The Color of Rain

by Cori McCarthy

  Outside, the wreckage of Imreas is just distant smoke. We ignore the ominous, wheezing leak of Melee’s hull, breathing recklessly. I knock Ben onto the bunk and straddle him. I know what to do, and this time I do it because I want to. Not for money or trade.

  My hands trip down to his waist, but he captures them at his belt.

  “Whoa,” he mumbles midkiss. “Wait a second.”

  I don’t want to stop. “Please. I need to do this for real before I die. Please.” But he captures my wrists before I can open his pants, and it’s too much like Johnny’s grip. I rip them away, sitting up. “Don’t hold me down. What’s your problem?”

  He rubs his face and speaks through his fingers. “I may seriously regret this later, especially considering we’ll most likely be dead by tomorrow, but we should slow down.”

  “You’re rejecting me?” I slide off him. “Because I’m a prostitute?”

  “That’s not . . . you’re not . . .”

  “I’m Johnny’s girl!” I start to breathe way too hard.

  “You are not Johnny’s girl, Rain. You never were because you never gave up. Never gave in to him.”

  “What’s this then?” I shove the scarlet bracelet in his face. “A fashion statement?”

  “Hell.” He sits up on the thin mattress. “I want to slow down because I like you. I don’t want to hurt you or push you. Really, I—”

  I wave my hand in his face to shut him up. “Yeah. You really like me. We’ve already had this conversation.”

  He knocks my hand away. “I fucking love you.”

  My spine turns to ice.

  “And it feels horrible,” he adds. “Like there’s something manic in my body that won’t be still. Kissing you is a release. A massive release, but”—he says, pointing to the bunk—“this is too much too fast. I feel like I’m crashing, and I don’t want it to be this way with you. I want . . .”

  I wait for whatever else he needs to say. The frozen parts of me are already melting, and I touch the soft line of his collarbone and shoulders. Johnny’s body was too sharp—all angles and corners.

  “I want this to be real,” he finally croaks. “You feeling any of this?”

  “Not exactly,” I admit a little too fast. “But let me explain.”

  He groans and tosses himself back into the mattress. “Please, Rain, explain why I’m such a blind idiot.”

  I close in on his face, and my hair tumbles over one side of us. “I spent all this time teaching myself how to do this and feel nothing. And I’ve gotten good at it. Too good.” I take a deep breath and close my eyes. “Do you remember the lake?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “Well, I can’t really be with you without feeling that side of me kick in. Like I just have to do it. Get it over with.” I’m suddenly so relieved that Ben stopped us, that I kiss him. It’s slow and steady this time. It feels real. It makes my whole body tingle and swell.

  I pull away, and his finger twirls around one of my curls. “All the others . . . everyone I’ve been with . . . they’re stacked between us like a wall. Brick for brick.”

  His hand drops. “The others?”

  “The ones I sold myself to. There are so many that I lost count, but they all blend into one burning nightmare.” The words catch and jar. “So maybe I did ruin myself.” A tear dares to break free, and I scrub it away. “You were right. I’m damaged.”

  He tugs both of my arms until I relent and lie across his chest. Another tear finds me, slipping from my cheek to his skin. “So we wait,” he says. “We’ll just be friends until you forget this run and all its demons. It’s not like you’re ever going to have to do it again.”

  My bracelet tag glows scarlet only inches from my face. “I’ll never forget.”

  I’m the color of it.

  “Then I’ll wait until you let it go.” He forces a chuckle. “Hell, I only have until tomorrow most likely.”

  A tiny laugh breaks from me. “True. We should be dead by then, right?”

  Before he can answer, Melee shudders so hard that I’m almost tossed from the bunk. Ben’s arms tighten around me just as another shockwave makes the metal hull screech and moan.

  He pulls his shirt on as he slides into the captain’s chair. Through the windshield, a great chain net closes over Melee. Ben presses a few things on the command panel and swivels to face me.

  “Looks like Johnny couldn’t wait for tomorrow.”

  I can’t take my eyes off the view as we’re hauled to our deaths.

  The hulking silver of Imreas comes closer and closer, rimmed with the sapphire light of her mighty engines. It’s the same blue that Walker and I marveled at when we sat beneath the spacedocks, but now the color is promising my death.

  “It’s too bad we can’t tell your uncle what’s happening to us. Maybe he doesn’t know.”

  “You give him too much credit. He knows that he shouldn’t have left us out here. My mom is going to kill him.” Ben bites his bottom lip and taps something on the glass control screen. “But you know what . . .”

  “What are you doing?” I ask as Ben types things on the glass screen.

  “A last call for help. Or really a screaming accusation at my uncle.” He taps something final, and his fingers pause. “I sent a transmission that should reach him while he tracks down Stride.” He points to the screen, and I lean over his shoulder to read:

  TO TITAN SHIP HOLMES. ATTN: K. RYAN. MELEE BEING RECAPTURED BY IMREAS. PASSENGERS TO BE EXECUTED BY J. VALE.

  “Lovely,” I breathe. “It’s like reading your own headstone.”

  “They need to know what’s happening. It’s a long shot, but maybe they can capture Johnny while he’s busy torturing us to death.”

  “Vale?” I wonder aloud. “Johnny’s last name is Vale?” The sentence sticks on my tongue. “He shouldn’t have a last name. He’s not human enough for that.” I mean Johnny, but I’m thinking of my own lost name. Does anyone know that I’m Rain White? Am I still her after everything I’ve done?

  Ben doesn’t see my struggle. “Yeah. The malevolent Vale clan: Johnny, Leland, and their father, Errick. They make up the muscles, spine, and brain of the Touched slave trade.”

  “I heard Leland and Johnny talk about their father. Sounds like the devil himself. Wouldn’t this Errick be the real one to go after? I mean, from what I know about Johnny, he’s nothing without his father’s prodding.”

  “He’s the head, all right, and he leads a strong and untouchable band of followers. He’s got a fleet of Runners under his thumb that, well, let’s just say there are Runners loyal to Vale in the Void and then there is the K-Force. And the former outnumbers the latter a hundred to one.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah.” He sighs and spins in his chair. His knees press into my legs, and I like the unyielding feel of him. “But we’ve helped them nab Leland. You helped them. We can die knowing that we amputated a significant limb of the Vale business.”

  “Victory,” I mock, and he almost smiles. “What if Leland gets away?”

  “We’ll never know.”

  Something bangs and clamps, and I grip Ben’s shoulders to keep my balance. The windshield has been blanked of space and stars, and now all we can see is Imreas’s airlock as the doors close around us.

  “It’ll take them about twenty minutes to hack through the door,” he says.

  I squeeze his shoulders. “It’s not you he wants, Ben. Not really. I could go out to him, and you could stay in the ship and lock the door behind me. Maybe he’ll take so long with me that your uncle will come in time for you.”

  He stands. “Like hell would I let that go down, Rain. Like hell.”

  “I know.” I reach for him, and he pushes into my arms. His mouth presses my neck without really kissing, and I squeeze my eyes. I can’t be responsible for Ben’s death—and just maybe he’ll make it back to the Edge. Maybe he’ll see his mom again, and something right and good will make it through all of this. Just maybe he
’ll be able to recover Walker.

  I can hope, can’t I?

  I guide his chin to my face and press my lips to his while slipping the dose rod out of his pocket. I break from him to check that it’s on the knock-out setting while he whispers a sort of good-bye into my ear. When I don’t respond, he pulls out of my hold.

  “Rain, did you hear me?”

  “If you did get free, if they came for you in time, would you try to help Walker? Maybe you could get him back.”

  “Of course, but what are you—”

  “I’m sorry.” I inject him in the thigh, and his weight crumples in my arms. I guide him into the captain’s chair and turn the rod in my hand, switching the setting to black. It would be so easy to end it all right now, but I’m no coward.

  Johnny will need to be distracted long enough for the K-Force to receive Ben’s message and hopefully send help. I slip the dose rod back in Ben’s pocket. No cheating this time. I have to do this by myself.

  I have to die as slowly as possible.

  Melee locks behind me. The inner door of the airlock is open, and a single shadow stretches through from the catwalk.

  I am here.

  And this is happening.

  CHAPTER

  31

  For once, Johnny isn’t as sharp as his shadow. His hair is uncombed and scruff lines each side of his jaw.

  “Hello, Rain.”

  But his voice is still black.

  I step onto the catwalk, gripping the rail. “Looks like you’ve hit a rough patch, Johnny.”

  “Someone blew a hole in my ship. That someone is going to be hung by her own hair.”

  I take another step out of the airlock. I have to keep his focus on me and make sure that he forgets about Ben. “I’m surprised,” I say in my best playful voice. “No crew? Passengers? I thought for sure you’d want an audience for this.”

  The docking bay is abandoned. On the left, the catwalk, which led to where Melee hung, is broken and dangling over the unknown depth of the ship’s guts. Beyond it, the scraps of metal used to patch the hole make warping, uneasy sounds. Death howls.

  His knuckles are strained on the guardrail, but his other hand is deep in his pocket, no doubt gripping that stone-handled knife or maybe the silver lighter.

  I take another step toward him, and a disappointed look crosses his face. He cocks his head to look behind me. “Where’s your Mec toy? I’ll start with him.”

  “Dead. Didn’t make it through the crash. Why do think you couldn’t reach him?” It’s a gamble, but I know that Johnny must have tried to attack Ben through the shocking mechanism on his com—and failed to find the signal.

  His eyebrows bend. “I don’t believe you. You’re too calm about it.”

  “You know, Johnny, I’m starting to think that you never knew me. Didn’t I only use him to release the Touched on Entra? And did I just use him to blast a hole through your ship or do I love him?”

  I love him.

  The thought hits me like a bullet, and I can barely breathe. I love Ben, and he loves me. How in the world did that happen?

  I clear my throat. “You decide.”

  He narrows his eyes. “You don’t love him. You’ve been with me, but then I don’t think you love me either. You’ve been using everyone.”

  “Bingo,” I tease. “It’s almost all gone my way. I’m that good.”

  “Not with your crazy brother. I saw him out there, floating into oblivion. You didn’t mean for that to happen during your not-so-brilliant getaway.”

  “I said ‘almost.’” My voice falls. I really have lost my brother, but I can’t quite feel it. It’s like the emotion is paused inside me, waiting until I can wrap my head around it.

  He smiles slickly. “I knew you’d give me a challenge even in the end. You took away everything that I could hurt you with. You are that good.”

  “Nothing to lose. Everything to gain.”

  He almost looks moved—and I wonder if Johnny ever loved me beyond his lust, but someone runs down the catwalk, breaking our staring contest. A boyish crew member wearing a flight suit three sizes too big carries a large welding torch over his shoulder. His beating steps slow when he sees me. “Captain, you still want me to break open the ship?”

  “Maybe later,” he says. “What I wanted came to me.”

  “So you want me to stay?” the crew member asks in a squeaky voice. “Or leave?” Johnny doesn’t answer, and the boy is clueless enough not to get the picture. “Captain? What should I do?” Johnny is close to snapping again, and this boy is too close to him. But he doesn’t move. “Captain?”

  Johnny shoves the boy, using the weight of the welding torch to send him over the edge of the waist-high railing. He screams and falls. Horrible sounds echo up as his body breaks against the gears so far beneath us, sounds which rattle inside me and make me sway with vertigo.

  My body throbs to the tune of a screaming siren, but I move closer to Johnny—within arm’s reach. “Is that what you’re going to do with me? How boring.” I slide up so that I’m perched on the guardrail. One light shove and I’ll go down just like the crew member did. “You used to have more creativity, Johnny. How limp you’ve become.”

  He grabs for my neck, and I don’t try to stop him. He leans me out over the drop, nothing keeping me up but his fingers around my throat. His eyes are fierce, his teeth bared, but I don’t scream or fight back, and it takes the fire from him.

  “Maybe you’re right.” He brings me back to the catwalk. “I can do better, and I wouldn’t mind an audience. You made a mockery of me in front of my crew by somehow evading that alarm and destroying part of my ship.” He flattens the creases out of his dress shirt. “But know this, there’s no way you’re getting out of this one with your heart still beating.”

  Johnny hauls me from one end of the crew deck to the other. He yanks me off my feet, ripping out hanks of my hair, but I’ve slipped deep into that voided place of submission. I would even fight the moans and cries coming from me if I didn’t know how much he loves the music of my pain.

  He wants the drama, the faithful cracking open of the crew doors as we pass. Their whispers and expressions feed his enthusiasm like liquor, and by the time he’s dropped me by the elevator on the other side of the ship, blood runs down my forehead and the back of my neck.

  Strings of red hair spot the hallway in my wake.

  Johnny grins sickly. “That was fun. Where shall we go next? Passenger level? You still have friends there from your days as a blue tag, if I remember correctly.” The elevator doors open, and I let him kick me inside.

  Friends? He means my regulars, the men that I slept with. Lovely.

  When we reach the floor, he jerks me to my feet and marches me across the common room. The place is empty for once, and Johnny drags me to the Rainbow Bar.

  The bar is not empty. In fact, the damage to the ship and alarms and whatever else has happened while I was aboard Melee seem to have given Lionel his thickest crowd of drinkers yet. Still, they part for Johnny, clearing his two favorite seats by the counter. I can feel the eyes of a hundred drunken and terrified passengers like prodding fingers.

  I lock eyes with a girl wearing a blue-rimmed bracelet, catching the pity in her expression before she turns back to the drink in her hand. Johnny tosses me into the chair and settles himself upon his as though it were a throne. Lionel approaches, and I read his masked surprise in the way he takes twice as long as usual to pour our drinks.

  He sets the red syrupy liquid before me, but Johnny pushes it back. “Something stronger. Something strong enough to burn blue.” He smiles and digs through his pocket, dropping the knife and lighter on the counter.

  Lionel reaches deep into his cabinets, bringing out a dusty bottle of something as clear as water. He pours a small amount, and Johnny pounds the countertop until he doubles it.

  “Lay your hand flat, Rain,” he says silkily as though he’s asking me to take my shirt off.

  I do it. P
alm down.

  He flips the knife open and stabs my hand straight through.

  I scream, almost knocked out from the streaking pain.

  The Rainbow Bar falls silent, every eye glued to the knife spearing my hand to the bar. Lionel’s are the worst—peeled open like he’s watching a gory fight to the death. He tries to mouth something to me, but I look away. I don’t want him hurt because of this. He showed me a little kindness when I needed it. I stare instead at my hand, blood welling around the blade.

  Johnny tastes the clear drink, and then spits a little across my hand. I seethe as the liquor hits my wound and sears up the nerves in my arm.

  “Captain,” I hear a familiar voice behind me, but I can’t turn.

  Johnny faces the speaker.

  “I know this girl. If she’s a problem, I’ll take her off your hands. I’ll buy her from you.”

  “You going to pay for the hole that she punched through my ship, too?” Johnny smacks his lips. The liquor he’s downed must be strong as I can already see a haze in his eyes. “What’s your name again?”

  “Tobern. I boarded at Earth City. We played cards together on Entra.” He forces a bad laugh. “You won.”

  Tobern. I still can’t turn, but I know his thin body. He wasn’t as bad as some of the others—and yet he paid for me all the same.

  “Well, Tobern, here’s a notion: Captain always wins.” Johnny yanks the knife out of my hand, and I don’t have a chance to screech before I hear the oof behind me.

  And the thump on the floor.

  Several people gasp, and a woman in the corner chants some kind of prayer.

  Johnny finishes his liquor; his face twists as he swallows the burning stuff. He hauls me off my stool by the elbow. “I think we’ve made our point. Don’t you, Rain?”

  I trip on Tobern’s arm. He’s lying on his side across the floor. Blood seeps from a wound in his chest, and his eyes are a blank brown. Maybe he didn’t deserve a medal for bravery or morality, but he didn’t deserve this.

  “Clean up the mess, Lionel.” Johnny pounds the counter and leads me out. I glance through the crowd that has shrunk back to the edges of the room. No one dares move, not that I blame them. And as I turn one last time, I see a familiar line of razor-straight hair peeking from the storage room door. Gen, one of the girls I saved from Leland.