I groan something that sounds a little like Thanks.
He opens his hand palm up on my knee. “Look, I don’t know how much longer we have, but you have to know that I’m not after you like the other men. I’m not trying to possess you. Or buy you. You should know that.”
I know.
I lift my hand with enormous effort and squeeze his. He tries to interlock our fingers, but I seal mine into a fist and knock his palm a few times.
“You trying to tell me ‘thanks but no thanks’ again?” he asks.
I pound his hand a little harder, but even I don’t know if I mean yes or no.
“I know this is complicated.” He sighs and holds me a little tighter. “I wouldn’t push you, you know. Just don’t forget that you kissed me first. Twice now.”
Hours pass in silence. A few times, I break into tears and moan because the pain in my jaw spikes or something in my chest sears with pressure. Each time, Ben’s hold grows tighter like he’s determined to keep my shattered body together with his own.
If only he knew the real feelings that swing around in my mind. The way I dream about his twisted hair and steel blue eyes before the demon fingers find me . . . the way I don’t mind the nightmares so much when they come with pieces of him.
But then, how can it matter? None of that will help us now.
We don’t know if it’s night or day as the lights never change in the cargo den, but at least a day after I first woke, Ben stands and positions me against a crate. He paces the open floor, pressing his com, which seems to have been turned off.
“It’s been too long,” he says. “I don’t know what in hell is going on, but something is amiss. He should have killed one or both of us by now. He should be torturing us. He’s planning something.”
I make a grunting noise to shut him up. He may not care if we’re under surveillance, but I know Johnny, and he’s somewhere watching us with a magnifying glass. I guarantee it. But Ben is right; Johnny is planning something.
He comes for us within the hour.
“Get her up,” he says from the doorway. His shirt is half-unbuttoned. “Rain and I need to have a little chat.”
Ben helps me to my feet, and I feel at least two ribs try to bust through my side. “Let me carry her,” he says. “She can’t walk.”
Johnny holds a hand up to stop Ben. “She’ll walk. Do you know nothing of the girl who plays with you? She could walk from here to Earth City if she set her mind on it.” Johnny beams at me with a strange pride, and I push Ben’s arms away, standing on my own. After all, he’s right about me; I manage a step and another. I keep my arms woven around my chest, which helps with my torso, but does nothing for the spearing ache in my jaw.
As I make it through the door, Johnny slaps an arm around my shoulder so hard that I scream through clenched teeth. He ignores it, hustling me away and slamming the door behind us. The great lock clangs behind me, sealing Ben in.
On the command deck, Johnny sits me in his captain’s chair. He kneels, and I breathe through my locked teeth while his eyes search my face.
He flips open his knife and slices the shoulders of my dress, tugging the material down to reveal his handiwork—a patchwork of purple bruises across my chest that highlight my broken bones like halos.
He takes Ben’s med disc out of his pocket and holds the warm blue light over one of my sides. He’s going to heal me? Why? So he can hurt me all over again?
I feel my bones heating and maybe melting back together. A pop sounds when the rib has stolen back into its place, and he heals the others while he talks.
“You haven’t disappointed me, Rain. I’ve spent days trying to be angry enough to deal with you, but it just keeps slipping through my fingers. The truth is that this little chase you’ve sent me on has been more exciting than anything I’ve encountered in many runs. So, it would be foolish of me to kill you when you might just be giving me exactly what I need.”
Pop.
“I wanted to start out with a compliment since you have put so much work into duping me and that Mec. Poor Ben. He has no idea that you used him, does he?”
Used him for what?
“To think that you let him hope that you liked him . . . that’s cold. But I want you to know that I’m not going to kill him over this. Mecs are too hard to replace.” He smirks. I don’t believe him. Johnny’s ruffled hair and lighter eyes can’t quite make up for the snap that seems to be arching in his words. He could still kill Ben and me. He’s waiting for something.
Pop.
“You know you made me hurt you. I didn’t want to, but you were so persistent, you and that damn Mec.” He chuckles. “But even there, wasn’t it a bit fun? The way he flopped around when the shock went through him! I’ve always wanted to try that.”
I take a few deep breaths through my set teeth as he holds the med disc up to my jaw.
“I’m tempted not to heal your face. You’re so much more manageable without all that lip.” His look is aching. “Still, I’m dying to hear how you did it.”
He runs the warm light over my jaw until it jolts back into place with a painful click. I let out a yell, startled at how loud it is now that my mouth swings open on its usual hinge. He moves away, and I fall from the chair.
“How I did what?”
Johnny hunkers down to my level, his eyes glinting with the next bit of malice that he can’t wait to release. “Stole from me.”
My pulse whips through my body. “Stole what?”
He waves his hand and slouches in the captain’s chair. “I’m not there yet. I want to show you something first.” He presses his com, and within a minute, a young crew member enters. His hair is ratty, and his scraggly moustache makes him look even younger.
“Captain?” he asks. I can tell how hard he’s trying not to look at where I sit on the floor by Johnny’s feet, still working my jaw to remove the stiffness and only wearing half a dress.
“Take out your tracker,” Johnny says.
“Out, sir?” His face has paled.
“Out.” Johnny holds out his knife.
The crew member looks from me to the knife to Johnny before he takes it. He folds back the sleeve of his flight suit and presses the blade over the back of his wrist. He takes a few ragged breaths before digging the knife into his flesh.
I look to the floor, which proves to be a mistake when drops of his blood splash down only inches from my knee.
Johnny holds out his hand, and the now ash-faced crew member drops a tiny piece of metal in it. Johnny leans toward me. “These trackers are much cheaper than the bracelets we use for the girls’ safety. For example, they don’t give off a lethal shock if forcibly removed like yours would or Ben’s. But they are highly effective at keeping the bulk of my crew in line. Still, some might call me paranoid for using them wide-scale. A thousand of these, for example, is a serious investment.”
A thousand. Sweat slips icily down the back of my neck.
“But how handy these little babies are when things go missing.” Johnny drops the tiny piece of metal back into the crew member’s hand. “Go to medical and have it replaced.”
The young man leaves in a hurry, a trickle of blood in his wake.
I get to my feet. “Johnny, what—”
“Quiet. I’m almost finished.” His fingers dance over the control panel next to his chair, and I turn to face the huge command window. The screen is split between the two cargo holds, both jam-packed with the Touched.
I can’t take in the squalid mass of them without feeling an urge to throw up. My body heaves, but having been without food and water for days, nothing but sour bile lines my mouth.
“Such a headache to round them all up down there, but I want you to know,” he stands behind me and places his hands on my shoulders, “not a single one escaped.”
All our work and gamble . . . all for nothing.
He chuckles as I begin to shake harder. “You know, some of them had even set up rudimentary shelters and coll
ected food from the forest like they were actually going to have a life there.”
“They did?” I breathe, turning to face him.
“Wrong, Rain! ‘Who cares’ is the right answer!” he yells. “They’re wastes of space, and the only reason I deal in them is because my father wants them so damn bad. Now, I’ve taken great pains to have this ship locked down and most of the crew in the dark about this business, so before I find out how you found out about your pathetic brethren and how you managed to free them, we’re going to play a little game.”
He turns me around to face the screen. Half of it now shows an airlock. An airlock with dozens of Touched inside.
“Would you choose the lives of say, a hundred crazies, over the life of one?”
I grind my teeth. “If you mean to kill me, Johnny, just get it over with. Of course I won’t let you kill a hundred people in my place.”
His arm snakes around my chest, anchoring me in front of him, and his face lowers to my ear. “Oh, I wouldn’t trade you for a hundred thousand of these. You’re much too valuable. I meant that ice cube you call your brother.”
The other half of the screen switches to show a second airlock. It’s empty except for Walker’s pod in the center . . . maybe in the very spot where Lo knelt in her last minutes. I can even see a hint of his small face through the narrow window.
“Johnny!” I try to spin around, but he keeps me where he wants me.
“Time to choose.”
I can’t breathe, and shudders wave through me from my neck to my ankles. Walker’s airlock is as silent and still as death. The other hums with life. The Touched knock into each other, their moans soundless through the window of the command deck.
“Of course if you don’t choose, I eject them both,” Johnny adds. “You have one minute.”
Hardly able to breathe, I squeeze my eyes and lower my head. I can’t trade my brother for the lives of a hundred people! I can’t. But if Walker doesn’t make it, I’ll be alone in this universe—and I’ll have ruined myself for nothing. Every traded kiss. Every grope.
Every fuck.
I close my eyes. “This is evil, Johnny. You’re trying to make me inhuman. Just like your father did to you. It’s not fair what he did, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. You could let them all go.”
“Wrong.” He grinds his teeth too close to my ear. “I’m not making you evil. I’m trying to make you invincible. You make the right choice here, and you will get what you want, Rain. I promise. That’s what my father did to me. He taught me how to get what I want regardless of anyone or anything else. He taught me how to win the game.”
I open my eyes. The right choice?
Of course! This is a game, and Johnny’s rigged it. Only one choice will make him keep me around. The other must mean death, not just for me, but probably for those Touched and Walker as well. Maybe even Ben.
I’d bet he’d love to dump us all into the Void together.
So I just have to sort out what he wants me to choose. By Johnny’s rule of Nothing to lose, everything to gain, I should guess that the right choice is to save the Touched, letting go of my brother would prove that I’ve moved on. But suddenly it doesn’t seem so simple. After all, Johnny isn’t simple. He’s been hollowed by his choices. He’s incredibly capable, yet haunted. And lonely.
After all, he came looking for me that day on the pier.
And what he really wants is for me to end up like him. That’s what this whole game was about: finding someone who would run the Void and not bat an eyelash at his true nature and business.
Finding someone to love him as he is.
His ragged feelings for Crysta only prove that he’s been aching for too long. I risk a glance at his smooth cheeks and lips. His eyes reveal their inner brown as his look searches me. Maybe this is simple. He’s waiting for me to make the choice that he would make, the self-interest choice. What I want. Well, that’s Walker. Johnny’s known from day one that this has been about saving my brother at any cost, and now he wants to see how much further I can go.
“Twenty seconds.” Johnny taps my shoulder to the rhythm of his count.
If I’m right, if I choose to save all those people, if I choose humanity, he will be done with me. I’ll have proven that I’m not like him after all. And that means we all lose. I have no doubt that even Ben would suffer from Johnny’s sick disappointment.
“Five.”
A wail creeps up into my mouth—all those people!
“Two.”
“Save Walker.”
“Say please.”
“Please, Johnny. Save my brother.”
He sighs happily and reaches across the control panel to tap something. “Don’t forget to watch the fruits of your labor, Rain.”
I tug out of his arms and step closer to the screen. Although I cannot hear the clanks of the airlock opening, I can feel it in my skull. I can see it in the terrified faces of the huddled mass in the airlock. Johnny doesn’t have to tell me to watch. I wouldn’t look away. I need to see what I’ve done.
The clang sounds through the crowd, reaching me only in the startled jerk of their bodies. Then the doors slide open . . . and they all go soaring, flying, tumbling one over another as they’re sucked into the Void.
Johnny clears his throat and taps something. “I think there’s a better view from the back window.” The screen flashes to an image of space. Silver stars rushing by in the distance. The closer ones wink with brilliant light.
And even closer, the somersaulting procession of bodies in our wake.
“Now that’s a hundred pieces of merchandise at over forty credits a head.” Johnny’s arms creep around my chest until I am the tree, and he is the choking vine. He tugs my dress so that it slips to the floor. “By my calculations, we have some seriously long nights to look forward to while you make this up to me.” He’s so happy, and I know why. He’s finally made me into his image. Into a murderess, and a selfish, terrible being. He’s won.
He squeezes me even tighter, but I can barely feel him. Two small bodies cartwheel end over end. The girls’ matching blonde hair stands out like halos, and their arms stay entwined even in a frozen, horrible death. Two links in a chain, which couldn’t be broken, but are lost all the same.
PART III
RED
CHAPTER
24
I lounge across Johnny’s lap, my head on his shoulder. We’re on the command deck, on his captain’s chair, facing the very window where I truly became Johnny’s Rain. I take in his musky cologne with each breath, and I have to admit that I’ve grown to like it.
The fact feels wrong but is true.
Johnny’s fingers trick through my hair, down my side and over my hip. He’ll take us to our room within the hour; his stroking is easy to predict. He’s itching for my body, and in return, I’m warming up inside for him.
Two crew members stand before us. An older man wears a scrap of cloth over his eyes, and acid burns mar the skin on his forehead. The other one is younger, shifting from foot to foot.
“So, you would like to blind him because he had a part in blinding you?” Johnny asks. I can hear the smile in his voice. He hasn’t had this much perverted fun since the moment he made me choose this life—the moment the Touched tumbled out of the airlock and into oblivion.
“I couldn’t have predicted that canister was going to up and explode!” the shifty one complains. “And I didn’t know he was going to put his face over it at the exact moment that I lifted the lid free.”
“It ain’t fair that this idiot didn’t look at the expiration date before ripping the lid off. Ain’t fair that I’ve got to jump ship because I can’t work no more,” the blind man says.
“Fair?” Johnny rolls the word around in his mouth while he touches my throat. His fingers have a heat to them that I’ve long since grown attuned to, but still, I can’t shut off his snaking touch like I did with the other men. I can’t slip into that voided place of submission. Johnny h
as too much of me for that, and I don’t even try.
When he reaches for me, I reach back.
Every time.
“And how would you like to blind him? Acid again? Or maybe a knife. Oh, I have an idea, we have some antique laser weaponry down in engineering.” Johnny’s fingers plug away at the com on his wrist. “I’ll have Samson bring up his collection. We’ll make it quite the show.”
Now the blind man shifts. “I just want him to pay, Captain. I don’t know about lasers, but if you could take his Void pay and give it to me or even demote him, that’d make me sleep easier.”
The accused man looks like he’s ready to kiss the blind one, but Johnny adjusts his narrow hips beneath me with aggravation. “So you bring this request to me, and then you back out when you hear my decision? I feel like taking both of your Void pay and leaving you both without eyes.” He leans forward so that I have to hold his chest to keep from slipping off his lap. I’ve seen this angry twitch in him before. If I don’t do something, he will have both of them flogged or worse.
“Johnny.” I lift my head from his shoulder, and as I knew it would, his whole body softens.
He touches my chin like it’s made of glass. “Yes?”
“Throw the idiot in lockup before he does more damage, and let the Mec heal the burns.” I stare down his eyes in a way that I’m getting better and better at. “Take me to bed.”
He exhales, but brings my lips in for one of his scorching kisses. Then he gets to his feet, allowing me to slide off his lap in the skimpy slip of a black dress that he makes me wear.
“What the woman wants, she gets,” Johnny says. The two crew members before him are doing a terrible job of hiding their surprise at his new decision. He looks to the guilty youth first. “You will eject yourself from this ship at the next stop, which will be, ah well, that will be Leland’s ship, Stride, in the Static Pass in only two days time.”
“But Captain, I can’t crew with Stride! That’s a wanted vessel. A known slavers’ shi—” The blind man elbows him into silence, and I marvel at the way the two men came to Johnny as hateful enemies only to leave as allies.
The Color of Rain Page 19
