Deadly in Pink

by Matthew A Goodwin

  On that, they agreed. “Fine.”

  She turned to leave, happy to be rid of this place and this man. “And Ynna,” he said. He had never had any qualms calling her by that name. She turned back, unable to help but let the hope return. “I mean it, don’t come back here.”

  “That won’t be a problem.” Ynna snorted, vowing never to see the man again.

  With just the passage of a short time, her body was so achy that she could barely walk to the cab that she had been wise enough to have wait for her. After lurching in, she opened the window to vomit out the side, the bile burning her throat. She input the Biological Damage wing of BA General and was off, the cab lifting into the dark night.

  Her father had paid the least amount he could for her recovery, and she huddled in a corner of the brightly lit, overcrowded waiting room before a drudge called her name. She drifted in and out of consciousness as the prescribed drugs and exhaustion took a toll on her battered body.

  She had no visitors, and the loneliness was more brutal than the recovery. Doctors filtered through, each one making snide remarks about how she should change her lifestyle.

  After providing a fingerprint to close out her bill, she left the hospital a few days later with a plan. She knew it was risky, but also knew she had to do something. She would need money to start a new life, but she also knew she could no longer run jobs in Redwood Point.

  She approached The Press from the outside, careful to go unseen. It was quiet at night as all of the activity was happening within. She moved some crates to form a little staircase and lifted the cracked window by her gang’s spot. She saw Pes watching a movie on the old screen, and she cleared her throat. Pes looked up, and sadness crossed her face.

  “No,” Pes said, looking forlorn.

  “Please,” Ynna whispered.

  Pes shook her head. “Ynna, I’m sorry, we can’t risk it.”

  At the sound of Pes’s voice, Whitney came around a corner with Metric, sweaty and disheveled.

  “Ynna?” Whitney burst out and ran over to the window, beckoning her inside.

  “Killian will kill us,” Pes warned.

  Whitney looked at her with disgust. “Killian can suck my dick.”

  “Your funeral.” Pes threw her hands up and turned back to the screen.

  Metric looked worried but didn’t say anything as Whitney reached up to help Ynna through the window. She landed easily, feeling no pain.

  Whitney wrapped her up in a hug. “We heard what happened at the diner. I’m so sorry.”

  “Thanks,” Ynna said, trying to push the image out of her mind.

  “Killian warned us not to contact you,” she told Ynna.

  “I figured.” Ynna nodded. “Told me the same thing about you.”

  “We figured,” Whitney said.

  Metric came over and gave Ynna a little hug, too, all the time watching to make sure no one was watching them.

  “How you holding up?” Metric asked genuinely, but it was plain to Ynna that he was not excited by her return.

  “Been better, but I think I have a job that can change our lives forever,” Ynna said with a smile.

  “Wow, same old Ynna,” Whitney chided playfully.

  “I’m guessing your fortunes have changed?” Ynna asked.

  Whitney nodded. “Since Kil stole your info, he charges for information on places to hit. We remembered a couple, but after it was too risky. Good jobs cost too much for us, and after the first night, the local merchants seemed to get wise. Carcer salesmen are patrolling the streets, and everyone wants the protection now.”

  Ynna snorted. “Guess they got what they wanted.”

  “What’s that?” Metric asked.

  “The database was super easy to hack. Carcer wanted someone to find the list so they could increase their business.”

  “That’s fucked up, so it makes perfect sense,” Whitney shook her head. “So, what’s this job?”

  “Are we close enough?” Ynna asked Pes the following night as they pressed their black-clad bodies against a tall, decorative wall. She had spent the previous day wandering the streets and snagging sleep where she could. With her mother dead, the apartment had been turned back to the ownership company, so Ynna had no place in the world where she could rest. She was tired and worn out, but knew that when they were successful, she could rent herself a room somewhere.

  “Yes,” Pes said, pulling out her tablet in the dark. The screen glowed blue in the fog that breathed heavily down the street. It had taken a lot of cajoling for Whitney to convince Pes to come along, but now that she was here, she was focused on the job at hand.

  Ynna watched as one by one, Pes remotely shut down the relief aids.

  “You said one looks like an old friend?” Whitney asked.

  “So gross, right?” Ynna snorted.

  Metric chuckled. “I think a lot of people use them that way.”

  “And thank you for the male opinion no one wanted,” Whitney mocked.

  Even as they joked, Ynna could hear the worry in their voices. It had taken a lot of convincing to get them to come, but the promise of vast wealth had been enough to convince them. The French maid had been wearing one of her mother’s bracelets, and Ynna had realized her father had not sold off their belongings.

  It made sense to her. Her father had so much money that it would have been more work to sell than he cared to put in. While he spent long hours at the office, she knew her father to be a lazy man, unwilling to do more than he had to.

  “All off,” Pes said before adding, “there are a lot of them.”

  “Of course there are,” Ynna seethed.

  Pes looked concerned. “And you’re sure you can shut off the security?”

  Ynna nodded. “Fucker didn’t bother to change the codes.”

  “And you’re sure he won’t notice the things are gone?” Metric asked.

  Ynna had been over this several times already but still wanted to assuage her friend’s fears. “Trust me. He doesn’t care about these things.”

  They all nodded dubiously.

  Metric helped them over the wall, and Ynna rushed up to the house, pressed the code, and moved quickly to the security panel. She shut off the house’s security and used her lenses to scan for life. Though there were many statuesque human forms, there were no people.

  Her father never missed his poker nights, and tonight was clearly no exception.

  “Come on,” she said, and the others winced. She rolled her eyes. “This place is a palace, and there is no one nearby to hear us.”

  They seemed unconvinced. “Fine,” Ynna whispered. “Upstairs.”

  She guided them to her parents’ room, and they all stopped, mouths agape. A naked woman was tied to the bedposts, unblinking and frozen in time.

  “Rich people are so fucking weird,” Pes observed.

  Metric stared until Whitney slapped him on the chest. “You can’t have her.”

  “Oh, no, I—” he stammered before she let out a laugh.

  “I’m just fucking with you.” She smirked. “Gawk at the disgusting robot all you want.”

  “Oh,” he said, sounding relieved.

  “Just know you won’t get the real thing for a while,” she said, and his head dropped.

  “Can we hurry this thing along?” Pes asked.

  “Agreed,” Ynna said. “You’ll have time for all your lover’s spats at our new penthouse.”

  They all seemed to like the sound of that.

  Ynna guided them into her mother’s closet. It looked almost exactly like how she had left it when she ransacked it for valuables.

  As she made her way to the safe nestled behind a coatrack, she turned back to see Whitney running her hands along the dresses. She caught Ynna watching.

  “Can I?” she asked.

  “Just not too many,” Ynna smiled as Whitney pulled the lavish dresses down and jammed them into her bag.

  Ynna tried a combination on the safe.

  “I thought y
ou said it might take a while, that you didn’t know the code,” he observed.

  “I didn’t, it was just a lucky guess,” she said, holding back tears. She couldn’t bring herself to tell them that the code was her brother’s birthday.

  They all stood in awe as the heavy door swung open.

  The safe was full of diamonds, pearls, gold, and silver. Bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and rings filled the small space, displayed as if in a jewelry shop window.

  “Holy shit,” Pes said, unable to restrain herself.

  Ynna smiled. She had taken some good stuff when she left, but these were the real valuables.

  They all grabbed handfuls like kids in a candy shop, jamming their pockets with wealth beyond belief. They smiled and laughed as they tried things on and held them up to themselves. For the first time since Ynna had met them, they were all acting their age.

  “And we can all just share these?” Metric asked as if he could not believe his luck.

  “Yep,” Ynna affirmed, happy to share her wealth with her new friends.

  “This is going to change our lives,” Whitney gasped. She turned to look at Ynna. “Thank you.”

  Ynna smiled.

  As they neared the front door, pockets and bags full, they were all in as good a mood as they had ever been. Metric had his arm over Whitney, and even Pes was smiling broadly.

  That changed in an instant as they opened the door.

  Stepping out of the house, they were met with lights and screaming.

  “On the ground, now!” a voice barked, and it was all over.

  “Fucking bitch,” Pes hissed at Ynna as the officers swarmed around them, pointing guns and shackling their hands.

  “We have bounties out on all of you,” a man announced, pointing a screen at them with pictures of their faces next to monetary values for their arrests.

  Ynna’s eyes went wide as she read the screen. The moment she saw the officers, she had assumed that her father had put advanced security on the house, but now she saw the truth. Killian had paid for their arrest.

  She realized that he must have had them tracked and felt betrayed when they had met with Ynna. Her heart broke once more as she realized that by going to see them, she had doomed her friends.

  When he found out what had happened, she assumed her father would add another bounty to ensure that none of them saw freedom for a very long time.

  She hated Killian. Hated Carcer. Hated her father.

  All she had ever wanted was to do something good and kind, and all that she had seen was evil.

  As they were loaded into a prisoner transport, Ynna looked to Whitney.

  “I’m sorry,” she pleaded.

  But her friend looked at her with a coldness she had never seen before. “Fuck you.”

  Chapter 12

  No one spoke to Ynna as the transport flew for what felt like hours.

  As the vehicle banked, they all looked out of the barred window and saw it: a city surrounded by walls and towers. It was ugly and imposing.

  “No,” Ynna whispered to herself.

  They weren’t being taken to the local prison, but to Carcer City, the massive prison city where people were brought to live out their days as inmates.

  She turned, wanting to apologize once more, but the look of pure hatred on the three faces around her kept her quiet.

  They didn’t speak to her as they were offloaded and processed, given striped uniforms with prisoner numbers written on them.

  As she was forced through the door of the administrative building and onto a street surrounded by ramshackle buildings and threatening looking people, she realized that she was truly alone in the world. She didn’t know where to go, and couldn’t find the people she had counted as friends just moments before.

  She slumped against a wall, crumpled to the ground, and put her head on her knees.

  She did not know how much time had passed when she heard a familiar voice. “Ynna?”

  Looking up, she nearly burst.

  She leaped to her feet and jumped into Hector’s waiting arms.

  “What? How did you find me?” she asked. The prison city had looked humongous from the air, and the fact that he was standing before her seemed beyond improbable.

  He smiled his old, warm smile. “I watch the bounty boards very close. Many do. I watch for your name, and I watch Killian. Not hard to find you.”

  “Oh, Hector,” she said and squeezed him tight, her tears pouring into his shoulder.

  “Where is Karen?” he asked, and the tears began anew.

  He nodded gravely and said, “Let us go to speak.”

  He guided her in silence through the streets. Though she paid little attention to the world around her, she noted that it didn’t look that different from Redwood Point. The buildings were short and shoddy and had citizens milling about in front of them. The only difference was that everyone was dressed the same. In the city, personal fashion was important to almost everyone, and here, the uniform sameness was oppressive.

  He walked her to the Alco-Traz, a prison-themed saloon. Metal cups and plates were used exclusively, and pictures of prisons lined the walls.

  “Poor taste, eh?” Hector joked morosely. He was smiling kindly at her, but she could tell that he was overcome with sadness at the death of her mother. His eyes looked like pools of misery.

  Ynna simply nodded as he sat her in a seat. Hector held up two fingers, and cold beers were set before them in an instant.

  “What has happened?” Hector asked quietly.

  Ynna was silent a long time, using her thumbnail to peel the label off of her beer. “Mom was killed, and it was all my fault. My friends were arrested, and it’s all my fault. Everything I touch turns to shit.”

  Hector put his arm over Ynna’s shoulder.

  “The world doesn’t work like that. These things, they are not your fault,” Hector told her. “Things happen. We cannot control them.”

  “Doesn’t feel that way,” she said, still unable to look up. “It feels like every decision I make fucks up the world for good people. Then people like my fucking father,” she spit on the floor. “Assholes like him take advantage and never suffer.”

  She was quiet a long moment, thinking about her mother in those last moments. The memory was already fragmented, as though her mind didn’t want her to be able to recall it. Hector cleared his throat, and she looked at him, her eyes welling once more.

  “I never tell you this,” he began. “But you know what your mother say about you?”

  “What?” Ynna said, looking into his big eyes.

  “She says she think you are destined for greatness. She worked so hard so you can do something in this world. And, knowing you as I do, I agree with her.”

  Ynna couldn’t help but laugh. Everything had gone wrong, and every decision she had made had hurt the people she cared about. “I’m a fuckup.”

  Hector smiled at her. “No. As I tell you before, you just need a purpose.”

  Ynna rolled her eyes. “Some good sage wisdom is going to do me in here.”

  “You are in here now, yes, but not forever. You will get out and do good. I know it, and Karen knew it,” he told her. There was no doubt in his voice. He said it as though it were the truest thing he had ever said.

  Ynna shook her head in disbelief.

  “Trust me, Ynna,” he told her, squeezing her shoulder. “I have met many people in this life, but none like you.”

  She wanted to laugh in his face, call him crazy, but his sincerity quieted the instinct.

  “Hector?” she said.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “What did my mom do for you?” she asked. She couldn’t talk about some absurd destiny anymore. She just wanted to know what had bonded him and her mother.

  “Ah, is boring story, really. After she get out of the Point, I got in trouble. Big trouble. I never know how she found out, but she hire lawyer and protect me.”

  “That’s it?” Ynna exclaimed. “All the s
ecrecy and everything just for that?”

  He shrugged with a wry smile. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “I mean, I assumed you were at least lovers or something,” Ynna said, drinking the piss-tasting beer for the first time.

  “What your mother and I share is more complicated than all that,” Hector explained with a faraway look.

  She scoffed. “Okay.”

  “Perhaps you understand when older,” he said.

  After a while, he asked for more details, and Ynna explained the whole story and how she had ended up in Carcer City. He listened quietly, occasionally asking for more information or swearing in Spanish at the mention of Killian’s name.

  “Have you seen Marco?” he asked.

  She nodded slightly. “He seems to be doing well. He really likes his aunt, but I know he misses you.”

  Hector’s mouth contorted, the edges pulling down hard. “I miss him, too.”

  “I’m so sorry, Hector,” she told him, putting her hand atop his on the table.

  “I know this,” he said.

  “Oh, there she is,” Ynna heard from over her shoulder and turned to see two Carcer officers pointing in her direction.

  Hector stood protectively as they strode over.

  “Marina Hawkins?” one asked.

  “Yes,” she squeaked.

  “Daddy paid your bounty, time to go,” he said.

  She looked at him with pure puzzlement. “I just got here.”

  “Well, you’re getting out,” he said impatiently. “Way of the world, Princess.”

  She turned to Hector, who wore a broad smile on his face. “I tell you.”

  “You did,” she said in disbelief.

  “Go find your purpose,” he said and gave her a hug that she knew to be farewell.

  “I’ll get you out of here someday,” she assured him, and for a reason she couldn’t quite understand, she believed it.

  Hector nodded. “I know you will.”

  She followed the guards back the way she had come and went through the whole process she had just been through in reverse. She was given back her clothes and ushered into another transport. A guard pointed to a screen at the rear of the vehicle, and she slid down the long seat to be close to it.