Tempered

by Britt Ringel

  “I’ll exercise complete discretion, sir,” Kat assured him and disconnected. Further discussion was pointless. She had all she wanted.

  Porter was true to his word. Despite taking only a few minutes to walk to a border agent, a priority visa awaited her. The visa even granted prepaid rights to any autocab in Waytown. She pressed the sides of the visa stick to activate a hailing signal. Two separate autocabs vied for the opportunity to become her means of conveyance. She slid into the back seat of the first one to stop and ordered, “Porter Mining Enterprises.”

  The wheeled vehicle whisked her away the moment the door closed. Five minutes later, it deposited her at the front doors of the main office. She walked in, sighting an excited Mark. He stood with a friendly smile and gestured behind him. “Hello, Kat! I’m supposed to escort you directly to the elevator.” He ushered her quickly down the lobby.

  Brooke’s greeting on the third floor, while congenial, held a faint veneer of suspicion under her smile. “I’ll take you straightaway to Mr. Porter’s office, Miss Smith.” Her high heels clacked on the tiled floor. “Do you know the way?” she asked as they walked down the west hall.

  “Uh, no,” Kat lied. “I’ve only been up here once… yesterday.”

  The woman arched a blonde eyebrow. “Rather odd that a field receptionist merits an appointment with the head of the company.” Her lilting accent grew colder with every step.

  They arrived at Porter’s office and Kat’s escort held open the door, her smile reappearing as if summoned. “Here we are.” Hazel eyes swept to the CEO. “Mr. Porter, I’d like a few moments with you after you’re finished with Miss Smith.” There was almost tangible contempt in her voice.

  She’s jealous! Kat realized. She’s worried she’s being replaced.

  Porter looked irritated. “That’s fine. I’ll ping you when we’re done talking about the sabotage at the mine.”

  Brooke nodded curtly and stepped away, leaving the door open.

  “Close the door,” Porter ordered. “I don’t want her testimony leaked.”

  The door closed… firmly.

  Porter rose and walked around his desk. His hand shot out like a beggar’s on the Strip. “You have the item, right?” He tried not to sound desperate and nearly succeeded. To Kat, he oozed vulnerability, reeked of weakness.

  She retrieved the small stick from her pocket, held it up but didn’t hand it over. “First, a word, Mr. Porter.”

  Porter staggered backward. His eyes widened, as if he’d spotted a 100-ton coal truck bearing down his path. He swallowed. “Sure. What about, Miss Smith?”

  “Life choices.”

  He crossed his arms defensively and forced a scowl. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You know exactly what I mean.” Kat’s eyes darted to the credstick.

  Porter’s cheeks flushed but not with anger. “What do you want? More money? Citizenship?” The man looked stricken. “I’m not sure what you know but—”

  Kat rose to the tips of her toes. “I know everything. Weekend trips, sofa sex, fraud against the company… Everything as if I’d seen it with my own eyes.”

  Porter’s head bowed. He blinked rapidly and stumbled to the leather couch, crumpling into it as if deflating. “Please.” He looked up at Kat pathetically. His eyes were already red. “I don’t want to lose my family. I’ll give you anything.”

  She stalked to him like a predator but then took his right hand and pulled it away from his face. She pressed the stick to his palm and wrapped his fingers around it, closing his grip over her easiest path to citizenship. “I don’t want anything, Mr. Porter. I didn’t come here to blackmail you.”

  Incredulous eyes stared at her. “But… why?”

  “I could ask you the same question.” She turned and nodded at a family portrait hanging on a wall. “They’re beautiful.”

  “I know,” he said, almost in a whisper. His shoulders heaved as he tried to maintain his composure. “I don’t deserve them. Brooke approached me over a year ago. I was so weak.” He reached for Kat’s hand. “I hate myself for what I’ve done but I don’t know how to put an end to it discreetly. I doubt Brooke will go quietly.” He looked at her with pleading eyes. “What should I do?”

  Goosebumps broke over Kat’s arms. “I honestly don’t know. But we both have to become better people than who we are now if we don’t want to lose the ones we love.” She squeezed his hand before releasing it. The silence extended until she turned and walked toward the door.

  “Miss Smith!” Porter was on his feet, moving toward her. “How did you get this?”

  Kat stopped at the door. “Secrets always find a way, Mr. Porter. Secrets never stay secret forever.” She turned the knob.

  “You could’ve destroyed me today but you didn’t. Given your situation, that couldn’t have been easy.” The man wiped at his eyes before nodding. “In fact, you might have just saved me.”

  She opened the door and crossed over the threshold before confessing, “I’m just trying to save myself.”

  Ten minutes later, Kat stepped out of another autocab. She stood rooted to the sidewalk as the vehicle rolled away, gazing at her latest destination. An uncharacteristically cool breeze fluttered her hair. Above her, white cirrus clouds stretched high in the azure sky. Her eyes returned to the apartment building in front of her, making her heart thunder. Her feet seemed trapped in mud, unwilling to carry her to her next encounter. Finally, she shuffled to the door. It was locked, like the last time she had been here. On the right, a control console lay dormant, waiting for a visitor. She steadied her breath, reached out and pinged Apartment 202.

  In his panic, Porter had issued Kat a visa valid through midnight. Given that all Porter Mining employees were also welcome in Waytown’s casino after paydays, she had eschewed returning to her limbo in Shantytown and decided to face her future head on. There was a camera in the front door console and she knew she must look terrible. It probably doesn’t matter anyway.

  “Kat?” Sadler’s voice returned clearly through the console’s speaker. She tried to read the emotion behind the single word. Curiosity? Concern? Hope?

  She felt her throat tighten at the sound of his voice. She nodded and choked out, “Can we please talk?”

  “How’d you get into Waytown before evening? Do you have a visa?” he asked but quickly added, “Wait, don’t tell me… plausible deniability.” The alloy lock on the door spun in a silent circle and a green light burned above it. “Come in, Kat.”

  His questions chipped at her. “I have a visa.” She wanted to say more but found herself suddenly exhausted. She pushed open the door and entered the building.

  Sadler met her at the second-floor elevator. As they walked down the hall toward his apartment, she handed him her visa stick. “See? I won’t ever ask you to lie for me again.”

  He squeezed the sides of the black stick and read the metallic strip. He offered it back to her before opening the door to his apartment and shepherding her inside. “You talked to Phillip Porter today?” His question was uncertain, as if he didn’t truly want the answer.

  “Sadler,” Kat started pitifully. She had so much to say in what was perhaps her only chance that it took time for the logjam of words to work themselves free. “I’m so sorry I lied to you. I don’t ever want to lie to you again. That’s not who I want to be. I went to Porter today and gave him back the information I took. I just asked him to think of his family, that’s all… I didn’t ask for anything, didn’t blackmail him for anything.” She raised her hands, wanting to touch him but no longer feeling she had the right. More words flooded out. “You were right and I’m sorry I’ve screwed up everything between us. I’m in love with you but I threw it away because I acted like truth and decency don’t apply to me.” She shook her head and looked at the carpet before forcing her eyes up to him again. “But that’s not who I am now. I can be a better woman. I can be a good woman. But I’m so scared because I feel like I’ve lost the only person who make
s me want to be one.” She reached out to him but her hand faltered.

  Sadler’s hand met hers and pulled her closer. “Did you just say you love me?” Green eyes narrowed and Kat saw an ember of light in his gaze.

  “I’ve been in love with you, I think almost from the start.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  She sighed. “Because our first night together… I saw you and Tabitha in the same bed we shared. I wanted, more than anything, to join you in the shower that morning but I was terrified of what else I might see.”

  “Oh, baby,” he murmured and held her tightly. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t be.” She shook her head in his chest. “You get to have a past too. I have to learn how to deal with it.” She shuddered. “If you could see my past the way I’ve seen yours… I think you’d hate me.”

  Sadler gripped her shoulders and gently pushed her back slightly to look her in the eye. “I could never hate you, Kat. I love you, too.” He hovered close before placing his lips to hers. She folded into him again, seeking warmth and comfort while offering the same. When his right hand traveled over her left arm, she flinched involuntarily.

  His movements stopped immediately. “What?” he questioned before his eyes caught on bruising and he lifted the short sleeve of her shirt. Bright red and dark blue marks wrapped around her arm like fingers. Urgency quickly usurped the tenderness in his voice. “Kat, what happened to you?”

  “I… just…” She groaned lightly. “I’m done lying to you. I was attacked last night. A man dragged me into an alley but I fought him off.” She felt his hands tremble.

  “He wasn’t trying to rob you, was he?”

  Her heart jumped. Would he see her as damaged goods now? Hell, you already are that, Kat. “He… groped me but I stopped him. To be honest, I nearly killed him.”

  “Would’ve saved me the trouble,” Sadler growled.

  She put her hand on his chest. “I didn’t though. It was difficult not to. I was angry. And so… tempted.” She ran her hand back and forth tenderly. “What stopped me was asking myself how I could ever possibly explain it to you. I want to be worthy of you, Sadler.”

  His arms wrapped tightly around her and she basked in his embrace. “Kat, I’m not the paragon you make me out to be. I slept with Tabby before seeing what kind of person she is. I’ve made lots of mistakes in my life.”

  None like mine, her subconscious gnawed at her. Her mouth quirked upward. “What? Did you tear the tag from your mattress?” she deadpanned. “You only single knot your shoelaces.” She buried her grinning face into Sadler’s chest and chuckled.

  “I even once stole a cookie from Mom’s cookie jar when I was five.”

  Tremors of laughter vibrated from his body as Kat clung tighter.

  “I love you, Kat. Nothing you’ve done will ever change that. I’m only interested in what you do now.” He pulled her away from the front door, deeper into the apartment.

  “Where are we going?” she asked while offering no resistance.

  Sadler grinned wickedly. “We have a show to catch tonight, but right now we’re taking that shower.”

  Chapter 15

  “Maggie, he won’t stop bleeding!” Kat screamed from outside of Reynolds’ tin shack. The man’s head lolled from side to side, his eyes unseeing, his blood pooling in the dirt to create a horrific, red slurry. The entire cul-de-sac was an abattoir. Arterial blood darkened Kat’s hands. She’d started with a tourniquet but after that failed, had tried clutching the inside upper thigh of the victim in a desperate attempt to stop his hemorrhaging. Blood still spurted around her fingers like a ghastly fountain. Nothing stemmed the crimson geyser. Blood was everywhere. She knelt in a veritable ocean of it.

  “You have to pinch off the femoral artery,” Reynolds shouted back through the service window.

  Sunday morning had begun quietly enough. Kat had ground herbs into paste while Reynolds saw routine medical cases. Then, the customers had disappeared between eyeblinks, and not just from Reynolds’ clinic. The cul-de-sac became deserted as shoppers flowed toward the market gate like moths to a flame. White smoke soon appeared over the vendor shacks, blending into low, grey clouds that carpeted the sky. Minutes later, four corp-sec aircars had screamed overhead. Seconds after that, gunshots sounded. Multiple gunshots. A hailstorm of lead had poured from the sky.

  Reynolds had reacted instantly, pulling a faded medical bag from a cabinet in the back of her shack and handing it to Kat. “You’ll triage outside the clinic just like we did at Waytown Standard.” She pulled open the bag and extracted a black marker. She spoke rapidly, drawing short breaths between her words. “Instead of triage cards, just write on their foreheads. ‘D’ for Delayed, ‘I’ for Immediate or ‘M’ for Morgue. Send the folks with minor injuries away. We can’t help them today.” She’d then pushed Kat out the door.

  Fifteen minutes later, Kat now swam in a sea of blood and chaos. She tried desperately to wipe the sheet of blood from the man’s leg, hoping to get a glimpse of the brutal exit wound and stop his bleeding. It was no use; he bled faster than she could clean. The most she could see was shattered bone poking out of his inner thigh. She jammed her thumbs into the gore and the man howled. He kicked, trying to escape the excruciating pain. “Someone hold him down!” she cried. People ran past her but no one seemed to have a destination.

  More blood spurted between her thumbs. She pressed harder. The kicking diminished. The bleeding followed suit. She pulled out a hand to reach for a bandage in a bag running critically short of supplies. The bleeding stopped entirely.

  “Move on,” Reynolds demanded next to her. Splattered in gore, the doctor could have been a butcher, or a serial killer. “Who’s next?”

  Kat tore her eyes away from the dead man. “Her,” she said, pointing with a scarlet hand. A woman sat on the ground nearby, propped against a terrified man. A crimson circle dotted the woman’s shirt. “Chest wound with exit. She can’t take deep breaths and she’s coughing up blood.”

  “Lung,” Reynolds spat, shaking her head as she advanced toward the woman. “Get her up,” she ordered the man who held her. “Inside.” They retreated into the clinic.

  Kat rose from the puddle of gore and moved to the next patient. There were twelve more Trodden to be triaged. Already, six people waited with critical injuries Kat had designated as “Immediate” and four more as “Delayed.” Another nine had arrived dead or dying. Scrawling an “M” on their foreheads, passing final judgment while avoiding the horrified, hopeful eyes of the victims and their loved ones who cradled them, would haunt Kat until death.

  A child of ten wailed in the arms of her father. Both looked as if they’d rolled on the floor of a slaughterhouse. “Please,” the man gasped in a tortured voice, “she’s been shot.” Tears washed crooked tracks down his blood-splattered face. His eyes were wild, desperate.

  Everyone’s been shot, Kat thought. They just opened up with indiscriminate fire, rained death from above as a lesson not to riot. She eased the child out of the father’s arms and laid her prone on the sodden ground. Kat’s hands trembled as she tried to ascertain the girl’s wounds from clothing covered in blood. “Where does it hurt, sweetheart?” She tried to swallow the thick lump in her throat. I will not write “M” on her, I will not write “M” on her, she chanted in her head.

  The girl continued to wail but pointed at her left side. Kat cut her shirt away and saw fresh bleeding. She wiped a bloody rag over the wound to reveal a semi-congealed furrow torn through the flesh. The injury was minor for a gunshot. It required cleaning, bandaging and care to prevent infection but it wasn’t life threatening. Something wasn’t right. The amount of blood on the child did not match her wound. Kat turned to the father. He lay on his back, unmoving. They’d both been shot. She choked. I can’t do this.

  “Daddy?” The girl scrambled to the prone man and curled under his limp arm.

  Kat pressed fingers to his neck. Nothing. “He’s resting, hon
ey. Just stay with him, okay?” She lowered her mouth to the man’s ear and whispered tenderly, “Your daughter is going to be fine.” She rose, wiping her eyes, wanting everything to stop. All of it. You can’t quit, Kat.

  Two hours later, the cul-de-sac was quiet. Only the dead littered the ground. The Beggar’s Market remained closed to all but the injured and an eerie calm had taken hold over the streets. Despite the many dead, it wasn’t the peaceful tranquility of a tomb. It was the exhausted silence of the vanquished.

  Kat set twin buckets onto the examination table. She dipped her fingers into cool, clean water and began to scrub the carnage from her hands and face. She doubted the bloodstains would ever wash away.

  “You did well out there,” Reynolds said quietly as she began to clean herself in the second bucket. “You saved a lot of lives.”

  Kat twisted from the table and looked through the service window, counting the dead. Nineteen. And that’s just the ones who made it here, she reminded herself. How many died near the gate or somewhere else? She solemnly reflected on how many corpses in the cul-de-sac bore her “M” on their foreheads.

  “You didn’t kill them,” Reynolds insisted. She’d followed Kat’s eyes to the street. “All you did today was save lives. You have to understand that.”

  “Or I’ll go crazy,” Kat finished. There was no emotion in her. It had been washed away in the tide of blood.

  “Something like that.”

  Kat stared into her bucket. “I didn’t collect any payments.” They’d spent a Trodden fortune today in supplies.

  “Neither did I,” Reynolds confessed. “Kind of hard to when you’re wading in shit.”

  “How will you stay open? We ran you completely out of bandages. I used up your medical bag.” Kat looked at the emptied shelves. “There’s hardly anything left for trauma wounds.”