by Pearl Foxx
Enver sucked in a breath and shook his hand away. "We should go. I have to get you back home." He turned his back on her and rushed toward the bike, not keeping an eye on whether she followed behind him or not.
Why did her simple words bother him so much? Why did her trust in him make his skin pull tight? Because if she knew everything he’d done, everything he was responsible for, she wouldn't be able to be near him at him at all let alone with such warmth. He couldn't stomach the idea of her facing him with the expression he deserved.
Imogen rushed to him, practically toppling him over, because he was so lost in thought. She pressed the length of her body against his side.
"What?"
"It's him." Imogen pointed in the direction of the crowd. "Hiram. I know it’s him." Her voice hovered somewhere between excitement and panic.
Enver’s blood rushed with the thought of her being reunited with the love she’d thought she’d lost. How could she be so excited to find him if their kiss meant anything at all?
"I get it, but it’s not him. Lots of people can look alike when you're hoping for something." His voice came out in a harsh rush, but she didn't even flinch. Part of him wanted to hurt her with his words, to lash out over being her temporary relief. But when he turned to deliver his blow, her eyes were wild.
"I have to…" And with that, she was gone.
Imogen ran into the crowd before Enver realized what she planned.
Fuck! Fuck me!
He rushed after her zooming past the bike and weaving through the growing crowd on foot. She was so little. He lost sight of her bouncing blonde head quickly. Enver shoved anyone in his way aside, and an old panic rose in his throat.
He’d lost her.
He didn't think he could survive Imogen's death on his hands. Not next to all the others who weighed on his conscience. His breath came out in the wild rush and he stopped on the nearest corner, scanning the crowd.
She was nowhere to be found.
Chapter 9
Imogen
Hiram.
Imogen ran through the streets of Cyn City, taking no notice of the screaming cyborg trying to follow her or the glares of passersby she knocked into. If Hiram was alive there wasn’t a single thing on this entire planet that mattered more. The Deluge could break filling the streets with rushing water, and still she would search.
The concrete buildings towered over her, and the bodies of the strong cyborgs who lived in the slums hid her view. But it didn’t matter. She kept her eyes trained on his stocky frame. She stalked him like a panther after its prey. Nothing could keep her from him.
Their love had been forbidden. On the ecovangelical compound marriages were arranged to provide the sturdiest breeding stock and the most genetically advantaged children. Imogen took pride in the many requests her father received for her hand, but Hiram’s stolen kisses in the barn at night or behind the hydrofarms had stolen her heart.
When she’d laid beneath him and sacrificed her virginity at the altar of love she could never have imagined it would cost her so much.
The elders discovered them. They dragged Hiram away never to be seen again, and then the doctors came and gave her drugs to expel the baby she carried from her womb. After that, no man would have her, and even her parents disowned her. When they’d come to take her to where the breeders lived, women who gestated babies for others to raise, she’d run. They’d beaten her and dragged her back. And she’d run again.
They told her Hiram was dead. They told her she was nothing.
But she survived, and he lived!
Blessed is the Earth that provides!
Hiram rounded a corner, and Imogen whipped after him, afraid she had lost him. But standing before her was a dark-haired man with the face of the boy she once loved and eyes rimmed with red.
“What do you want?” he hissed, and she could see the blade in his hand.
She stared down at herself, her unbuttoned shirt, her short hair, and pants. He would never recognize her as his Imogen. Her tears bounded from her eyes, falling like boulders.
“Hiram, it’s me. It’s Imogen. I thought you were dead.” She reached her hands forward, desperate to touch him and confirm he was real, but he backed away, the blade coming up to point at her.
“Don’t come any closer. How do you know that name?”
“It’s me.” She ran a hand over her hair. She hated it like this and missed her long locks. She’d never cut them before, but the beating she’d taken from the elders left her with a head wound, and the area had to be shaved, cutting it all off had been the only option. She hung her head, wishing she could hide behind the familiar curtain of hair.
“It can’t be.” Hiram lowered the knife slightly and his eyes raked over her. She knew how repulsive she must be to him. Shorn hair, neck exposed, form fitting pants. It was her feet that finally convinced him though, when his eyes dropped to her compound issue boots he sucked in a breath.
“Where did you get those boots?”
“From my mother, Theresa.” she took a step forward. “Married to my father, Josiah, who was best friends with your father, Thaddeus.”
“They told me she was dead,” his voice wavered.
“No. No, I’m alive.”
“Imogen would never…” He gawked at her, his mouth curving down into a judgmental frown. “You look like a slum rat.”
She recoiled, the words stinging. She often thought the same thing when she noticed how Verity dressed and had done her best to keep her modest appearance. Of course today – the one day she wore pants – would be the day she found him.
“I know. It fills me with shame.” she lowered her head in submission, but the action didn’t sit right with her anymore. She didn’t want to submit to him, she wanted to stare him in the eye and counter his words. She survived. She lived. That was something she was proud of. She wanted to yell at him, force him to see that she had become strong. She was smart, capable, and important. She wanted to argue.
Like she would with Enver.
She lifted her head and captured Hiram’s eye. She’d never bow to anyone again.
“Where’s the baby?” he asked, glancing to her flat stomach, and just as quickly as she’d dared to stare at him, her resolve crumbled.
“They took it. The elders, they took it.”
“You couldn’t even keep our baby safe? You’re out here with your hair chopped off, exposing your neck for everyone to see, wearing pants, and what for? If you’d debased yourself like this for our child’s survival that would at least be honorable. Instead you parade yourself through the streets like the Whore of Babylon! You were my greatest love, and now look at you. Is there no low you won’t sink to?” A haze of madness came over him, his eyes too wide, his mouth curled in fury. Had he always been this man? He never spoke so rigidly when they were together, instead he pushed her to break the rules, to risk everything for him. She had never led him toward temptation but the other way around.
His words pounded against her like an onslaught of tiny blades, slicing away her clothes, her skin, her sinew, until all that remained was the black bleeding heart dying within her.
“The elders were right. You are responsible for all of my disgrace. You seduced me.”
“I did not,” she whispered.
Hiram stepped closer, the blade in his hand pointed at her face. “You did. You seduced me like Eve and took everything I valued from me. You stripped me of my will. Witch!”
“Please, no, that’s not true. I love you.”
“Your dark soul cannot love. I know love. I loved a girl named Imogen, not this monstrosity standing before me that has possessed her body. You are unclean. You are an abomination. And now I live in squalor all because of your bewitchment. You stole my will!”
He spat the words at her, worse than anything the elders had said to her. They slithered in her ears and spread out like a virus infecting every cell of her being, leaving her shaking with tears.
“Hiram, no. It�
��s not true. Please, we’re here. We’re free now. We can be together.”
“You won’t trick me again. I’m not so naïve anymore.” He circled around her, blade out. He backed away, back out onto the main road. “I wish I’d never known you.”
He turned and disappeared into the foot traffic of Cyn City.
Chapter 10
Enver
Enver gasped for breath as he ran. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He could run faster and harder than this without so much as breaking a sweat but searching for Imogen his chest clamped down on his lungs making it impossible to get a full intake of oxygen.
He’d fucking lost her.
Voices, the bells of rickshaws, and the calls of vender carts swarmed until his head spun. Dizziness threatened to overwhelm him, but he kept running. He called out her name, searched around every corner. The sun drifted lower in the sky, and he was running out of time.
He tumbled forward, his motorcycle forgotten. It was the single most important thing he owned, all he had left of a father who disappeared when Enver was still a kid. The only thing he had from anyone in his family. But it didn’t matter, not stacked up next to finding Imogen.
At the entrance of a cramped ally, he saw a shock of light blonde hair. The spiky ends shook in the dim light, and as he approached, he could see Imogen’s curled up body. All his anger at her for running off, for scaring the living shit out of him, dissipated, and all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her and keep her safe.
He didn’t think too hard on the ramifications of that thought.
“Imogen? That you, sweets?”
The yellow head bobbed but didn’t look up. He approached slowly, not wanting to frighten her and make her back away from him or curl up any tighter.
“I’m going to sit next to you now,” he said in his calmest medic voice. She wasn’t the first traumatized person he’d had to coach out of their shells, but this was different. Important in a way it never had before.
He crouched near her and lowered himself to the ground, each movement bringing him closer to her side. When he sat, they were close enough for him to wrap his arms around her and pull her against his chest, but instead he leaned back, leaving his hands on his lap, open and available.
“So, this alley is awesome. I see why you picked it over the others.”
A blue eye narrowed at him from beneath her arms. She held her knees to her chest and buried her head between them but couldn’t hide completely. Her short hair left her exposed, and he could see the tear tracks running down from her swollen eyes.
“I mean, if I was going to pick an alley to break down in, I would absolutely consider this one. Although, there’s not a manhole, which means you won’t get any of that delightful backed up sewage when the tide comes in.”
A sniff and sad little laugh responded.
Enver turned his torso to face her directly. “Did you find him?”
She nodded.
“Do you want to tell me?”
She shook her head and buried her face deeper into her arms.
“So no on that one then. How about food? Are you hungry? We could go to Jimmy’s.”
“Idinthdthrum,” she said into her arms.
“You’re gonna have to lift your head if you’re gonna try to talk. Or use sign language, or write it out on the wall. Because I didn’t understand a damn word of that.”
She lifted her head, face pale. “No food. Might throw up.”
Enver nodded and leaned against the moist concrete building behind them. “So just sitting here then. Good. That works.”
“Just leave me here. You have to work tonight. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, at least no one will try to cut off your hair to sell.”
This time, she cracked a small smile and his heart grew to bursting.
"Really, you can go. I don't need a babysitter."
Enver stared at her for a moment, taking in the view of her watery blue eyes against the backdrop of disaster. "I'm not leaving you."
"Yes, you are. You just don't know it yet."
Imogen buried her head in her arms again, her shoulder shaking as her sobs hiccuped through the muffling fabric of her clothes.
Enver couldn't help himself. There was no rhyme or reason for what he did next. He wasn't prone to emotional displays, but as he watched her sitting there drenched in her own pain, his body reacted before his mind could catch up. He reached around her shoulders and pulled her against his side.
She resisted, keeping her arms wrapped tight around her knees, so she awkwardly leaned against his body. But Enver wouldn't let go, instead he tucked her closer, practically pulling her up onto his lap. He'd never been so close to her before, and the smell of the salt water from the ocean, where only a few hours ago they'd been laughing together, lingered in her hair.
"He's just not who I thought he was,” Imogen said in a rush. "He's nothing like the man I had let myself pretend he could be. He’s nothing like the man I fell in love with."
Enver pulled her closer and buried his nose into her short blonde locks. "Sometimes, no matter how much you love someone, you can’t make them be someone they're not."
Imogen’s body relaxed slightly against his body and she let him support her weight, even if just for a moment. It filled him with satisfaction to know he brought her comfort.
"My mother is a synthtax addict."
Imogen's breathing stopped, and his words saturated the air around them. He'd never told anybody about his mother, not even Chance, or his closest friends in the military. What had possessed him to share that information now? What made him so desperate to alleviate her pain that he would be willing to relive his own?
Imogen started breathing normally again but remained still and quiet. She didn't ask a litany of questions about his family or where he'd come from or stare at him with eyes full of pity, like he always feared someone would if he shared his secret. For some reason, her seeming lack of interest freed him to continue.
"She got into it after my dad left. He took a job working on one of the last stripping rigs up north. We lived in Vancouver then. He never came back. We never heard if he even got to the rig. Could be he ran away from us, or he died on the job. We never knew. That broke my mother, the not knowing. I think she could have handled it if he’d left--if he was like so many other people in this world and had cut his losses. But the possibility that he loved us and should be mourned instead of hated, it weighed on her. She talked about him constantly but never having any answers drove her further and further away from us." He stared out into the still busy streets and for the first time in years he couldn't hear the chaos.
"You keep saying we." Imogen still didn't look at him and didn't phrase it like a question. She left in the option to pretend he hadn't heard, to pretend this entire conversation had never happened.
"I had a brother. He died a few years after my dad left."
"I’m so sorry. Was he younger?" Imogen relaxed against his side and released her death grip on her legs, allowing her touch to linger on him.
Enver relished the contact. His story seems to bring her some kind of relief, like by revealing his own pain it lessened hers. Something he was more than willing to do.
"He was younger, only about five when he died. I was supposed to be watching him, he wandered off, got lost, and some scrapper got a hold of them. I guess children's parts are in high demand." Enver stared out in the distance, trying to recall his brother's face. But it had been too long, too many years, too much pain and time separated them now. He hated that he could still remember his mother's face without even trying but his brother was lost to time.
The two sat in silence until darkness overcame the slums, leaving anyone still out on the streets vulnerable and cold.
"We should really go," Enver said. "What if you come with me? Just this time. You can sit in the bar and wait while I take care of the fighters. Maybe Verity will be there, and you can spend some time with her."
&n
bsp; Imogen glared at him, the fire of defiance having finally returned to her eyes. "I don't need to be babysat."
"I know," he said, squeezing her shoulders and pulling her soft body closer against his. He tucked away the moment, giving him something he could hold onto when she decided she was done with life at the Ward. "But I can't get you back to the Ward, and you're certainly not walking there in the dark."
"I could help at the fights. I'm a good nurse."
"I know you are, sweets, but trust me, these are not people you want to get involved with. If you think we’re in for trouble with the cynkers, you have no idea what kind of trouble you’d find if Garvan and his men decided you had something they wanted."
Enver disentangled himself reluctantly from Imogen's body. They had so naturally gone from friend sitting side-by-side to something more intimate, someplace where secrets are told in the dark, and as soon as he stood, he missed it. With one hand held out he reached for her, and she reached back.
No matter what kind of danger he might be leading her to, Enver had to admit, he wouldn't want to be anywhere on any of the known planets without her.
Chapter 11
Imogen
The entrance of the Ball & Joint gave Imogen what could only be described as the heebie-jeebies. The place was horrible. Music screamed from behind the door, and the scent of blood and urine radiated from the concrete.
"This is where Verity works?" Imogen wrinkled her nose and looked at Enver disgusted. "This is horrible."
Enver chuckled, and the sound was the calmest she’d heard him. How could he be so even tempered when faced with having to enter this kind of establishment?
"It takes some getting used to, that's for sure. But the bar isn’t so bad. You'll see."
Imogen wrinkled her nose further and was tempted to hold it but imagined that would offend the very people Enver spent so much time trying to protect her from. She wasn’t sure what to think about that, about him wanting to protect her, or him thinking she needed protection. It had been a long time coming, but she’d finally reached a point where she liked taking care of herself. She didn’t need anyone to do things for her or treat her with delicate words like at the compound.