by K. T. Flores
He sighed somewhere behind her. “Maybe. But then they’d still think she was guilty.”
“So, it’s a pride thing,” she mumbled, fiddling with the desk drawers. “Figures. You overworlders are obsessed with reputation and power.” She eyed alcohol, unit holders, more papers.
“No, that’s not what this is about,” Cyril denied emphatically. “And I’m not an overworlder.”
“My bad. Offworlder.” But she didn’t sound the least bit apologetic.
“This would destroy our trading relationship, and I don’t want Kira to suffer because a liar was never caught. And there’s more to it. Growing up, things were...” He trailed off, shifting restlessly. “Look, I don’t want her to feel unsafe or unwelcome here.”
“People feel like that all the time,” she mumbled. If anything had happened to Tauri, no one would come looking. Maybe they’d wonder if she was in trouble, but they wouldn’t do anything. Her parents would worry, although they didn’t have the means to find her. She offered him a smile, but she knew it looked wrong on her face. “Kira is lucky to have you.”
She hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but it was too late to take the words back.
He furrowed his brow. “Tauri—”
“It’s fine.” She held up a hand.
He laughed awkwardly, and some of her tension faded away. He rubbed the back of his neck, pulling a book from a shelf. “Ah, to be honest, I did try. But you can’t pay for someone’s innocence if they’ve never committed a crime.”
“Which is how you found out we weren’t on the wanted list,” she concluded. “You could’ve just said that to begin with.”
“I know. I didn’t—”
She gasped, cutting him off as her fingers found a small button on the side of a drawer. A panel slid open, and she snaked her hand through, meeting something sturdy. She tugged it out from its hidden compartment with interest.
She hopped to her feet with a box between her hands. It was medium-sized, seemingly innocuous. But she recognized some of the decorations and turned to Cyril excitedly. “This is from Ethryl!”
“The clockwork planet.”
“Yes. It’s a special lockbox. But I know how to open it.” Her eyes gleamed. She sent a thanks to her Eth customer for all the trinkets he had given her to mess with.
She pulled the small wrench set she’d convinced Cyril to buy as they had waited for night to fall, stroking the metal for a moment. It was nicer than any tool she had owned, and it transformed into different gadgets with a push of a button.
She wiggled the wooden covering off and plucked at the cogs and screws carefully. “This may take a while,” she sighed.
“We don’t have a while. And we can’t take it with us. That’s something they’ll notice missing,” Cyril said distractedly, still looking around.
“You think I don’t know that? The guardians never came back like they said they were—” She looked up and rolled her eyes. He had left the room. At least it meant she could work in peace.
She flicked through the inner workings of the Eth box intently. They weren’t easy to open because the puzzle always changed. But deconstructing the mechanisms in place was even more difficult. Each wrong twist and nudge of her screw meant the box reset itself.
“Shit,” she hissed, having spent nearly thirty minutes at the box. She was so close to figuring out the puzzle. Maybe two more tries and it would be open.
She wiped at sweat beading along her brow with a frustrated huff. Where had Cyril gone? She hadn’t seen or heard him since he’d left.
She stood, box still in hand, and slipped her multitool into her pocket. Walking around the apartment, she quickly shut off her holocomm, not even realizing she had turned on music. Her socks dampened her footsteps, but she still felt loud in the abrupt, eerie silence.
She glanced out the windows, noting the stillness. The underworld was never quiet. It was rowdier at night, but it was also bustling throughout the day. She had thought she enjoyed silence, but she had never truly experienced it before.
The sounds of the night had been quieted by her walls, but noise was never absent.
Not like the deadness that hung in the air now.
She found Cyril hunched over a holopad in the hall. He leaned against the wall, engrossed in whatever he was reading. The blue glow from the screen splashed across his face, highlighting the strange luminescence of his skin.
His eyes flicked up to meet hers, slitted pupils dilated. “I found something,” he said, brow furrowing, “but I’m not sure what it is.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, placing the Eth box down beside him. She began to fiddle with it once more, kneeling on the floor. “I’m almost done.”
“I think this is a ledger of some sort. But it’s coded,” he continued, confused.
“Where did you find it?” she asked, trying not to get lost in her excitement as she found the last cog.
She thought she heard him answer, but she wasn’t listening.
The top of the box released with a hissing noise, and she tilted her head. It was a simple black satin inside, with a lone memory stick, drab and gray.
She smiled widely and looked at him, offering the memory stick with triumph. “Helden was hiding things alright. No one uses an Eth box unless they want to make sure things stay locked.”
Cyril tilted forward to take it, turning it in the dim light. “I’ll link it with the holopad.”
She nodded, walking back to place the box in its secret compartment. She wondered if the guardians had noticed the panel. It wasn’t difficult to miss. It’s probably why Helden had used the Eth lockbox.
A strange sound broke through the stillness, and Tauri paused. Her body moved before her mind had caught up.
She pushed Cyril into a closet, hurriedly shoving the holopad beneath his shirt to hide the light. He seemed to hold his breath as her palm pressed into his abdomen. Tauri tried not to shudder. He was a warm stone, unyielding beneath her insistent fingers.
“Don’t do that,” he said, annoyed. “You—”
She placed her free hand over his mouth, but he kept trying to talk, lips brushing against her. When she pressed harder against him, he licked her fingers.
She clenched her teeth painfully and resisted the urge to yank her hand away and yelp in disgust.
Standing on her tiptoes, leaning her body into his, she hissed, “There is someone at the door. They’re trying to get in.”
Immediately, he went rigid, his eyes just barely glowing their brilliant blue in the darkness of the closet. Clothes were tangled around them, twisted on hangers from their forceful entry.
The door banged open, and Fili’s voice filtered down the hall. She couldn’t make out much of what he was saying. Cyril’s eyes were closed, and she wondered if he had taken a breath. But she knew Dagrians had better hearing than humans.
Boots clicked down the hall, stopping near the closet.
Her heart pounded uncomfortably, blood roaring in her ears. If Fili were accompanied by other humans, she and Cyril would be fine. But if he had brought another race with better senses, they were in trouble.
“Well, shit. I forgot the keys. We’ll come back for the second pack tomorrow. We’re already running late for our meeting with Bayllur.” Fili paused, steps inching closer. “If I’d known it would be this easy to be appointed head of Vice, I’d have murdered Helden years ago. Get the polymetals ready for movement.”
So it was Fili. He had murdered Helden and then framed Kira and her. But why?
The door slammed once more.
She jumped slightly, and Cyril gripped her waist, moving her away from the door and closer to him. She screwed her eyes tight, nodding her thanks.
Silence filled the apartment.
She stayed tense for several minutes, scared to move in case someone else was still in the apartment. Eventually, she sagged with a sigh against Cyril, dropping her head to his shoulder.
She removed her hand from his mouth slowl
y, muscles uncomfortably stiff. Skin gave way beneath her fingernails and she winced. Tauri hurriedly rubbed at his cheek with her thumb, trying to quell the indentations she’d no doubt left.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, noting the small tremble in her voice. She wasn’t used to being so close to someone.
He was everywhere, filling the small closet with his presence. His heat was overwhelming, sinking into her skin and then into her veins.
She tried to back away, but his hold tightened.
“You didn’t mean to,” he said softly, chin moving along her hand.
“I should’ve been more careful.” She stepped back again, and he let her.
The door to the closet opened, and a soft light hit his face. She swallowed thickly, holopad limp in her hand as it slid from under his shirt.
Her nails had dug into his skin, making irritated, crescent markings.
“I didn’t realize…” She trailed off, glancing down at the holopad.
“It’s alright.” He reached out as if to touch her. Instead, he grabbed the holopad. “I apologize,” he murmured, not meeting her eyes. “I didn’t mean to hold you so hard either.”
The holopad flickered innocently between them. She looked away from him, and the strange moment between them was lost. It wasn’t ideal to read the screen backwards, but she knew the memory stick had a password lock on it.
“Should’ve known it wasn’t going to be that easy,” Tauri sighed, motioning to the screen.
“No, but I can send it to someone—”
“Go ahead and send it. If they can’t figure things out…” Tauri tightened her ponytail. “I have a friend.”
He raised a brow. “A friend,” he repeated warily. “A friend we can trust, I hope.”
Her smile was small. Secretive. “We can trust him. I only know him as Empyrean, but I’ve fixed things for him plenty of times.”
“And you know where to find this Empyrean, I hope.”
She nodded, moving to the balcony to reclaim her shoes and climb back up. “I know a few places we could try. I hope you brought your night clothes. He won’t make his cycle through Navar for another two weeks, though.”
“I know a few things we can do until then,” he said, voice strangely low.
She was startled, turning back to him. An odd pang rose in her gut. “I’m sorry?”
He blinked owlishly, brushing past her. “Starting with pulling as many records as we can of Fili, Helden, and anyone in between. The holopad isn’t fully locked like the memory stick.”
She tried to quell the hot tide threatening her, nodding furiously. “Right. This will be fun.”
She had a feeling her future was full of boring reading.
Chapter Seven
It had been a quiet two weeks, and together, they’d poured over hundreds, if not thousands, of public documents. None provided strong enough evidence. She did learn about some strange Navarian intergalactic trading laws, though, but it wasn’t enough to keep her interested.
Ever since the night in Helden’s apartment, Cyril had lost some of his stiffness, and Tauri’s words lost some of their bite. They fell into a routine easily. She always slept in, so he cooked breakfast. Then they would spend most of the day trying to get leads on Kira and Fili.
They had managed to figure out the coded leger, but it had to do with Navarian stock trading. While it implicated Helden in major market manipulations, it didn’t help them learn anything helpful.
This was the night she would find their hacker, so hopefully they would learn something helpful.
She frowned at the mirror, turning from side to side hesitantly. After she’d told Cyril they would have to go to a club, he’d disappeared. Several hours later, he placed bags at her feet and left without a word. The bags contained a variety of clothes—things she’d never wear, things she didn’t know how to wear, and things she wasn’t certain counted as clothes.
She poked at her abdomen with a sigh. The off-shoulder shirt was a deep blue and rasped softly against her hands as she felt the fabric. She’d never worn velvet before. Her fingers brushed against her black pants, and she belatedly realized she’d never worn leather either. She swayed from side to side in her black ankle boots, surprised to find them comfortable, like she’d be able to run if needed.
Still, Tauri felt out of place in her own skin, parading as something she had never been. Something she had no desire to be.
Ostentatious and self-absorbed.
“Bunny, change the room back to a full bathroom.”
Immediately, the room in the ship began to shift, collapsing into hidden compartments or turning to be rebuilt as something else. The mirror hadn’t moved, nor had her critical gaze.
Cyril strode into the room, brow tilted curiously. “The car is ready.”
But she refused to move, feeling as if the gravity on the ship had been raised painfully. It was getting harder to breathe. She wanted to turn her gaze from the stranger staring at her but was unable to because, somehow, the stranger was her.
“Something’s wrong,” Cyril stated, crossing his arms.
She opened her mouth to deny it, flicking her gaze away from her appearance to where he stood behind her. Noticing what he was wearing, she narrowed her eyes. “That’s my shirt,” she growled without any real bite.
The pale, yellow silk looked great on him, but she’d asserted it as hers the first day she wore it. She had hidden it away so he couldn’t try to reclaim it. Clearly, her efforts had failed, but she decided to snatch it back as soon he took it off.
His expression didn’t change, but his lip curled upward slightly. “I believe this was always mine. Don’t try to change the subject.”
She turned around, trying to not feel self-conscious as the fabric slid along her skin suffocatingly. What if the clothes ripped? Any slight bending, and she’d be made a fool. The strange lavishness she felt was swept away with her waves of awkwardness. People lived like this all the time, she realized. They wore clothes worth more than several years of food and had fanciful ship-homes meant for extravagant travel. They moved as if they owned the galaxy, and if they didn’t, they were going to.
People like Cyril.
Tauri jerked slightly at the thought, but if Cyril noticed, he made no comment.
“It’s my shirt, Sparkles,” she said haltingly.
He shrugged, the yellow silk moving with his shoulders. Pants, matching the color and material of her shirt, were loosely tucked into dark gray boots. She couldn’t help but notice how his clothes clung to his skin, growing taut with every movement.
“It’s ours, then.” He leaned down, leveling his gaze with hers in the mirror.
It isn’t fair, she sulked belatedly, how composed he always is. He moved with an authoritative ease, taking any attention he was given in stride.
"I don’t share."
“You don’t like the clothes,” he changed the subject, chin close to her shoulder.
She could feel his heat through her clothes. Would it be possible to jump into a cold shower? Did she have enough time?
Her response was clipped. “Yes.”
No.
“You don’t like the way they feel.”
“No.”
Yes.
Seeing their forms side by side, Tauri couldn’t help the spiraling thoughts.
They wouldn’t be able to solve the case, and she’d be thrown into jail. She was never worthy of the stars. She was destined to rot away in the underworld. This was all for nothing. Cyril would throw her under the bus at any moment. He was only using her to help his sister. He didn’t really care about her safety or innocence—
He tugged the band holding her hair up loose, interrupting her thoughts. Gentle fingers combed through her curls slowly, the sensation relaxing her shoulders. When had she gotten so tense?
“We’re our own worst enemy,” he murmured, pulling strands away from her face to braid. Her eyes slid shut, and he moved her head back to follow his ministrat
ions. “Whatever lies you’re telling yourself, I hope you know they’re exactly that. Lies. Even if they don’t always feel it.”
Her eyes snapped open to seek his gaze in the mirror, but he was focusing intently on her hair. “I know that,” she ground out, embarrassed that he saw right through her.
His eyes finally met hers, and she couldn’t breathe under their intensity. A storm roiled beneath his blank face. She tried to step away, break the contact. Regain the balance that had been ripped from her.
But his stare held her captive.
“If you saw yourself the way I see you, I wonder how you would feel.”
She leapt away from his fingers and caressing words, her back slamming into the wall next to the mirror. She tried to say something, but no words came from her mouth. She must’ve looked like a deer caught in headlights. It took a moment to regain her composure.
“And how do you see me?” she asked, surprised by how accusatory she sounded. She was trying to hide her doubt.
No one knew how much she worried about herself and where she belonged in the galaxy. It was why she so desperately wanted to leave. To find herself.
And she felt like he was beginning to understand.
His lips tugged upwards in a wicked smile. He dipped his head at her, reaching forward to tug a curl in her hair. “We’re going to be late. It’s time to go.”
She nodded, annoyed that all retorts on her tongue had fallen away the moment he had touched her. His words had hit a little too close for comfort.
She was the one with the connections. They’d made copies of the memory stick and sent them to Cyril’s contacts, but no one had been able to move beyond the password. Tauri’s hacker was their last hope.
∆∆∆
There were places where the overworld and underworld were still connected, cliffs that were mostly dangerous. But sometimes the cliffs were stable enough to have things built on them. These middle cliffs were known for their unique culture. Underworlders dressed up, overworlders dressed down, and offworlders wore whatever they saw fit. Shops and dazzling lights sold lies about Navar.
Lies they all wanted to eat up for the time they spent on the middle cliffs.