by E J Frost
brushes by me. A vise closes tight around my
left wrist and drags me upwards. Kez is
screaming as we surface. “It’s an orclas! Get
to shore! Go! Go!”
I stop worrying about whatever’s on my
back. Ignore the pain and hideous sense of
movement inside my right shoulder. Strike
out with my arms and legs. Stab the water
with my hands. Pummel it with my feet.
Swim harder than I ever have before. The
idea of becoming some sea monster’s supper
motivates me like nothing else.
Kez keeps pace with me, whether
because she’s a better swimmer than I am or
because she’s got the strength of fear, I don’t
know. Her frantic splashes and gasps for
breath match my own. She comes out of the
water a step ahead of me as we reach the
gravel beach. Reaches back and grabs my
wrist again. Drags me after her as she
struggles through the shallows to collapse
onto the wet sand.
I sink to my knees beside her. My head’s
spinning. Everything feels disconnected.
There’s pain and that weird sense of
movement inside my shoulder but it’s distant.
Fuzzy. Like the wheeze of my breathing and
the shush of water over the gravel.
Kez sits up slowly, pale skin showing
through rents in her shadowsuit. Looks like
she’s been through a shredder. What the hell
happened? She puts her hand out, lets it rest
on my thigh. Skin on skin. I look down in
vague surprise. My suit’s torn open from my
hip to the top of my boot. The skin beneath is
dotted with blood, streaked with abrasions
that I never felt.
“Snow,” Kez whispers. My good kitten.
My careful kitten, who said she’d never slip
up and never has.
I meet her eyes. They’re full of tears. As I
watch, one spills. Another line of salt water
dotting her cheek. I reach out to wipe it
away, but nothing happens. My right arm
hangs at my side like a lump of wood.
Useless.
“Kitten,” I say. My voice sounds odd.
High and far away.
“Just stay still.” She climbs to her knees.
Moves her hand from my thigh to my left
shoulder and uses it as leverage as she peers
behind me. I hear her breath catch. Her
whispered, “Oh, God.”
I grope behind me with my left hand. Find
that I’m still clutching my kukri and set it
down before I slice myself open.
As I drop the blade, something flops
wetly by my thigh. The end of a tentacle;
suckers gripping at the air. Dark blood oozes
from the severed end onto the gravel.
“Kitten?”
She sits back on her heels. Cups my face
with her hands. “There’s a tegli attached to
your back. I can’t see its head.”
I nod numbly. Nothing she’s saying makes
sense.
“Snow,” she says. “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah.” I can hear her fine.
Understanding her, that’s something else.
“We need to get you to a medcen. Right
now. You’re bleeding a lot.”
I nod, then shake my head. No medcen.
“DNA,” I say slowly. Try to force my
thoughts into a straight line. “One way trip.
Back to slam.”
“Fuck. Right, let’s go.” She grabs my left
arm and yanks on it as she climbs to her feet,
sliding in the loose gravel. I grunt. What
she’s doing hurts. But it’s still a distant,
disconnected pain. So I pick up my kukri and
rock slowly up from my knees to my feet.
Stare blankly across the dark beach. Then
I’m on my knees again without understanding
how or why.
“Snow!” Kez shouts and I want to tell her
to be quiet, careful. The way she’s been with
my name. Until we’re far away from the dock
and Erin and anyone else who might do us
harm. But I can’t seem to get the words out,
and she’s pulling at me again, yanking on my
arm, until I struggle to my feet. She drags my
left arm over her shoulders and the distant
pain focuses into a hot knife that twists round
and round in my shoulder.
“Fuck, kitten—”
“Come on! Stay with me. We have to get
to the night market. It’s just on the other side
of the port. Come on!”
I stumble after her. One foot in front of
the other. One step after another. The pain in
my shoulder spreads until it’s everywhere.
Working out from my bones. Working in
from my skin. A solid white-hot inferno. I
can’t keep my eyes open against it anymore.
Then there’s blackness and a sense of falling
and Kez’s voice harsh and high with fear and
then there’s nothing. Not even pain.
Chapter 24
Why is it that beauty never lasts, but pain,
that bitch’ll come back for round two every
time?
Pain wakes me. Sharp, hot, piercing. I’m
back in K-G. The needles and the nausea and
the blank-eyed men in their chameleon suits,
never the same from day to day. Different
interrogators but the same questions. Over
and over. But I don’t know the right answers.
I tell them the truth, but it’s not what they
want to hear. I went where I was told to go. I
fought when I was told to fight. I killed who I
was told to kill. That’s all I know. That’s all
I ever knew.
Pressure joins the pain.
Clamps? Vises? No, this is soft. Pressure
on my cheeks. Against my mouth.
I open my eyes.
Kez’s big blues stare back. She blinks,
her eyelashes so close I’m surprised they
don’t brush my corneas.
“Shh,” she says. Kisses me again.
I lick my lips. Taste her. And the sharp
copper of fresh blood.
“Where—?”
She shakes her head. Pulls back a little
and slides something between my lips. I suck
on it. Fresh, life-giving water floods my
mouth. I close my eyes and gulp it down.
Another sharp jab of pain jolts me. I have
a brief view of Kez sitting next to me in a
small space defined by hanging plaz sheets.
Then darkness is pulled across my vision
like a curtain. “Kezra,” I whisper, as the
darkness sucks me down.
“No!” Her sharp shout snaps me back to
consciousness. “Don’t you say my name like
that!”
I blink. Focus on her face. “Like what?”
“Like you’re telling me goodbye.” She
cups my face in her hands. Her fingers are
bloodstained. “Stay with me.”
I chuckle weakly. “Okay, kitten.”
“Don’t you think about leaving me. I’ll
follow you wherever you go,” she says. Her
little face is as set and ferocious as her tone.
“You do have first
-class stalkin’ skills.”
“Fuck you. Stay awake and tease me for
the rest of your life.”
“That’s a deal.” But darkness keeps
chewing away at the edges of my vision, no
matter how hard I push it back. “Where are
we?”
“You’re in Gray’s Grotto, Mister Snow.”
Man’s voice. Behind me. Older.
Authoritative. There’s a tugging sensation,
inside my back, and a wave of pain so deep
and hard it turns my guts liquid. Fuck.
“You Doc Gray?” I grunt. I’ve never
heard of Gray’s Grotto, but grottos are local
slang for chopdocs: underground
hospitals/pharmacies/head-shops for those
who can’t afford legit medical care. Or who
need something a legit medcen won’t supply.
“That I am. You, on the other hand, are
not Mister Snow. Or not Sandringham Snow,
son of Rhesa and Sothfe Snow, born on
Irroth on seven-four-eighty-four.”
I tense, but Kez catches my face in her
hands again. Holds my eyes. She wouldn’t be
holding me, looking at me so calmly, if we
were in danger.
“You’ll be able to pass more easily for
Mister Snow before we’re done here. But
first I have to get the rest of this tegli out of
your shoulder.”
My head spins as the tugging in my back
gets harder.
“Almost there.” The chop doc sounds
like he’s gritting his teeth. “Try to stay
awake.”
“Okay, Doc.” I hyperfocus. Take in the
tiny details of Kez’s anxious face. The pores
in the pale skin between her brows. The
golden flecks in her blue irises. She has a
white scar the size of a freckle between the
corner of her left eye and the bridge of her
nose. I try to reach out and touch it. Discover
that I’m strapped down. I grunt in irritation.
“Try to stay still,” Kez says. She strokes
my cheeks. Looks into my eyes. All this eye
contact would be hot if I wasn’t strapped to a
fucking autodog slab while a chop doc digs a
sea monster out of my shoulder.
I hear a deep sigh behind me and a clatter
of chitin against metal. The grinding pain in
my back eases to a dull, deep ache.
“That’s it,” the chop doc says. “Let’s turn
him over and get this boneset into him.”
Kez reaches down and loosens the strap
around my chest. I shift, getting ready to roll.
Grab the edge of the slab with my right hand.
Lightning shoots through my right
shoulder. So hot and sharp I swear I can hear
it sizzle under my skin. I blink, trying to clear
my eyes. Feel the hard edge of the table
against my cheek. It’s nice and cool. I rest
my face against that coolness while the
lightning wipes away sight and sound and
thought.
I’ve always been a light sleeper. An
instant-waker. Comes from being an orphan.
Never really feeling safe. But when I have
Kez in my arms, I sleep deep. Wake slow. I
don’t know where I am or how I got there,
but down deep in that reptile brain that’s
done such a good job of keeping me alive all
these years, I know I’m holding Kez, so I
wake slow and gentle as a baby.
My eyes focus on a fuzzy dome beside
me. A scrubby forest dotted with the stumps
of dead trees. I blink a couple of times.
Reach up and brush my fingertips across that
strange landscape.
“How’re you feeling?” Kez whispers
without turning over.
“What the fuck happened to your hair?” I
ask.
She blows out a breath. “You nearly die
and that’s the first question you ask?”
I rub the ragged wisps tucked behind her
left ear between my fingers. Her hair’s soft,
but it feels abrasive against my fingertips.
“Answer me.”
She sighs again. “My vcom wasn’t
enough to pay the chop doc. So I sold my
hair.”
“You what?” I half-sit and feel pain lance
through my shoulder. “Fuck, didn’t he close
me up?”
“That tegli chewed a hole as big as my
fist in your back. And cracked your shoulder
blade. We had to pour newskin into you. It’s
still setting, so don’t move around too
much.”
I lie back and run my hand over her head
again. Feel the fuzzy nubs that are all that’s
left of her dreadlocks. I like the texture. And
the graceful length of her neck that’s left
bare. I trace the long scar that Ma Quaak
gave her with my thumb.
“You get a good price?” I ask.
She shrugs. “You didn’t die.”
That is a pretty good price. “Yeah.”
“And he threw in a new set of
fingerprints.” She scratches at the fuzz, pulls
at one of the stubs until it begins to unravel.
“The monofilament was more valuable than
my actual hair. That’s what paid for most of
it.” She’s silent for a moment. Then she says
quietly, “It’ll grow back.”
I blow a warm breath across her bare
neck. “I like it. Just as it is.” Let my eyes
travel slowly up that pale, sweet length. I
love how vulnerable it makes her look. I lean
in and run my lips from the knob at the base
of her neck to her nape. She shivers,
wriggling her soft ass against me. “I really
like it,” I murmur into her skin.
“An hour ago you were almost dead.”
She reaches back and prods my hip. “So
don’t get any ideas.”
“I’m feelin’ better.” I mouth her nape.
Sweeter than the sweetest awril. “I know
who I got to thank for that.”
She rolls over, props herself up on one
elbow and looks down at me. A frown draws
the skin of her forehead into furrows. Her
eyes and nose are red, like she’s been crying,
or is about to. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry for savin’ my life?” I cup
her face. Her soft skin feels good in my
hands. Feels good to move without pain. I’m
sore, and I’m going to be sorer when the
derms I can feel stuck to my shoulders and
neck wear off, but it’s the pain of skin and
muscle healing. I’ll take that kind of pain any
day.
She shakes her head. Kisses my palm.
“My sister shot you. Twice.”
I consider that for a moment. Maybe
someone snuck up on me during all the noise
of the bowship’s departure, but I doubt it.
And they wouldn’t have tossed Kez’s
backpack into the drink if they had. Yeah,
I’m pretty sure Erin shot me. Twice. But now
that the worst is over, I’m having a hard time
hating her for it.
“We’re even,” I say finally. “I’ve been a
shiv in her side since the star
t of the run. She
was just gettin’ her own back.” Strange thing
is, I respect her more now than I did before
she shot me. “I’m not goin’ after her, kitten.
An’ I’m sure as hell not gonna hold it against
you. So why are you apologizin’?”
She shakes her head again. “I can’t
believe this happened. It’s bad enough I’ve
had to sell practically everything we have
and we still don’t have enough to pay for the
hover tomorrow, much less a place to sleep,
and I’ve dragged you through all this and
then my sister shot you—!”
I chuckle and pull her down so she’s
tucked against my chest. I stroke her bangs
back from her face. Kiss her until she stops
protesting. Until the red of her nose and eyes
fades to her usual soft pink flush. Until she’s
kissing me back despite the fact we’re just
curtained off from what I can clearly hear is
a busy medcen with just a few thin sheets of
plaz.
Finally, I run my fingers down the back of
her neck and tickle her until she giggles. No
sound is as good as the sound of her laughter.
“So you sold everything we got, huh?”
She sighs. “Pretty much. The suits were
trashed after that orclas hit us. They weren’t
worth more than a few credits. I kept your
boots and your big knives.”
“You coulda sold the kukris.”
She shakes her head against my shoulder.
“They’re special. I don’t know anything
about knives, but even I can tell that.”
I kiss the tip of her nose. My smart kitten.
“Besides, we might need them. Tiv’s not
the safest place.”
That’s the truth. The Cloud Cities are all
extremely unfriendly to outsiders, but the
ports are dangerous to boot. The kukris will
probably come in handy if we’re spending a
night sleeping out in Tiv.
I take a deep breath, relish the absence of
pain. Stretch. My right shoulder twinges in a
way that says I shouldn’t fuck with it for a
while, and the rest of me’s stiff and sore, but
that’s all. I smile down at my kitten. “You
ever sleep rough?”
“Not recently. And when I did, I haven’t
really slept. Just found a place to wait out
the night. It’s not safe for a girl.”
Also the truth. I think of Joh, the kid who
crawled into my bed on Enlyoss. Wanting
protection from the night-monsters. I gave
her one night of safety, mostly from myself. It
wasn’t enough.
“You’ll sleep tonight. We both will.” I