Then a sound, a loud guttural roar, broke through the silence and the beauty.
Was that . . . a motorcycle?
Yes. A motorcycle was coming up the street, fast. It stopped at the corner, the sound cutting out. In a city where cars were nearly nonexistent, where Rain’s was a precious and wild luxury, to see it there was strange. I couldn’t stop staring at it—and the boy riding it. Anger rolled off his body in waves, his mouth twisted and scowling. He was dressed in a thick black leather jacket and black gloves, snowflakes skittering off the sleeves and down along black pants and thick black boots. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses even though the sun had not shown itself in days. A black-and-white checked scarf encircled his neck, rising to cover the bottom of his chin. The boy didn’t seem cold, despite the weather and the fact that he was traveling in the open, wintry air unprotected.
“Hello,” he said.
Even though there was no one else around, I turned to look behind me, to see if his hello was meant for another person.
But we were alone.
“Yes, you,” he said. His voice was as steady and blank as his face.
“Hello,” I said back, uncertainly.
He got off his bike, pressed the kickstand down with his boot, and walked toward me. He didn’t stop until he was right there, maybe a foot away. That warning light in my brain flashed maniacally, a frantic red, telling me to go, go, go now, but I didn’t move. I didn’t even look away.
What was wrong with me?
What had happened to my instinct for self-preservation? Had it been dulled or even deadened? It had seemed sluggish the last couple of months, too weak to do me much good. Or was there something else going on—something to do with this boy that refused to let me leave?
He took off his sunglasses and for the first time I saw his eyes. They were dark and strange, vigilant but empty, and framed by long lashes. He narrowed them. “I know who you are,” he said.
“So?” I said, trying to sound as impassive as he did. “Who am I then?”
He put out his hand, as though we’d just been introduced at a party and he was trying to be polite. “You’re the most wanted girl in all of New Port City.” The right side of his mouth curled into a menacing half smile. “And I, a lucky bounty hunter.”
There was a moment, a pause between those words and what happened next, long enough for the fear to sear my insides like a firebomb, but not long enough that my gaming instincts could save me. They eventually kicked in and I was about to run, my brain automatically calculating the distance between me and the dark alley nearby, but I was too late.
I felt his hands on me.
They were strong. He was strong—stronger than he looked for his size.
“Don’t worry, Skylar,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise,” he added, then he gripped my middle and pulled me onto his bike like I weighed nothing. Before I could even shout, he’d cuffed my wrists so that my arms were around his waist, my body pressed into his back. There came a great roar, and suddenly we were moving.
No, we were flying.
My scarf was ripped away from my head and floated up into the air, taken along on the wind. The cold was so fierce it burned, the snow like tiny sharp blades against my skin. I found myself gripping the boy tighter, pressing my bare cheek against the cold leather of his jacket.
If I didn’t, I’d fall, and in truth, I didn’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
These words repeated themselves again and again inside me as we sped through the city, my eyes tearing from the storm and the harsh wind beating at us on all sides.
As we headed across a bridge and the snow subsided for a moment, I took advantage of the reprieve and peered over the boy’s shoulder. I studied his face, reflected in the mirrors on the bike. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses again, his mouth a straight, inexpressive line, as though he was carrying innocuous cargo, having just stopped at the store. Yet in taking me, threatening me, this boy had jolted me back from the dead. I’d been sleepwalking through existence for the last several months. Aside from wanting to see Inara, to save her, out of love, and out of guilt, I’d been adrift. Floating from one day to the next, without much purpose or will.
Not anymore.
I wanted to live.
I was going to live.
For the first time in months I felt things.
The boy moved right then, only slightly, his chin shifting a bit. His mouth was still a tight, thin line, but I could tell he was watching me, too, through the mirror, that he was doing so with interest.
With a curiosity not unlike mine.
For a second, I felt sad.
I’m not sure how or why, if it was my gaming instincts alerting me that something was happening, but I knew this boy was going to become important to whatever came next in this world and my part in it.
And the sadness, well, it was on his behalf.
I’d killed before and I’d do it again.
If my survival was at stake, I would do it without a second thought.
“Hang on,” he shouted over the roar of the engine and the wind.
So I did. I buried my face once more in the smooth cold leather of his jacket and let my thoughts turn to nothing. It was easier that way. For now.
3
Rain
helpless
I LOST HER.
Skylar was gone.
Maybe for good this time.
The railing was cold and hard in my hand, as cold as the air and the snow coming down outside the mansion. My palm wanted to bend it. If I was still in the App World I could find a way to mold it to my wishes, but here, in the real body, I was powerless to do such things.
“Rain?”
It was early morning, and the training floor was empty below the balcony where I stood. I’d come to be alone for a while. To think. To wallow, perhaps. To wonder where Skylar was and how I could get her back. I sighed. “Lacy,” I said, turning around. “How did you sleep?”
She twirled a lock of long red hair around her fingers. It stood out against the blue of the concrete wall behind her. “You’d already know the answer if you’d joined me last night.” Now she was the one to sigh. “Or any night.”
Her soft green eyes were tired. I preferred the muted colors of Lacy’s real self to the bright, harsh ones so highlighted and drawn out in the virtual version I’d grown used to over the years. Lacy felt differently, believed her real self was too literally pale and unremarkable in comparison to the virtual her, but I wondered if someday she would come around and see things the way I did.
“I know and I’m sorry,” I said. The Lacy Mills of the App World I never could take seriously. Or fall for in any true way. But the Lacy Mills of the Real World was another story. I found myself thinking that maybe I could be hers. Maybe I could finally give her what she’d always wanted from me. I put out my hand and watched as her eyes came alive at the gesture.
Slowly, she wove her fingers through mine. “I could be yours,” she whispered. “Again.”
“Lacy.”
Her eyelashes fluttered. “Yes?” She sounded so hopeful.
It nearly broke my heart. Lacy had a reputation of being cold and hard and conniving, but I knew better. Deep down, she was as vulnerable as the next person, full of longing and plenty of loss. She was just good at hiding it.
I couldn’t lie to her now. “I’m grateful you’re willing to help with my plans, both the ones from before . . . ,” I said, unable to articulate further which before I was referring to, pained by the mistakes I’d made, mistakes that came with a cost I could never pay out, no matter how much I offered Skylar. I squeezed Lacy’s hand. “And the new ones. I know how much you’ve given up for me and . . . how you feel about me. I never meant to lead you on, or give you false hope. I never wanted to hurt your feelings.”
Lacy’s green eyes dimmed. She slipped her hand from mine and hid it behind h
er back as though she couldn’t trust it. “Apparently, hurt feelings are your specialty.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I wasn’t referring to myself, Rain.”
I breathed deeply. “I know.”
“She’s never going to forgive you,” Lacy said. “Not really. It’s been months and she still doesn’t trust you. That sort of damage is difficult to repair. It’s like . . . she lost her way completely after that night.”
“Wouldn’t you?” I asked, unable to keep the frustration from my tone.
Lacy’s eyes flashed. “What? If I suddenly found out the sister I gave up everything to see was willing to sacrifice me like I meant nothing? That everyone around me knew the entire time and didn’t say a word to me about it?” She laughed bitterly. “I’d say so, yes. I almost feel . . . sorry for her.”
I closed my eyes.
Lacy was right. This was my fault. All of it. The before and the now, which seemed to involve Skylar going missing again. Or worse, running away from us. In the middle of a storm.
And I let her go.
Like an idiot.
Skylar’s bright-blue eyes had lost their light that terrible night, and her only interest became finding Inara and getting her back. She’d been like a ghost walking these halls. Even the sea, which she loved, couldn’t wake her. The Skylar I knew during her first months in this world had vanished.
I wanted her back.
I’d thought that if she went to the Body Market to case the place, it might breathe life into her again. I’d even lent her my car when she asked for it.
“What are you thinking?” Lacy asked.
I opened my eyes. I’d nearly forgotten Lacy was standing there. She watched me strangely. “Why?” I asked.
Lacy hesitated. “You just . . .”
“Finish your thought,” I said when she trailed off. “Please.”
“You look . . . lost,” she said.
I raked a hand through my hair. I tried to wipe away whatever it was that showed on my face, trading it for something more benign. I used to be so controlled, and now it seemed that I revealed everything to whoever happened to be nearby. “Oh?”
Lacy nodded. “It’s not a look I’m used to on you,” she said. Her face grew pained. “It’s her, isn’t it? Skylar, Skylar, everything is always about Skylar. You can’t let things go, even when all signs tell you that you should!”
“You’re wrong,” I lied. “Skylar is merely important to our interests here, on many fronts, including my father’s. You know that already. I’m only worried about what her absence means for our plans. You’re letting your jealousy get the best of you.”
Lacy nodded her head. “Right.”
“I made a mistake, that’s all,” I went on. “I shouldn’t have let Skylar go yesterday, never mind alone, and when a storm was brewing.”
“But you did let her go,” Lacy observed, her exact meaning unclear.
I looked away. She was right.
And regret was making me pay dearly for my mistakes.
4
Skylar
blizzard
“PEOPLE WILL COME looking for me,” I said.
The boy turned away from the closet where he’d hung up his jacket, though he hadn’t yet shed his scarf. He laughed, but the laughter was dark and edged with something sharp. “You’ve got that right. People have been looking for you for months. Your sister made sure of that. She put quite a price on your head.” He sounded so pleased.
I shifted in the chair where he’d sat me down. It was hard and wooden and uncomfortable, and pressed up against a small table. We were in a tiny kitchen, open to an equally tiny living room with a battered gray couch, a thick blanket thrown over the arm of it, and shelves on the walls that were full of books. There was a rug on the floor, old and worn and faded. At the center of everything was a short, black iron stove, a thick round pipe reaching up and through the low ceiling. The boy threw wood into its belly and soon a fire roared red and orange inside of it.
“I meant other people,” I said.
He regarded me. “Even better.”
I shivered, my coat heavy and wet, trying not to let my teeth chatter. I hadn’t felt cold like this maybe ever, and certainly never in the App World. Even when I downloaded the Snow App, my virtual self was bundled in puffy jackets, a hat, a scarf, and mittens, and the temperature stayed at a balmy and comfortable seventy degrees. I longed to be warm, longed for a download that would flow through my code and burn my insides like the sun.
The boy took a step toward me, then another, the old wooden floorboards creaking under his feet. Thick round knots dotted it. “You’re freezing,” he said.
Sympathy crept into his voice, but his eyes showed nothing of it. He left the kitchen and went into what must be his bedroom, and came back with a pile of dry clothes. A T-shirt, a pair of jeans, a thick cabled sweater, so thick a yearning rose in me at the thought of so much warmth.
He pulled out the only other chair at the table and set the pile onto it. “You should change or you’ll get sick.”
The word sick automatically conjured an image of my former teacher in the App World, Mrs. Worthington, the way her face used to twist when she’d teach us about the many different ways that being in the real body led to death, one of her favorites being sickness. I’d been here for many months and I’d yet to experience such an affliction. I wondered if it was as terrible as she always made it sound, if it made a person feel as awful as the cold racking my body now.
I looked up at the boy. “I’m not changing in front of you.”
His eyes flickered away. “I’ll go in the other room. I was already going to go in the other room,” he added.
I glared. “Oh, such a gentleman you are.” I raised my shackled wrists from my lap. “Be a real gentleman and unlock these.”
He slipped a key from his pocket and with a simple twist my hands were free. I rubbed my wrists, inspecting the deep-red circles etched into my skin. The boy was already heading across the room, not looking back.
“Aren’t you worried?” I asked.
He stopped and turned. “Worried?”
I stood and faced him, my eyes darting around the room, taking in every detail, the placement of every window, the door, the entrance that led into his bedroom. “That I’ll escape.”
“No.”
The abrupt simplicity of his answer surprised me. “All right. Then maybe I’ll just leave.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” He went to one of the windows and pulled back the curtain. The snow was so thick it was nearly impossible to see through the panes of glass. The wind shrieked as it swirled around the house. “We’re far away from civilization out here, and you would freeze to death before you even managed to travel a mile.”
I knew he was right, but I couldn’t help making the threat. This place, a cottage more than a house, really an old beach shack, was perched along a remote and barren hillside that overlooked the sea. On his bike as we skirted the cliff, the waves roaring and angry to our left, I’d thought about the ice on the road and how one simple slip would send us tumbling into the frigid waters.
For some reason, my arms were raised now, my hands reaching out, maybe toward the boy, or maybe just toward the stove, with its roaring fire, a source of warmth I honestly didn’t have the desire to leave. A wave of exhaustion hit me. They hit a lot lately. Exhaustion would yank me under like the strongest of currents, as strong as the tide surely pulling at the sea right now.
“At some point, the snow will stop,” I said to him. “And then what will you do? Cuff me to a piece of furniture?”
The boy shrugged, peering through the center of the glass, the only spot on the window that wasn’t covered in snow. “I don’t have to worry about that yet. This storm is going to go on for days, at least two, maybe three.” He turned to face me once more. The right side of his mouth curled up in that half smile. “This, Skylar Cruz, is what we Real Worlders call a blizzard.”
>
The wind howled all afternoon.
I sat there alone in the kitchen, the wooden chair pulled close to the stove, as close I could get without burning myself. The boy had hidden away in his bedroom ever since he left me alone to change. At first I didn’t want to put on some stranger’s clothes, and worse, those of a boy who’d snatched me off the street and cuffed me while we sped off on his bike. But then I got so cold my entire body was shaking with it, and the thought of becoming weak with sickness in the middle of nowhere was far worse than peeling off my wet clothes and exchanging them for something dry and warm. I draped my coat, shirt, pants, and socks along the edges of the stove and the back of the other chair. Maybe by nightfall they’d be dry.
The fire snapped and popped, the flame rushing against the little window on the door of the stove, then retreating just as quickly.
I went to work exploring every corner, every nook, everything in this cottage in an attempt to get to know my surroundings, to study them, so when the time came for me to leave, I could do so easily. There wasn’t much to see other than the small kitchen open to the living room and a bathroom off to the side with a shower barely big enough to stand in. The only other place I had left to explore was the room where the boy slept.
He’d been right about the storm. It wasn’t going to let me go anywhere at the moment. I hated to admit it, but Rain was right, too. It had been stupid of me to go into New Port City seeking Inara. It was too risky, and now I was paying for my recklessness. Then again, a small part of me liked that as my absence stretched on, it would become clear that something had happened, and not something good, and this would make Rain worry. Maybe he’d think he’d lost me for forever, and regret as cold and empty as this stretch of coast would overtake him.
The Body Market Page 2