Mecs. It may just be a weakness in the DNA of Earth Cityites.”
I’ve never heard it put so simply. “So maybe your people do know a cure.”
“They should know more on the Edge, but don’t delude yourself, Rain. Mecs aren’t perfect.” His chest heaves and bumps into mine. “For example, I was born blind.”
“What?”
“Every Mec is born blind. Our scientists messed with genetics to boost intelligence, and somehow they wiped the code for eyesight. They haven’t figured out how to fix it without losing the enhanced intellect, but they figured we’re wicked smart now, so who needs natural eyesight.” He takes a long breath. “I’m not evolved, Rain. I’ve been engineered this way.”
“So how do you see?” I touch his face, finding his hair and twisting it behind his ear.
“Optical cameras were implanted in my brain after birth,” he says as though the words taste foul.
“So that’s the silver? You’ve got machinery in your head? Is that what you meant when you said you had ‘hardware’?”
“How’s that for enforcing the Mec stereotype? We’ve got technology on the brain. Literally.” He forces a laugh. “So don’t go so hard on the Earth City. Mecs are just another brand of freaks.”
“You seem pretty human to me. Particularly all your flaws. And you’ll be a doctor one day. Once we get out of here. I know it.”
“Right. When we get out of here.” He swallows a laugh, and I think that he’s going to make fun of my rather naïve scratching around for hope. But he doesn’t. He clears his throat. “So, what will you be once we’re out of here?”
The immediate answer is anything else than what I am, but I manage to keep that to myself. “I don’t know. I guess, more than anything, I’d like time to think about it. On Earth City, I was always scraping to stay alive. To protect Walker. I used to dream about running the Void, but beyond that . . . maybe I just wish I had time to try a bunch of things. I’d like to use the smarts my dad gave me.” The idea fills me with a real warmth. “Does that sound crazy?”
“Not at all. There are universities on the Edge that could help you do just that.”
“University,” I repeat, loving even the sound of the word. My elbows are stiff from supporting myself, and I bend them, nudging into him.
“You can lean on me,” he says in a husky voice. “We could be in here for another few hours. I don’t know how long they’ll look for the cause of the alarm.” I loosen my elbows until I’m resting against his chest. His heart thumps beneath my ear—a little too loud and fast.
Of all the men that I’ve let inside me since I boarded this claustrophobic metal, his closeness feels the most risky. Of course Johnny would lose his head if he knew how much I think about Ben—how often we’ve had . . . moments.
“Ben, you really think the K-Force won’t save us? We’re doing their job, aren’t we?”
“It’s difficult to say. I just don’t want to make promises to you that I can’t keep. They have greater priorities than rescue. Large-scale missions. Their brand of justice is really eye for an eye. They’ll blow Imreas to hell if they get a chance, and it won’t matter who’s onboard.” His arm tucks around my waist, and his voice lowers. “And they certainly didn’t do anything when I let them know about Bron. ‘A necessary casualty,’ my uncle called her through the transmission. A necessary casualty.”
“She was your girlfriend?” He’d called her that before and the word lodged someplace deep. To think that they were together, really together despite Johnny and the girl trade . . . I can’t help but feel an itch of jealousy.
His fingers tug at my belt, and I relax against him a little more. “Not exactly. I wanted her to be, but nothing is simple on this ship. And Johnny had his hooks in her almost as deeply as he has them in . . .”
Me.
I know that’s what he wants to say, but he continues in another direction. “He was enraged by the idea that she could like anyone other than him. I bet he beat her before . . .”
His hand turns into a knot—an unyielding fist pressed against my hip. “Hell, Rain. I’m going to get you killed.”
“Not if I get you killed first,” I point out.
He hiccups a surprised laugh. “True.” The muscles of his shoulder are the best balance of firm, both warm and inviting. I rub my cheek against his shirt just as the red lines around the edge of the panel stop flashing and are replaced by the yellowed brightness of the overheads.
The lockdown is over. Ben shimmies around my body and pops the panel free, spilling unnecessary light into our secret space.
CHAPTER
18
Ghostly bodies fall through the Void.
They scream my name.
And Walker’s pod is among them, flipping and spinning until it’s gone beyond the blue engine lights of the ship. I try to jump after him, but I’m held back by gripping, stroking, stealing fingers. I’m prodded and stripped. I’m taken apart by faceless men—skin from muscle, muscle from bones.
Soul from body.
Someone touches me, and I snatch the hand, bending back the thumb that I’ve caught. I open my eyes and look straight into Johnny’s hair-ruffled halo.
“Let go.”
I drop his thumb. “You startled me.”
He shakes out his thumb joint but wears a smile. “You were nightmaring.” I try to push up on my elbows on the satiny bed, but he moves closer. He’s naked, but then so am I. I stripped both of us when I returned from being with Ben. And I destroyed the room. The plush chair is on its side, clothes are strewn about, and a bottle has been emptied on the bar.
“We did all that?” I fake.
“Apparently. Must have been a wild night. Wish I could remember some of it.” He squeezes his temples for a moment. The drug I slipped him last night has left him groggy but not dead. The sheet glides between us like a film of lotion as he presses his length against my side and draws circles on the lowest part of my belly.
“Tell me what you dreamt about.” A smile is fitted to Johnny’s face, but for once it isn’t cold or malicious. If anything, I would call it searching. “I don’t remember my dreams,” he adds.
“I saw my brother,” I say, leaving out the rest.
Johnny groans. “Boring. And here I was hoping you dreamt of me. Crysta used to have nightmares where she’d call out for me.” His eyes reveal their deepest brown as his gaze falls out of focus. “I loved watching her twist and cry. Watching her ache and sniffle. Sometimes I would wait for her to hit that breaking point—right before she might wake herself—and then I’d kiss her.”
His lips seal mine, reeking of the alcohol that I smeared over his unconscious mouth, and his body arches as he moves his kiss from my mouth to my neck to my chest. I begin to slip into it—to run my hands through his hair and massage his back.
But Johnny sags, and he presses his forehead into my neck. Strange emotions seem to freeze him where he lies, and for just a moment he is nothing like the cold commander of this ship. His whole weight sinks against me as he sighs, and if I didn’t know better, I might call him heartsick. Ben said that Johnny has a sort of love for me, but it feels more like he has an overwhelming need for another’s love. A craving.
A deficiency.
His com buzzes next to my ear, and he grumbles out of his trance and slides off. He presses something on the wristband, and the door opens.
Ben enters.
Johnny has taken the sheet with him, and I grapple to cover my nakedness, tipping off the bed and landing with an unladylike oof on the floor. Johnny chuckles. “That Mec stare is a bit much, Ben. Do try to blink once in a while. Then maybe my girls wouldn’t be so terrified of you.”
“Your girls are scared of me because you make me punish them,” Ben says while I tu
g myself into the first bit of clothing I can find, Johnny’s black dress shirt, and get to my feet.
“True,” Johnny admits. “But what order would we have if I was always the one knocking them around?”
Ben doesn’t respond, and my fingers struggle with the shirt buttons. I can’t help but remember last night—that small space between the walls—and the way Ben and I leaned, breathing each other in.
“We’ll be arriving at Entra tomorrow,” Ben says to Johnny.
“And all is in place?” Johnny gets out of the bed, naked and apparently not the least bit shy about it. He picks up the bottle on the bar and drinks from it before tugging on his pants. “No surprises like last time?”
Ben shakes his head. “No sign of her—”
Johnny’s look kills Ben’s words. Then he beckons me with a come-hither finger, and I step over and into the curl of his arm. “There was an alarm tripped last night. What happened?”
Ben’s good. His face is blank and sound. “We didn’t find anything. It could have been nothing.”
“Nothing.” Johnny’s arm gets a little tighter around me. “Why don’t I believe you? Oh, that’s right, it’s because you still think you’re smarter than me, but I know that Mecs are only as capable as their toys. Empty your pockets.”
Ben pulls all sorts of interesting things out of the deep pockets in his cargo pants, dumping them on the edge of the bed. In the meantime, Johnny slides his shirt off my shoulder and kisses the nape of my neck. A sort of moaning sigh slips out of me that’s entirely too loud, and Johnny chuckles, nuzzling my neck some more.
I glance at Ben, feeling the rush of my embarrassment. But his eyes are held up on the place where Johnny kisses me. He chucks the blue medical disc onto the bed last.
“That’s everything,” Ben says, and when Johnny doesn’t look up from caressing me, he cuts in, “Johnny. That’s it.”
Johnny doesn’t look up. “Rain,” he says. “Pat him down for me.”
The Color of Rain Page 14
