Her father’s face appeared in a pre-recorded message. “Ynna, just when I think you can’t sink any lower, you do this to me. The shame you have brought on your family can never be washed off. Don’t think that by freeing you, I want anything to do with you. I simply couldn’t have my daughter be known as a prisoner. Get your life together and try not to sully my reputation any further.”
The screen went black. Ynna didn’t care what he had to say, and the words didn’t land. She only cared that she was free.
She checked her pockets to find that Carcer had confiscated all she had taken from the house.
Two more prisoners were loaded in, and a guard began to shut the door behind them.
“Excuse me,” Ynna said.
The guard grunted and stuck his head back in the transport. “What?”
“Where is this going?” she asked.
“You three all have residences on file in Redwood Point, where do you think you’re going?” He slid the door closed.
“Shit,” Ynna muttered.
“You want more?” one of the five thugs asked her and laughed maniacally. “Killian was right about her.”
It hadn’t taken long after she got off the transport for the men to find her. At first, she had hoped it was random, but at the mention of Killian’s name, she knew he must have found out that the bounty had been paid and sent teams out into the street to find her.
As she attempted to get up, one of the broad men smashed his foot on her already broken hand. She screamed as the pain shot through her, the sound of her voice mixing with that of the bones in her fingers cracking.
“Now, he told you not to come back here,” the man said, looming over her. He pulled a crowbar out from under his denim jacket.
“Hey!” a voice shouted from across the street.
Most of the people in this neighborhood were happy to turn a blind eye to violence, and Ynna was shocked to hear anyone was interceding.
The thugs turned. “You don’t want any part of this, fancy boy.”
Ynna looked up to see a delicate-looking man in a fine suit with a hatbox tucked under one arm walking toward them. He didn’t look like a fighter, and she had no idea why he was getting involved.
One of the thugs walked toward him, chest puffed up in a show of intimidation.
The delicate man kept walking and whispered something in the brute’s ear.
He turned and hustled over to the leader, clearly repeating whatever he had been told.
“We don’t want any trouble, but we better not see her around here anymore,” the thug said and turned to spit on Ynna. She tried to block her face with a limp hand.
The thugs disappeared up the street as the man approached. He extended a hand. “You seem to be in need of some assistance.”
“Yeah, thank you for that,” she said, looking at him with utter confusion.
“It was a great pleasure,” he said and pointed to her hand. “We will need to do something about that. Would you like to come with me?”
Ynna snorted. “What are you? Some kind of serial killer?”
“Oh, my, no,” he said, offended. “I’m a medical man. My name is Terrence, though my friends call me Grimy.”
“Grimy, I get it,” she said, looking him over. “Clever.”
“Terribly,” he said with a scoff.
“Where will we go?” she asked.
Though she was smart enough not to trust the situation, something about the man made her feel comfortable. Also, he had just saved her life, and she had nowhere else to go, so she was comfortable entertaining the idea.
“We have a safe house,” he told her in a hushed tone. “I work with some people for the betterment of the world, and we are currently looking for new members. Something tells me you could use some new friends.”
She thought about her life and what Hector had said to her.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I could.”
Grimy smiled at her.
In the middle of downtown, hidden behind a false wall in an apartment complex, Grimy was working on Ynna’s wounds as an old man entered the room.
“New blood?” the man asked as he looked at her. He had an unkempt white beard and glass plate where one of his eyes should be.
“I’m Burn,” the man said.
“Ynna,” she said, extending her good hand. His natural eye appraised her.
“Looks like you got bucked from your old life,” Burn said with a grin from beneath his beard. “But I think I have a new saddle that will suit you just right.”
“Do we get to fuck with Carcer?” Ynna asked.
Burn lit a long, hand-rolled cigarette. “Oh, yes. But that’s only part of it.”
Ynna smiled.
THE END
NOTE TO THE READER
Thanks for reading Deadly in Pink: A Cyberpunk Novella. If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review, it is incredibly helpful to authors. Reviews are one of the ways in which people can discover new work and help me to create more of it. I read all the reviews and love to hear what people think of my work. Thanks again for reading.
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Author Bio
Matthew A. Goodwin has been writing about spaceships, dragons, and adventures since he was twelve years old. His passion for fantasy began when he discovered a boxed set of the Hobbit radio drama on cassette tape in his school’s library at the age of seven. He fell in love with fantasy worlds and soon discovered D&D and Warhammer miniatures.
Not wanting to be limited by worlds designed by others, he created Thutopia (now called the Thuton Empire), a fantasy world of his own that he still writes about to this day.
Like many kids with an affinity for fantasy, a love of science fiction soon followed. He loved sweeping space operas and gritty cyberpunk stories that asked questions about man’s relationship to technology. That led him to write his first published work, Into Neon: A Cyberpunk Saga, which takes place in a larger science fiction universe.
He has a passion for travel and wildlife, and when he is not off trying to see the world, he lives in San Francisco with his wife and son.
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