“Yes, it’s a rare gym. I’m so sorry, gem that you can only get here,” she said, trying to laugh off her mistake.
“It’s pretty, like you,” the mark said, and Ynna understood why they had forced her into the attire. It almost didn’t matter what she said so long as the men had something to gawk at. As gross as it felt, she did enjoy the power it gave her over the foolish men who were too preoccupied with her body to notice the world around them.
She told him the exorbitant price, and like the rest, he waved the girls off.
As they strode away, Ynna caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye and threw Whitney into a narrow alley, pressing her against the wall.
Whitney laughed. “I don’t really play this way,” she joked, clearly able to see the nerves in Ynna’s action.
“No, it’s not, it’s—” Ynna said, and Whitney laughed again.
“I got that,” she said, craning her neck to follow Ynna’s gaze. “See someone you know?”
Ynna nodded vigorously. They watched as a girl in the telltale academy uniform flounced next to her mother and a drudge carrying shopping bags.
“You were one of them?” Whitney asked in astonishment. “You really have fallen far.”
At that moment, Ynna could not have agreed more. She had spent the day robbing people for less than she used to spend on a night out. What struck Ynna as strange was that while she was embarrassed and didn’t want her classmate to see her, she didn’t envy the girl’s life. She had been just like that so recently—an impatient little girl dogging her mother’s steps through shops. Now, dressed uncomfortably and stealing from people, she felt independent for the first time.
“Want to call it a day?” Whitney asked, kindness in her voice.
Ynna smiled, knowing she still had things to do. “Yes, please.”
Chapter 6
The apartment was still empty when Ynna returned, gripping the cash chip containing her portion of the takings. She had been surprised after seeing how little her cut was, compared to how large Killian’s was, but she was pleased to have made money for the first time in her life.
She jammed the chip in a pile of clothes she was sure no one would rummage through. Gato purred loudly as she approached, checking that she had completed her schooling. A broad grin crossed her lips as she saw the green checkmark. She changed quickly and nearly bound out the door for her self-defense class, as it was the one part of her forced education that she enjoyed.
She had felt her body getting stronger as the classes progressed, and she enjoyed feeling less weak and timid as she learned. After a long day of growing more independent, she welcomed the opportunity to continue in that direction.
Sweaty and tired after class, she walked the few short blocks back to the apartment with confidence, feeling as if today was the first day of her life. The streets were well lit with floodlights bolted to buildings, open flames, and the neon signs that suggested something seedy within the crumbling walls. As she walked past a costume shop, she stopped to stare at the holoprojected model wearing an Ancient Roman military costume. Her eyes grew wide as the man posed and shifted positions. As she looked at the leather skirt, cut into pointed strips, she smiled.
Her father had determined her look for her whole life. Now, free of him, she could make a fashion all her own. She raced back to the apartment, flinging open the crappy door with a bang she worried would wake Marco. When she heard no stirring, she darted into her room and rummaged through all the old stuff they had come with. She quickly found what she was looking for—the old pleated skirt from her school. It used to tell the world she was a spoiled rich girl, and now she would wear it with pride, a reminder that she was no longer that person.
She reached over to the sewing kit her mother had bought to hem her uniforms and got to work.
The next several months flew by in a blur. Ynna spent her days with Whitney and the crew, and her nights learning to fight to defend herself. She got better at both, realizing that she was a good student when she was interested. She still wanted to come up with a scheme all her own to help her friends make money, but she enjoyed learning the ploys and cons they used. Metric began to teach her to hide in plain sight and how to make herself invisible in a crowd or how to draw attention as a diversion.
She grew to like not only the lessons but the crew as well. For the first time, she felt that she had real friends, though Pes never seemed to warm to her and always seemed guarded when Ynna was around.
She was moving up in her defense class, too. She was becoming more skilled, more quickly than even some students who had started long before her. Her instructor took great pride in her progress and worked her harder than anyone else in the class. She grew to love the praise and didn’t mind that she was dead tired, soaked in sweat, and covered in bruises when she finally made her way home at night.
As she approached the apartment one evening, she was surprised to see the light on in the window that overlooked the street.
She walked up the stairs cautiously and was shocked to find Hector on the couch, nursing a beer and watching the evening news. He turned slowly to look at her as she entered the room.
“I know you are not classing,” he said, not as an accusation as much as an observation.
“Oh, no. I—” Ynna began to protest, but Hector clicked his tongue and patted the couch next to him. She sat, the cold, damp perspiration sending a chill down her spine.
“Please do not deny. Killian is bad actor,” he explained. His face was unreadable, and his voice flat.
“I’m sorry,” Ynna said, letting her head drop.
“Disingenuous does not suit you,” Hector said, muting the screen and turning to face her.
Ynna pouted. “I’m growing and enjoying it,” she justified.
“That’s good, but not what your mother wants,” he said, and again, it sounded more like a simple statement of truth.
Ynna found herself bothered that she couldn’t read the situation. With so many others, she felt as if she knew exactly how to play them, how to give them what they needed so she could get what she wanted. Right now, with Hector, she didn’t know what to say. He was a cipher, taking in her words and giving her little.
“It is a hard thing,” he told her. “Deciding how to spend one’s time. Your mother, she want what is best. She may not know what that is.”
The corner of Ynna’s mouth turned up slightly. “Do you?” she asked, before clarifying, “know what’s best for me?”
He smiled for the first time. It was only a hint, but Ynna caught it. “For you? I don’t presume such things. For Marco, yes, but for you, no. I think your mother no sees what makes you strong.”
Ynna noted that his accent was much more pronounced as he spoke so candidly. She assumed it was also not his first beer. “Why do you think that is?” she asked, genuinely curious.
He wrapped his free hand around the back of his neck, thinking a moment. “Your mother sees what is in front of her. She plans for future, but maybe not for long future. She has been this way, always.”
Ynna saw her opening. “How long have you known her?”
He nodded, accepting that he was going to give in and tell her. “Long time. We grew up as one. She was as mi hermana—my sister,” he said, clasping his hands, the beer slushing softly. “Both of us want more. We find more in different ways,” he unhooked his fingers and spread his arms wide. “She marry rich, I do business. We both find what we need.”
Ynna had figured that they were old friends. It was all that had made sense. Karen had slid so easily into the life here that Ynna knew it couldn’t be her first time. She wanted to ask more questions, press him for information, but let the silence hang.
“She lose everything,” he continued. “She come home. She go back to work. This life, she knows. For you, I think she has no plan. She sends you to school because it makes sense. But beyond such—” He shrugged.
“And what do you think?” she asked.
“For you, I cannot answer. You must answer for yourself,” he put plainly, and her heart sank a little. She knew he was right but had hoped he would make it easy and tell her something. Anything, really.
“You going to tell my mom about school?” she asked nervously, though she suspected the answer. She did not want to give up her days with her new friends, and could not imagine going back to sitting in the stuffy apartment all day, bored out of her skull in a digital classroom.
He smiled kindly. “No, but you should.”
That answer was almost worse. Ynna didn’t want to have to tell her mother that she had given up her education. She knew Karen wouldn’t understand.
“You’re right,” she admitted despite herself.
“I usually am,” he said, holding up his beer in salute to himself before taking another sip.
“Want another?” she asked, standing and making her way toward the fridge.
He nodded, and she grabbed two before rejoining him on the couch. His point was made, so he turned the volume back up on the screen, and they drank in silence until she dragged herself to bed.
It was dark when an ear-splitting boom awakened her. The apartment shook with the sound, and Ynna instinctively reached over to check if her mother was next to her.
She was not.
Ynna popped up and dashed to the door, cracking it slightly as she heard shouting voices fill the apartment. Armed people were entering through the smoking frame of the door with weapons drawn. Beams of light moved in every direction from the front of the guns.
Light blinded her as a shape moved in her direction.
“On the ground!” an authoritative voice ordered, and she dropped to her knees instinctively. The shape checked a screen on its wrist as it pointed a gun in her face.
“Nothing on the girl,” the voice said to the others.
As more lights moved toward Hector’s room, she heard a loud crack and the lights moved wildly as one of the shapes fell to the ground.
“In here!” another barked, and the lights converged on Hector’s room.
As her eyes adjusted, Ynna saw the scorpion pincer logo of Carcer Corp on the black armor of the intruders. She heard Hector call out before the wall that connected the rooms shook with a thump.
Through the beam of light in her face, she could just make out Hector’s form as he was dragged from the room.
Marco had never come home, and Ynna questioned if Hector had known what was coming.
She blinked hard and saw him being dragged out of the room by two large men. He had a gash across his forehead and blood, which looked black in the darkness, poured down his face.
“The apartment is paid,” he rasped to her. “You stay. Marco with his abuela. Tell your mom I—” His words were cut short by the butt of a rifle. Ynna felt her whole body tighten at the sound of the crack. He didn’t need to finish the sentence, though. She knew. She had known since the moment they walked into the apartment. Her mother had looked on him in a way that Ynna had never seen before, and he doted on the two of them like a little boy excited to carry a girl’s books to class.
Hector and Karen were a love story that would never be.
His body was limp, and he spoke no more as the intruders dragged him from the room, followed by the body of the one Carcer officer Hector had shot.
When the room was all but empty, the voice from behind the light said to Ynna, “Keep your nose clean, and we won’t be back for you.”
He spun and disappeared into the blackness.
Ynna sat on the floor, trembling and sobbing.
As her eyes adjusted again, she stared at the dark stains on the floor, illuminated by small LED lights of the various devices around the house. She took short, shallow breaths, wishing she had done something. She had let them take him without a fight. In the future, she would come to understand that there was nothing she could have done, but at that moment, she hated herself for her inaction. She thought about how she could have disarmed the officer who put the gun too close to her face and use his weapon to fight off the others. She thought about how she could have tried to stall them, keep them occupied, and bought him time to escape.
She wondered again if he had known. He had come home early, talked with her, and drank. He had kept Marco out of the house. It was all too unusual to be a coincidence. It also would explain why he had chosen this night to have their heart to heart.
Her mind swam with self-admonishments and questions.
No one came to the apartment. No one came to look. Carcer officers kicking down a door and the sound of gunshots was hardly something people even got out of bed for in this neighborhood.
So, Ynna just sat, staring at the blood in the darkness.
She was jolted back into consciousness by the sound of a woman’s scream. She looked around in confusion and saw the light of early day, and the apartment smeared with crimson stains.
Her mother rushed over and embraced Ynna, who still sat on the floor in the doorway to her room.
“Honey, are you alright?” Karen asked, taking her daughter’s face in her hands. Ynna noted how rough her mother’s palms felt. They were calloused and worn and so different from how they had been before. “What happened?” Karen asked quietly.
“I—I couldn’t stop them,” Ynna said, still blaming herself.
“Oh. Oh, honey,” her mother soothed. “It wasn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”
Ynna could hear the heartbreak in Karen’s words.
“What happened? Where’s Hector?” she asked, and Ynna was able to put her own feelings aside a moment and notice how terrified and frantic her mom was.
Ynna took a deep breath, feeling as if it were the first one in a long time. “He was taken.”
Karen’s eyes went wide. “Taken? By whom?”
“Carcer,” Ynna told her solemnly.
Karen sank to the floor, puddling into Ynna. “Oh,” she said.
They were silent for a long time.
“Those assholes!” Karen finally blurted. It was the most genuine moment Ynna had ever experienced with her mother.
“Yeah,” Ynna agreed, unable to shake from her mind the image of Hector being dragged from the apartment.
“You know they charge local businesses for protection? Salesmen come in and ask a ridiculous fee to put a Carcer logo in the window. Then they make veiled threats about how unprotected a business is without them,” Karen hissed venomously. “So, you know what most people do?”
Ynna thought about it a moment. “Put fake logos in the windows?”
Karen tapped her finger to her nose.
Ynna was happy to take her mind off the blood-stained floor and talk. “You know,” she began, “some off-world communities have government police forces.”
Karen snorted a laugh. “Can you imagine anything worse? I think the only thing more corrupt than a private police force would be one run by the Mayor’s Office.”
Ynna nodded though she didn’t really agree. In talking with Metric about the societies on other planets, she had come to like the idea of a civic force whose job it was to keep the citizenry safe.
They fell silent once more.
“You want me to stay with you today? I’m supposed to head back in a few hours, and we will need to get this place cleaned up, and you should get out of the house,” Karen offered. She was visibly shaken, and Ynna could see her mother was struggling, too. Both of them had been through so much, and Karen was going to be very unhappy for a very long time with Hector gone. Ynna thought that the best thing for both of them would be to go about their routines. Together, they would spend the day thinking about how sad they were and how bad things would be now. Apart, Ynna hoped they could b
oth keep themselves distracted.
“No, we need the money you can earn today,” she told her mother. It was not lost on her that Karen seemed to already know that they could keep the apartment. “You go to work, and I’ll go down the street to the drudge rental and hire one to clean up.”
“Oh,” Karen said, surprised at the offer. “Are you sure? I notice you have started to dress your own way. Seriously, I could take the day, and we could have a little shop, like in the old days.”
Ynna smiled at the sweetness of the suggestion. “I’ll be okay, mom. Plus, it was a shopping trip that got us into this in the first place.”
Karen rolled her eyes. “No matter how many times I tell you this isn’t your fault?”
“No matter how many times,” Ynna agreed. She watched her mother’s eyes drift back to the stain. “Mom,” Ynna said to get her attention. “You going to be okay?”
Karen did not answer for a long moment.
“Yes,” she said unconvincingly, before adding, “I think so.”
“You’ll let me know if you need anything, or even if you just need to talk?” Ynna asked quietly.
“Yes, honey. Thank you,” Karen said, the light of day now beginning to fill the room. “Should we shut this door and lay down?”
“Yes, please,” Ynna said, pushing the door closed with her foot. They both moved toward the bed and collapsed.
Chapter 7
Ynna’s whole body ached when she awoke. The combination of her workout and the mental strain of the night before made her body feel leaden. She vaguely remembered her mom waking her up when she left for work, but it was little more than a wisp of memory now.
She stood slowly and made her way to the door, discovering that Karen had draped a blanket over the bloodstains, hints of brown staining through the fabric to the surface. She shuddered.
Deadly in Pink Page 5