The Other Side Of Gravity (Oxygen, #1)

by Shelly Crane

  “Because I’m like you, Maxton. If someone had found my mother when she was alive, I would have wanted them to help her. I’m just…trying to...” I shrugged.

  “But no one did help your mother, did they?” I shook my head. “But you still want to help?”

  “Come on, Maxton,” I said in exasperation. “Let’s go.”

  He watched me for a second before he put me behind him. I felt an odd sensation in my belly at the protectiveness. “Stay behind me,” he whispered as he opened the door.

  He tucked the handheld metal detector into the back of his belt and opened the door, standing solidly like he belonged there. He nodded to someone. “Pike, how’s it going?”

  “Good, sir,” I heard from the hall before Maxton took my hand and tugged me from the room. My wrist burned, making me hiss.

  “Sorry,” I heard him say and looked up expecting to find him looking down the hall, but he was looking down at me instead.

  “What?” I said self-consciously, feeling the blush creep up my skin.

  He must have seen it, too, because he smiled and chuckled a little as he looked down at our feet. “Uh, I was just going to say that I was sorry, but it’s so weird having a girl around.” He chuckled again, making me look up. His eyes were filled with mirth. “I shouldn’t have to apologize for that, should I?” He actually grinned as we stood in the middle of the hall, as he helped me escape his boss who wanted to turn me in for processing, he grinned like the rogue he was. “Girls are different than guys and I’ve only ever been around guys. Mostly. In fact, I can honestly say that I’ve only ever been within hearing distance of a handful of girls my entire life.”

  “Shocking,” I deadpanned.

  “That doesn’t surprise you?”

  “Nothing surprises me anymore.” I pushed against his chest, surprised at the bulk and hardness I found there—calling myself a liar with the fact that I was definitely surprised.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, his tone condescending. It was the reason that I didn’t answer him or look up at his face as I cleared my throat.

  “Let’s go,” I hissed.

  I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard him chuckle as he led the way down the hall. It was a typical small ship, that he obviously knew his way around very well. He held up his hand as we reached the end of the hall and looked around the corner, standing up straight so as not to look strange if someone saw him. Then he murmured, “Let’s go.”

  We went through the door there and then up a flight of stairs and around two more corners. Then things started to look familiar because I’d been there before. “Maxton.”

  “I have to get something.”

  I huffed as he opened his door with a click. “What could be so important—”

  “It’s important.”

  He’d said it so abruptly that I didn’t say anything in return. I slipped in the room with him and waited just inside and watched him go to a panel in the ceiling. I smiled to myself at—irony. He hid things in the ceiling just as my mom and I had.

  Then the mumbling began before he punched the wall and brought me out of my musing. I jumped and he looked at me. He was angry. At me?

  “What’s the matter?”

  “They took it.”

  “What? What did they take?”

  “They took it because they know I helped you,” he replied as he realized. He thought for a moment. “We have to go. Now!”

  We took off the way we’d come as fast as we could, him leading the way and checking halls quickly. We went down more flights of stairs to the bottom of the ship. I could hear the engines running. I remembered this from when I snuck in.

  As soon as we reached the end of the next hall, we were home-free. I knew it. The departure door was in sight. But when Havard popped out in front of the door, we skidded to a stop.

  “Thought it was going to be that easy, did ya?” He looked at me with a smile that made vomit threaten to creep up. “Haven’t we already had this discussion, poppet?”

  “Enough, Havard.” Maxton tugged me behind him a little. I actually balked at him. Why was he so…why did he care? Hadn’t I just bulldozed in and practically destroyed his life? “Stay there.” I realized he was talking to me.

  “Okay,” I whispered because I didn’t know else to do.

  “Her bounty went up,” Havard said and I could hear his smile. I felt Maxton’s hand tense on my arm. “It’s almost doubled. Someone wants this little girl. Badly.”

  Maxton’s sigh was rough. And then I realized he wasn’t sighing, he was breathing deeply, roughly, over and over.

  “Hey!” Havard barked. “That’s expensive friggin’ oxygen you’re wasting.”

  I began to worry if the very fragile bond that I’d started to form with Maxton was about to—

  “Where is it?” Maxton asked him so loudly my ears hurt.

  Havard smiled. “All my pods have vids,” he chuckled. “Did you really think I wasn’t watching you from day one along with everyone else on this ship? Even made a little money selling the videos of some of the stuff that was going on in those rooms.” Maxton sighed with a little growl. “I make sure to look out for what’s mine,” Havard said and pounded his chest once. “I didn’t get all this by sitting by and letting others do it for me. Hell, I’d be—”

  The scanners from the corner went over him once with their eerie red lasers. The profanity monitor went off with a beep and announced that he’d be owing an additional piece of silver on his taxes to Congress for crimes of, blah, blah, blah.

  Havard laughed and yelled, “Hell, hell, hell!” When the lasers came down and the beeping began he laughed again and talked over all the noise. “See, I’m a rich man, Max. I have all the money I could ever need, and really, a few pieces of silver don’t bother me at all.” He took a step towards us. “Too bad that’s not the case with you. Too bad you really need the money. Too bad you just put your dear old m—”

  “Shut up, Havard!”

  Just like I thought. Everyone needs money, but Maxton really needed it for something. I had a feeling that Havard was going to say “Dear old mother”. Maxton had already said something about his sister. No wonder he regretted helping me if he was helping to provide for them.

  He was probably going to ditch me the second we were out of this. I looked up at Havard. If we got out of this.

  “Stay there, Soph,” Maxton said gruffly.

  I could do nothing but exactly what he said, with my mouth wide open. He called me ‘Soph’. No one since my mom had called me that.

  He took a step toward Havard. “We’re leaving—around you or through you, your choice.”

  Havard laughed wholeheartedly. “You’re really going to let this girl ruin everything you’ve worked your entire life trying to do? Honestly?” he bent over as he asked. “Wow. Maxton Q1. Smitten.”

  “I’m not—I’m fixing a wrong.”

  “Who cares what—”

  “It’s not right what they do to them and you know it.”

  “It’s not our concern. Who cares? We make a pay day.” His face turned hard. “And you’re not walking out of here with mine.”

  “You come and take her from me then—that’s the only way this is going down.”

  Havard stared at him. “Is this really how you want to do this, Max?”

  He nodded. “Fisticuffs. Let’s go.”

  Havard laughed. “Fisticuffs.” He shook his head. “Using my own words against me?”

  “It’s what I had to do to get on your crew, remember? Only fitting that it’s the way I have to get out of it.”

  “You’re a real piece, you know that?” Havard growled as he stepped closer, obviously done playing and balled up his fists. “After all I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me? I made you my second. We could have ruled the friggin’ underground, Max! It would have been ours, but you let one piece of hot apple pie come in here take all that away from us?”

  “It’s not about her,” Maxton gr
ound out and stepped closer. They were within swinging distance. I gritted my teeth so hard they hurt.

  “Oh, yeah? Then what’s it about if not those gorgeous, dirty legs over there?”

  I cringed. No one had ever called me gorgeous or beautiful, and now I had been called both of those things all in the span of ten minutes. What was wrong with them? Was the oxygen level low in here?

  “It’s about principles. And you not having any. Or ethics. Or morals.”

  Havard laughed hard and leaned in closer. “Who gives a monkey’s pink butt about principles?”

  “I do,” Maxton gritted out, then yanked the handheld metal detector from the back of his waistband before slamming it across Havard’s head. He went down with a thud and stayed down.

  “Let’s go,” Maxton beckoned, taking my hand in his, with no fanfare or thought to Havard at all except to look and make sure he was still down.

  He dragged me to the door and then let my hand go, tucking the metal detector under his arm so he could punch in the codes to open the door latch.

  “It’s dead,” I said.

  “What?” he said distractedly as he worked.

  I took the detector from him. “It’s dead.”

  He took it back and looked as if his world had been undone. “No. No,” he said with such anguish. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them. “I’ll try to find another one.” We both knew that would never happen. Detectors were expensive and as precious as the silver and food we ate and oxygen we breathed. It would be impossible.

  “Yeah,” I encouraged and nudged his arm. “Let’s get out of here before Hook wakes up.”

  He gave me a wry look and smiled. “What’s a Hook?”

  “Nothing,” I told him and couldn’t stop the small smile as I looked at the wall behind his head and thought about my dad’s stories. Havard was kind of like a pirate.

  “What’s that look for?”

  I shook my head. “What look?”

  His head shook, too. “One day, I hope someone looks off into space and has a look like that on her face while thinking about me.”

  My lips parted at his perceptiveness, but before I could say anything, not that I had thought of anything to say, he had already turned back to punch the codes into the door.

  “My dad,” I supplied after a few seconds. I didn’t know why I did. But he had told me—well, nothing—about his sister, but I at least knew a sister existed. And for some reason I didn’t want him thinking there was someone else—I shook my head. How would there be someone else? I was a slave. And for that matter…why did it matter?

  He looked back over his shoulder for a second at me and gave me a small, sweet smile that I’m sure he reserved for less straggly company. But I appreciated it all the same. He nodded his head once, letting me know that he understood, that we were comrades in the lost parent parade, and went back to work.

  Then the snick of the door had us both moving back.

  He gripped my arm and pulled me as he looked once out the door before letting go. “All clear. Let’s split.”

  Yikes. Just like that, huh. “Well, it was nice knowing you.”

  I started to go and he yanked me back, me falling against his chest in the alcove of the ship’s door, still hidden from most people. A lot of people bustled along the dock.

  “What are you doing, crazy girl?” His breath puffed against my ear once before he turned me to face him. “You think you’re leaving? I break you out, ruin everything for myself, turn myself into a convict for you, and then you think you’re just leaving the second you get free—”

  “You said Let’s split.”

  He squinted before he smiled. I wanted to hit him. “Let’s split. It means let’s get out of this place, shake a leg, get a move on, chop chop, let’s go, why don’t we skedattle, let’s blow this joint before it blows us—”

  “I get it.”

  He smiled wider. “You’re stuck with me for a while. If we split up now, we’ll never make it.”

  “Agreed. I don’t want to split up.”

  He took the busted detector that he had tucked into his belt again and tossed it in the corner. “Have to figure something out about some silver and shelter soon.” He looked at me. “At least we—you have your common metals,” he said with a sigh.

  I stared. He had broken me out. That bad scenario back there would have gone way worse if not for him. Yes, I needed the money to get where I was going, but… “No, we have it. Some of it, for supplies. I’m going to use this to start over on the Providence.”

  His eyes widened a little. “It’s rough over there.”

  “It’s rough over here. It’s the only place I can go where no one will know me, where no one will care who I am. You don’t know it, but it’s kind of a place that slaves talk about going, escaping to. It may be rough, but at least we can be free there.”

  The Providence was a small part of the planet that had ostracized itself from the rest of us a few years ago. It was almost a war, our planet’s first. It was all people who didn’t believe in our government and Militia, so I could imagine the kind of people who lived there, but it was the only place I could live. Even if I went to the farthest reaches of the planet, my face would be plastered for all to see for reward money. I’d never be safe here. It was my only chance. They did have some form of government in the Providence, but they didn’t allow any cameras in, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into. But I’d find out soon. I was determined to make it there.

  He nodded. “That’s…rad. In the meantime, I have to find another metal detector and we have to try to stay as inconspicuous as possible. If anyone asks why we’re on the docks, just say you’re one of Havard’s new girls, okay? Nobody should question it since you’re with me.”

  I gulped. “What does that mean?”

  His stare was hard. “Don’t ask.” He waited for me to absorb that. Then he tugged my long hair out of the side ponytail I had laying over my shoulder, putting the band over his wrist, and pulled it to both sides, trying desperately to use it as cover for my face. “Let’s go. Stay right by me.”

  We walked down from the ship onto the docks, which were thankfully still covered by night. He led the way and I kept up, sticking right by his side as he kept to the side, close to the shadows. But we were getting close to the merchants and then it would be harder to keep out of sight, especially if Maxton worked on the black market and was Havard’s second. I would imagine everyone knew him—

  “Max!” we heard to our right. Maxton didn’t slow.

  He waved to him and yelled back. “Gotta go, Potsy. Busy, busy!”

  I heard the man’s laughter carrying back to us.

  When someone else yelled his name, as we came into the merchant’s section of the docks, I began to worry how we were going to get away. Through the merchants was the only way in and out of the dock bay. It was the way it was planned for business. I had barely gotten through the first time, only by wrapping myself in a robe I had snatched from one of the first tables. I had taken it off when I got in the storage closet because it was so hot and used it to lie on. And I had left it there.

  Maxton yelled over to that man as well, saying, “Can’t stop! The market never stops, neither can I!”

  That man laughed as well. They liked him here. I saw Maxton’s smile as he shook his head. “You like this,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The banter. You like being known and knowing everyone,” I realized and told him, not unkindly. “You’ll miss this, won’t you?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it until this moment, but…yeah, I guess I will miss it a little. But the rewards aren’t worth the price.”

  His voice had turned so hard that I didn’t go any farther, just kept in step with him. When a shadow fell over the boards in front of me, I couldn’t stop the gasp that fell from my lips.

  “What have we here?”

  Chapter Four

  sar·casm - remarks that me
an the opposite of what they say, made to criticize someone or something in a way that is usually amusing to others…those who speak fluent sarcasm.

  Maxton

  My sigh burst out of me. “Pritchard. Dude, you can’t sneak up on people.”

  “Why so nervous, Maxton?” He eyed Sophelia, which had me perking up. “Is it this piece here? You trying to show her a good time?” He slapped my arm so hard I was sure I’d have a bruise. Pritchard went too hard on the steroidal elements. “You right lucky son of a b—bloke.”

  I smirked. “Been downloading the Old World’s language software again, have we?”

  He grinned. “If I didn’t get caught by the profanity sensors so much, it would be bloody fun, too. Those Old-Worlders cursed like pirates.”

  Sophelia tensed beside me and her head jerked over, but she said nothing, thankfully. I wondered what in the world that was about, but it had to be saved for later.

  “And it’s worth all that silver to have your brain hacked just to talk like an Old-Worlder?”

  He puffed his chest and gripped his non-existent lapels. “Don’t I sound like a gentleman now?”

  “Wouldn’t know. Never met one.” I slapped his chest with the back of my hand and he swatted me back. Dude…I tried not to rub the spot. Guy had to lay off the elements. “All right, Pritchard, we’re outta here. See you later, yeah?”

  I took Sophelia’s hand to tug her and guide her along. That’s what I told myself. It wasn’t because her hands—though they had little calluses on them from her work—were soft and small and gripped mine with blind trust.

  “Good to see you finally taking in with a female, Maxton,” he said. I looked back at him and glared my best glare. He just chuckled, knowing exactly what I was doing, but his tone had been so sincere. “Ah, pull your fangs back. You know what I mean.”