Johnny’s face perks with a small smile, enjoying the youth’s fear. He turns to the blind crew member. “You can see the Mec. He’s down in the engine room with the other one. He may be able to help you.”
Ben.
So he is alive. It had been a whole month of not daring to ask . . . of swallowing the fear that Ben’s absence could very well mean his death. I thought not knowing was the worst, but now picturing him somewhere on this ship makes me ache to see him. And it is worse.
Johnny’s fingers slide through my hair until they’ve found my dress, slipping beneath the material to stroke my shoulder blades. “You must have turned something over in my girl to have her bringing up the Mec. She hasn’t mentioned him in weeks.”
I turn from his caress. “I’m tired, Johnny. Take me to our room.”
He circles my waist, splaying his hand across my belly. “Dismissed,” he calls behind him as he leads me from the command deck, his touches growing more and more needy with each step.
I wonder if those men will thank me in secret ways. Do they know how close they came to catching Johnny’s disturbed interest? Do they know that I will now have to drug him with my body to distract him from the idea that he almost got to watch a man blind another man?
I wonder these things, but I do not hope anymore.
Afterward, I slip out of Johnny’s satiny bed and pull on the lacy nightgown that spends more time on the floor than my shoulders. Johnny’s breath is even and calm as he sleeps on his stomach, one arm cascading over the side of the bed like he’s too exhausted to right it.
I tiptoe to the bathroom.
It’s dangerous to leave Johnny’s side. He’s easiest to sway when we’re in constant contact. It’s only when he doesn’t have me near him for stretches that it becomes harder to command his focus . . . and to give myself to him so completely.
I stare into the mirror without seeing my face.
This is the price I pay for that horrible choice. My brother’s life isn’t worth all those Touched who were lost. And mine certainly isn’t. I have to make it up to them by finishing my original plan. I have to save my brother so that at least one thing in this universe can be righted. And that means obedience to Johnny. Willingness and passion.
If I can stay in his favor, I may be able to convince him to let Walker go at the Edge. But not me. He’ll never part with me, and I can’t help but feel that it’s exactly what I deserve. After all, my parents found each other, two redheads in a world of other colors, and Johnny and I found each other . . . two do-whatever-it-takes people in an empty universe.
It’s almost a love story. Isn’t it?
I slip out of the bathroom, tripping on a small disc that slides under the door. I pick it up, turning it over, just as it begins to spout gas at an alarming rate. I fling it away, the smoke already filling the room. I should call out and wake Johnny, but instead I cough twice on the vapors, tilt to my knees and tumble face first into the carpet.
I wake to a strong, terrible smell from a small bottle held right under my nose. I begin to scream, but a hand comes down over my mouth. So I bite it.
“Hell, Rain! Ow!”
“Ben?”
I sit up fast, slamming my forehead into his, and I am suddenly so dizzy that I might throw up. “What’s happened?”
“You’re in Melee. We’re safe for the moment.” His face is dirtier than I remember, and light brown scruff runs down the edges of his jaw. But his hair is still wild, and his eyes are the deepest blue with only a hint of their silver underneath.
I fall into hugging him, and he holds me, so solid and strong . . . and so very different from Johnny. So different that it feels wrong.
I pull away. “You have to take me back. I have to get back now!” I try to stand, but he keeps me on the bunk. “He’ll lose his shit if he wakes without me. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“He’s not going to wake, Rain. He went out in his sleep. You’ll be back soon, and he won’t know that you were ever gone, I swear.” His voice is tremulous. “Hell, I didn’t think you’d be so angry to see me.”
“You have no idea what you’re messing with. I can’t be with you!”
“You’re afraid of him now,” he quips. “What happened?”
“I have new priorities.” I get to my feet, and this time he doesn’t hold me back. “You don’t know what it’s like up there. You should have let me be.”
“I had to see you before the Static Pass. I didn’t know that you were still with him until this man came down for treatment today. He was going on and on about Johnny’s ‘Scarlet Siren.’”
“Scarlet Siren?”
“Yeah,” he rubs the back of his neck. “Didn’t strike me as a particularly flattering title either, but I knew it had to be you. I can’t believe you’ve kept his attention this long. From what the guy was saying, it sounds like you can even influence him.”
“Sometimes. And only on certain things.” I cross the small space to Melee’s captain’s chair. I drop my throbbing head against the seat and squeeze my eyes. Being with Ben has snapped me back into the real world, the world that isn’t drugged with Johnny’s body and lifestyle. It’s suddenly so suffocating that I want to cry. “What do you want from me, Ben?”
“Wanting to see you isn’t enough?” he says gruffly.
“No.”
Silence grows between us like a swelling wound.
“We’re going to be in the Static Pass in a matter of days. It’ll be the last chance to save the Touched.”
“I’m not saving anyone but my brother. So you can save your breath.”
He stands as tall as he can. “What the hell happened to you? How can you be so cold?”
I get up, too. “Don’t question how I survive! You don’t know how I have to live! What I have to do!” I smack him so hard, and the way he takes it burns me, and then I can’t stop myself from slapping him again, harder this time.
Blood red spit wells over his bottom lip, and I can’t believe that I’ve hurt him. How could I? What’s happened to me? I touch his mouth, tasting the canyon lake on Entra. I can see the shine of the moons . . . feel the free of the water. I pull his face against the side of mine. “I need to go. Please, don’t come for me again.”
His arms wind around my waist, and the embrace is so different from Johnny’s needy fingers that it makes me want to stay leaning on him forever. “What did he do to you?” he asks.
I sit on the edge of the bunk. Ben sits beside me, but when he tries to take my hand, I lock my fingers in a fist. He touches the waxy white scar on my wrist from where Johnny burnt me on Entra.
“Did he heal that with my disc?” he asks. “He did a terrible job.”
“He tried.” I cover the scar with my hand. “I need to go back to him now. I’ve been away too long, and seeing you . . . it confuses me. Can you understand that?”
“Not in the slightest.” He waves his hand at the door. “But you’re free to go whenever. I wouldn’t try to hold you prisoner.”
I get up and smooth the terribly tiny nightgown over my stomach. Ben looks surprised that I’m actually going to leave. “I told you. I can’t help you.”
“You know he flushed like fifty Touched out the airlock after we left Entra? He wanted to punish me for trying to help them. Prove that they really are disposable and that my stunt didn’t hurt him. Fifty, Rain!”
I cringe. “It was more like a hundred. But Ben, he doesn’t think that what happened on Entra had anything to do with you. He thinks I planned all that by myself and that you only helped because I seduced you and made you help me. That’s the only reason you’re still alive.”
“No way. You took the fall? Wait, how in the universe does he think you planned all that? You’re no Mec! Hell, you don’t even have any technical skills.”
“Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Johnny believes what he wants to believe, and I just let him think what he wants to think. He’
s no Mec either, remember? You know, you should be a bit more appreciative about the fact that you’re still breathing.”
“Haven’t thought about it,” he says. “Thanks?”
Although there is no humor, a fragment of a smile slips between us. I can’t seem to help it. He gets me so angry, and it always feels so good. I run my fingers over the door release without pressing it. Every fiber of my body vibrates with warning, but I can’t help myself. “Just what are you going to do?”
“I am going to sneak this”—he says while holding up his com—“into the Touched shipment when he gives them to Leland. That way the K-Force can track him using the frequency I’ve embedded in it. I’ve already sent my uncle’s ship a transmission to look for it when Stride exits the Pass.” He begins to pace. “But, for all my supposed genius, I can’t get this damn thing off without Johnny’s thumbprint. I was hoping that you’d help me get it. All I need is an object that he held, like a bottle or a brush.”
He levels his shoulders. “But if you won’t help me, I’ll just have to sneak myself into the shipment and hope that they don’t catch me.”
“Ben, you’re a freakin’ Mec! You’ll stick out among the Touched like an erection.”
He shrugs. “Doesn’t look like I have a choice. I’m on restricted quarters now. I have to stay on the lower levels and monitor the yellow girls. And Johnny rigged my com so that I get shocked if I try to rise above the crew deck. I had to trade in all my favors just to get Samson to drop that smoke bomb and bring you down here.”
I let go of the door release. “You can’t get on that ship. The things I hear about this Leland and Stride are sickening.”
“All the more reason to try. Rain, if we bring down just one of these ships—Stride or Imreas—we’ll have stunted the entire trade run out to the Ridges. Do you have any idea how many lives we would save? Touched lives?”
I squeeze my eyes against his words. “It’s a suicidal plan.”
“As bad as our idiot plan on Entra?”
“Ben.” My words spring to the surface, and then stick together until I’m almost coughing to get them out. “Johnny dropped those people out of the airlock because of me.”
“Because of us. That was our plan, Rain. It’s bad enough that you took the fall. Don’t take the guilt as well.”
I squeeze my eyes. “You’re not understanding me. Johnny gave me a choice. Well, it wasn’t really a choice—it was pretty rigged, but basically he made me choose between one hundred Touched and my brother.”
A sick silence fills Melee.
“And you chose your brother.” His tone is burnt.
I risk opening an eye. Ben stares with disgust, and I turn away. “It’s all a game to him. You know that. I made the best choice that I could, and now I have to live with it. I let him love me and he lets me live. That’s the best that this deal can get.”
He pounds his knee with a fist. “Don’t believe it, Rain. Don’t forget that Johnny used to make me do things, too. Terrible things, and I thought I was as damned as him. But I’m not. You’re not. You want to help those people, I know you do.”
I shake my head slowly. “I can’t. Johnny keeps my brother in an airlock. One wrong move and he can just press a button.”
“Rain, I just need an object with his print on it. A glass. Anything!”
“I can’t help you.” I palm the release and leave him staring after me.
I take the cargo lift up to the green level, passing the Family Room. Part of me wants to sneak in there and sleep on my mat below the wide window, but a larger part of me can’t forget that every time I enter that room, someone disappears.
Scarlet Siren.
Just like the alarms on the lower decks. I really shouldn’t be surprised.
I slip into Johnny’s room and check for any evidence of the smoke disc, but there’s nothing. Samson was good. Johnny is in the same position that I left him—arm over the side of the bed, snoring. I slip under the covers beside him.
I inch toward him, holding my hand over his bare back. The heat coming off his skin is like an electrical current, but I press myself to it all the same.
The next morning, Johnny brings me to the command deck to watch our entry into the Static Pass. He wraps his arms around my waist and holds me against the front window. “This is my favorite part,” he says into my ear. “First, we have to build up enough speed so that we can coast all the way through the nebula.”
The crew members shout orders at one another, revving up the engines until we’re moving so fast through the Void that the ivory strings melt into a white tunnel.
“Wait for it,” Johnny says, his breath rushing down my neck. “Wait . . .”
At the far end, coming closer by the heartbeat, a dense cloud of what looks just like crimson smog waits for us. I struggle to breathe as Johnny grips me tighter and tighter.
And we slam into it.
The vibrations from the roaring engines flicker out. So do the lights. Every piece of technology loses power in the Pass. Even the scarlet glow from my bracelet disappears.
Through the window, the universe has turned deep red. Not a single star penetrates the cloud, and the only way that I can tell we are still moving is the parting and swirling of the bloody hue.
The whole ship is dark. The crew members have blended into the shadows, and the command deck is one blank space. Johnny is the blackest part. Only the outline of his face picks up the fog’s glow.
But Ben could see through this with his special Mec vision.
My hands tighten around Johnny’s arms as I think of Ben’s desperate plan to help the Touched. He probably thinks that saving this batch will be the act of goodness that cancels out all the depraved things he’s done or let happen on this ship. Who knows, maybe it will.
I hope for his sake that it does.
At least his new plan is aimed at Leland. If it affected Johnny’s route to the Edge and my plans for Walker, I might be tempted to stop him. Maybe. Wait, what am I thinking? What’s wrong with me? I want to help Ben . . . don’t I?
I do. But I can’t forget that every time Ben and I work together, the death toll rises. First it was Kaya and Lo . . . then that Amanda girl as well as the three traded girls on the Entra casino. And one hundred Touched people. I remember the swirling halo of blonde hair around those two girls, probably sisters, until I feel sick.
“You’re trembling,” Johnny whispers into my hair. “How sweet.”
A light dances into existence only a few inches from my face. I gasp, staring into the finger-long flame of the lighter that he used to burn my wrist on Entra.
“Come.” He makes a fist hold in the dress material around my stomach. “It’ll take a little while for us to coast to Stride. Enough time to enjoy the dark.”
CHAPTER
25
“WE’RE GOING TO CRASH!”
“Shut up.” Johnny leaps from the bed, yanking his pants on while I recoil from the window. Just outside, the red nebula of the Static Pass parts to reveal a wall of approaching silver steel. “That’s Stride, Rain. We’re going to dock together while we coast, which means a little rubbing of elbows.” He laughs just as the hulls screech and grind, followed by an abrupt snagging when the two ships lock together.
“See, we’re all cozy now,” he adds. Johnny gets dressed in record time. I hurry to pull on a pair of pants and a shirt, hoping he’s too distracted to notice that I’m not wearing the silky, come hither dress he’s so fond of. I roll the waist of my pants very low, avoiding the aching place on my hip where he gripped me.
“What happens now?” I ask, finger-combing my hair into loose waves.
“Business,” he says. “And then some fun. Leland always has some decent liquor from the Gate, but I have to bring the girls, of course.”
I stop dressing, my shirt hanging open. “You will leave me here.” Johnny always leaves me when he goes out to drink on the passenger levels, and I’m surprised that I’m not more content with this
arrangement. I don’t really want to see Stride and meet this slave trader . . . do I?
“Of course you’re coming, my love.” He closes the buttons on my top, leaving the ones over my cleavage open for display. “I plan on showing you off, and since you’re one of the few people on this ship who knows what I’m trading, I don’t have to hide from you. It’s actually quite refreshing.” He slaps my face playfully but not so gently. “Perhaps I should be happy that you take an interest in my work. Grab the candle. You can help choose the entertainment.”
Already he is acting far less like Johnny the Lover that I had become used to. He’s excited and mischievous. Unpredictable.
I pick up one of the elegant candles arranged along the headboard. Slick, hot wax leaks down the side, coating my finger and stinging as it cools. “I’ve never seen so many candles. Isn’t there some other way?”
“I told you, Rain. No power source works in the Pass. Not a single thing.” Johnny leads the way to the Family Room, and we pass dozens of candles set along the walls. Their lights draw angular shadows across Johnny’s body and the hall. The sudden lack of engine noise makes the corridors seem even narrower, closing us into a concrete silence.
“It’s spooky.”
“It’s the Pass,” Johnny responds without turning. He enters the Family Room, and I step through, gripping the candle. The dripping wax seals over each of my fingers like it has taken my skin for its own.
In the Family Room, candles throw strange light around the veils, but many of the girls are sitting in the center area together.
“Line up,” Johnny calls. “Be quick about it. I’ll take two of you this time.”
Several girls exclaim, and Johnny snaps, “Just do it.” He takes the candle from my hand, breaking the wax seal over my skin. I pick at the residue while he inspects the girls one at a time. What does he want them for? He said entertainment . . .
He finds the first one right away, a shorter blonde, who could pass for a fourteen-year-old easily. He sweeps down the line again without choosing a second. Then he turns to me. “You pick. They tend to blend together after a while.”
The Color of Rain Page 20
