by Brooke Hodge
I lowered my body onto his, feeling the leather of his suit give way and stretch. Letting my wet hair fall forward, I leaned into him. That first kiss was electric. All at once my guard was down and there was an explosion of sensation pouring from him to me and back again. Want, need, lust, vulnerability…it was all there in that moment. Jason’s hands were on my back, pulling me closer to him as if he could pull us into the same existence. The kiss couldn’t be deep enough, no touch was strong enough. No movement could give us the relief we wanted.
Suddenly, he was pushing me off him, standing as he did. I don’t know how he got undressed because my eyes were closed at that point. All I knew was the light caress of his fingers on my skin and the brush of his hair as he bent down. He was only away from me for a second before his mouth found my stomach. Then my inner thigh. Then the space where leg becomes torso. He lingered there, driving sensations out of me I’d never felt before. Then he was standing again and my body ached for him to continue. His lips found mine as he turned me and pushed me back down on the couch.
I opened my eyes and watched as he knelt between my legs. My body jerked and pushed back into the soft, supple cushions when his tongue found me. Fingers twined in his hair of their own accord. A moan, barely audible, flowed from my throat like water from a stream. I rocked my hips as he took of me, climbing higher and higher up my own verdant mountain. Suddenly, like the shattering of crystal, my body found its peak. I quivered and whimpered as he continued pushing me up and over again and again until I couldn’t breathe from the sensitivity he’d caused.
Graciously, he moved his attention higher, taking my swollen nipples into that devilish mouth of his. Somehow my desire had not been satiated and I found myself rolling him onto the couch and climbing on top of him again. This time there was no “slowly”. He was ready and attentive so all I had to do was slide myself down, waiting at the bottom so that we could both accommodate the new union of our bodies.
Jason licked and nipped at my skin, but waited for me to relax before digging his fingertips into my hips, urging me to move. I obliged, rocking my hips again, but this time driving him into my core. Every sensitive part of me was finding friction, inside and out, and I had no choice but to cry out with the pleasure of it. His possession of me was complete and I was a welcoming host. I wanted this occupancy to never end.
But end it did. Before long he was gripping my shoulders and pushing himself into me. His strokes matching the opposite of mine until he was groaning like a feral animal. I felt the slight quiver of him and the psychic release it gave and the two combined were enough to send me over once again, the agonizing crescendo stronger than any I’d ever been lucky enough to have before. He was my drug and I had just become an addict.
Five
Jason took me twice more that night. When we finally collapsed on the bed, there were only a few hours before his meeting with his buyer. Only a few hours to sleep before my new freedom began. And yet I lay in bed as his soft breathing continued beside me, awake and nervous.
I didn’t get hung up over men. They came and went in my life. Either as an obstacle or a tool. I had had many lovers, but even more enemies. I was scared of Jason becoming the latter, and that fear was worrying on its own. Worrying meant feelings. Feelings only brought suffering. I knew I had to get as far away from him as possible, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it then. Curling up against his warm body, I finally found sleep.
But it wouldn’t keep me long.
Huge, glossy black creatures with mouths full of fangs where their faces should have been invaded my dreams. I had seen them before. They were chasing the girl with the black pools for eyes. The one who always had purple flames covering her body. She was with her brother who could change time. Time and Space. The Guardians. Their sister was nowhere to be seen. Lost. Like our world.
A man shrouded in darkness stood in the shadows of my memory. He was waiting for us to all be reunited. This has all happened before and will happen again. He needs what we have so he can crush it all. His hatred for what we are is palpable.
My body was lifted from the bed. This had happened before and I was always powerless to stop it. I sobbed, though no sound came out. I was paralyzed. No words, no movements, just the grip my nightmare had on me. Please don’t wake up, Jason. I tried to open my eyes so it would end, but I was ensnared. Air moved around me, whipping the bedding below as if on the edge of a cliff above the sea. The power in the room surged, setting off alarms. It was enough to shock me fully awake and I fell back down to the bed just as Jason stirred.
“What the…?” He rubbed his eyes and looked at my tear-stained face, trying to make sense of the cacophony around us. “Why are you crying?”
I rubbed my eyes and pulled the covers up, trying to stop the shivering that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room. He reached out to me, but I shrugged away. “Just a bad dream. Why are the alarms going off?”
He didn’t move right away, still sizing me up. Carefully, he slid his feet over the edge of the bed and checked his handheld on the nightstand. “Power surge. Some non-essential systems were overloaded, but nothing major. Pretty common on old stations like this.” He sat the device back down and slid back into the covers. He reached for me and I tried to fight it off, but I desperately wanted to be held by him. I melted into his arms with my head on his shoulder.
“I don’t know what you’re running from, but I can help you if you’ll let me,” he said as he traced each point of the black star tattooed on the inside of my left wrist. My skin burned under his touch as the pain of that particular tattoo filled my thoughts. He lifted my arm and kissed my branded skin.
I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. They fell from my face in angry torrents. I ripped my arm away and pulled the cover up to my face. It was wet in an instant. “No you can’t. I can’t get you involved in this.”
“I’ve dealt with syndicates before. I’m more capable than you realize.”
I pushed myself up, lifting my body away from his and searching his thoughts. “You know who I am?”
“Your tattoos are very specific.”
I sighed. He only knew about my family. As long as he didn’t know the rest, I was still safe. “You don’t run away from the family. They will hunt me to the ends of the universe.”
“I have a very fast ship.” His fingers traced over the tattoos on my back, sending goosebumps over my skin. I would love to stay with him. It was the first time I’d felt like that. But I was dangerous. What I could do, what my powers meant to others, what I would become. It was too much to risk. And what if I was wrong about Jason? He was a trained liar. He could know exactly who and what I was and conning me into becoming his cash cow. I pulled away and took the blanket from the foot of the bed.
“I can’t. I have to go. I’m going to sleep on the couch. Wake me when I’m free.” I didn’t have to look at him to see the hurt on his face. I could feel it radiating off him like Penelope’s hope before. We were linked now. No matter where he was in the universe, I would be able to feel him as if he were right beside me. This was my curse. It was my punishment for all the evil I’d put into the worlds. I would forever feel the pain I’d caused.
Six
I stood at the panos watching the artificial rain fall to the artificial ground below. The mountain before us was shrouded in fog, the buildings on each side almost completely obscured. I hadn’t been back to sleep since my episode and the power surge on the station. I just laid on the couch, listening to the soft rise and fall of Jason’s breath in the next room and the simulated monsoonal rain sounds piped in through invisible speakers.
“It’s supposed to look like Hong Kong in the twenty first century. Before the Fall.” Jason stepped up beside me, startling me. He was speaking of the environmental collapse that began with the first plagues in 2032. He handed me a cup of coffee. I sniffed it before taking a sip. Coffee had never been my favorite, but it served a purpose when necessary.
“I took a guess that you would like yours black.”
“Why? Because I’m strong and hot?”
He laughed, taking my sour attitude in stride. “No, because you’re overpowering and bitter.”
I snorted into my cup, blowing little droplets onto my face. “Well, I guess you got me there.” I handed the cup back to him. “But you completely missed my taste in coffee. I hate it black.”
“No problem. Cream, sugar, or both?”
“Both. A lot of both.” I turned back to the view. “What do you think it would be like for us if humans had never had to leave Earth? Do you think we’d still be there now?”
He was silent for several minutes. The only sounds came from the opening and closing of the fridge and the scrape of a spoon in the coffee cup. “I don’t think so,” he said finally, as he handed me the cup again. It was vastly improved. “Humans have always had a desire to explore. I think we would’ve taken to the stars eventually.”
“Do you think we’ll ever go back?”
“To Earth? Maybe. Supposedly, the conservation efforts have been going well. I don’t know if we’ll ever have a big presence there, though. Earth is pretty rare. We haven’t found many planets with that level of diversity. We can’t risk fucking it up again.”
We stood there without another word, trying to avoid the elephant in the room. Eventually, I turned to him. “So am I free, or not?”
Hurt was all over his face. It passed quickly, though. “Yes. You’re free to go.” He sat his coffee cup down and walked to the door. I unzipped my suit so I could return it, but he held his hand up. “No. Keep it. You’ll need it more than we will. There’s no one else who could fit into it, anyway.”
I nodded and zipped it back up. The door slid open with only a slight hiss. I walked through it without even saying goodbye. There was another woman at the front desk who said something to me as I passed, but I didn’t pay attention. It was too hard to fight against the emotions running their way through me to try and use words, too. Jason and I were connected now, maybe forever, and no amount of stoicism from him could hide the betrayal, pain, and anger he was broadcasting at that moment. He had felt something real for me that he had never felt before and it was as maddening as it was confusing. He was mad because he felt something and mad because he thought I didn’t. Thing was, I did feel something. Too much. But I couldn’t trust him with my secret, so I couldn’t stay. Money always changed things and I was worth a lot of money to my family.
People and aliens moved about the gangways in a jumbled mess. You couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. Tucking my chin to my chest, I worked my way through as well as I could without being recognized. There wasn’t a specific meeting time with my contact, I just needed to show up at his shop when I was able.
I found the nearest drone entry and waited with a group of grease-covered elcas, probably just getting off their shifts. The knee-high creatures looked like a cross between a primate and a penguin and were about as cute as that sounds. They were pretty horrifying to look at, but good at getting into tight spaces and they didn’t complain or start fights. In other words, the perfect employees. They chattered back and forth with each other in their cooing manner, not bothering to look up at me. Thankfully, they generally kept to themselves which helped prolong their lives working in a place like Hana Rae. Snitches couldn’t get stitches if they were already dead.
A drone whirred into place at the edge of the glass railing. Once the docking clamps were secured, the railing disappeared and everyone boarded. The drone was essentially just a flat skid with handrails on the edges. There were so many stories of travelers meeting their deaths on one of those things that you only took one if you were in a real hurry to get to the other side. I grabbed the handrail and held on tight so if anyone tried to bump me over, I’d stay put. It would have been nice to have my sword on me, but at least I wouldn’t have much longer to wait.
The ride across the open center of the station took about fifteen minutes. I tried not to look down into the abyss below me, but the sense of vastness was still enough to give me vertigo. We flew silently past the mechanic drones working on the ships docked in the center. Bigger ships were repaired in the grav ring docks while smaller vessels like transports and drop ships needing minor repairs or upgrades were brought to the core that hung from the ceiling like an ancient stalactite. Drones carrying workers and machines zipped over and under us, making some of us duck and flinch. The elcas needed only worry about an errant boot kicking one off the side. I didn’t know if that was better or worse.
I hurried off the drone on the other side, taking a left onto the gangway and a right onto a lift. They were directions I’d memorized several times before deleting Chuck’s message. He had come highly recommended by several of my more trustworthy contacts as the best courier in the business. His weapons shop worked as an excellent cover, as well. I figured he probably had his hands in plenty of less-respectable revenue streams, but he was good at his job and a steel trap for information. Perfect for what I needed.
The neon advertisements covering the outer panos of his shop were nondescript, but the sign declared it as “Chuck’s Place” in about twenty different languages. Had I had a Halo like every other human in the system, his shop jingle would’ve been blaring in my ears. I pulled open the heavy doors and stepped up just as two patrons were stepping out. A tall human male and shorter female. They were armed to the teeth with swords, plasma guns, and the newest armor on the market. Something about the male seemed familiar and when our eyes met, I realized he was Gabriel Martinez from Fumō. Memories of us wrapped up in each other’s arms, trying to stay warm on that Gaia-forsaken planet flooded my thoughts, but I wasn’t sure if they were mine or his.
Before I could explore it further, though, the woman was passing me and I was hit with the most powerful sense of déjà vu I’d had since my abilities started showing up. She was the girl from my dreams! Her hair was braided and nearly every inch of her covered in armor, but I was sure it was her. I reached out to probe her thoughts without even thinking but was hit with a brick wall of pure, unadulterated evil. Something was attached to her like a leech, pulling at the incredible well of energy she had inside. Something else was there, just under the surface. A dark, ancient power that was neither good or bad. Just incredibly strong. It looked at me as I looked at it with such a ferocity that I immediately pulled back. Whatever it was, it did not like me. The door slammed between us and the connection was severed.
I had had these powers for nearly sixteen years and nothing…nothing…had ever been able to sever a connection between me and another like that. Whatever that girl was, it was more powerful than any creature I’d met yet.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
I was getting really tired of hearing that, but I realized I was shivering and still staring at the door behind me. I shook out my hands and put on my ‘don’t fuck with me’ smile. “Yes. Just someone from another life. I’m Fuyumi Yamaguchi and I believe we have a meeting to get to,” I said, sticking out my hand.
Chuck straightened and took the hand I offered. “Yes, ma’am, I believe we do. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He motioned toward the back of the store. “If you’ll go through those curtains back there, I’ll secure the door and we can get started.”
Seven
The meeting with Chuck was short and to the point. He was every bit the professional that I’d been lead to expect. He had all the jewelry and weapons I’d sent unwrapped on a work desk for my inspection along with the money from everything I’d asked him to pawn. He even managed to get me more money than I’d expected, which was a rarity in this business. Once I checked everything out and gave my okay, he wrapped it all up again.
“I have a ship waiting for you at dock 9824. It’s small, but it’s got an FTL drive and has enough cycles to take you anywhere you need to go.”
I raised my eyebrows. I was expecting a ticket on a civilian transport, so that was a nice
extra. “Impressive. How much more will that cost me?”
Chuck tipped his head. “Not a thing ma’am. A colleague of mine owed me a favor. It’s included in the price I quoted you before.”
I smiled for the first time today. “Very impressive. Your reputation is well deserved.”
Chuck puffed out his chest. “Coming from a Yamaguchi, that’s high praise indeed.” He bowed his head in respect. “My thanks for your business.”
Returning the bow was automatic. Extending my hand to shake was a new habit I had to work on if I was going to blend in with the crowd. “The pleasure is mine.” I reached for my things, but Chuck waved his hand.
“Better not. They see you carrying all this stuff,” he motioned to my pile, “and you’ll get more attention than you’re looking for. I’ll have it sent over to your ship. It might even beat you there.”
“Good idea. Could I at least take the wakizashi? It might come in handy.”
“Oh, absolutely.” He pulled it from the heavy fabric wrapping and handed it to me. As much as I hated my family for what they’d turned me into, I loved the weapons they’d passed to me. They were part of the reason the bounty on my head was worth so much, though. I would be beaten within an inch of my life if caught for taking them. The only reason I wouldn’t be killed outright is because I was worth much more alive than dead. Still, the transgression could not go unpunished.
I turned the small sword over in my hands, remembering the way the weight of it felt. The saya, same, and ito were all jet black, but the sageo was a deep navy blue. I knew that if I removed the tsuka, the nakago would bear the diamond-shaped symbol of the Yamaguchi-gumi, something that once held great pride for me. The tsuba was my favorite part, though. On both my wakizashi and the matching katana, they showed a koi fish swimming in a stream on the bottom while two cranes flew above. When I was younger, I saw them as my guides in life. I identified with these weapons more than I ever would a gun. They were an extension of my being.
