He did. He worked my pants down. I barely felt the air on my skin before his hand gripped my ass.
“Well, would—?” I started.
But he hit me on the back of the head.
It stunned me quiet.
“Shut up,” he said. “I know you think you know me and what I like. But you don’t.”
I thought about getting up, tossing him back, leaving the room.
Except Marcus said not to mess things up.
So I lay there, quiet, and heard him unzipping, didn’t need to look to know he was getting himself ready. Just heard the silly sounds he made, and I rested my cheek against the smooth pattern of the blanket and stared to my right where a chair sat in the corner, empty and a little worn about the handles, with a table beside it and an interface menu bobbing unused just above the surface. Waiting for a command. The lamp was up halfway, so the shadows cut the wall into shards.
He didn’t prepare me at all. He didn’t warn me or say a word, he just shoved himself into me, and I couldn’t help it—any training went out of my mind. I yelled and struggled. I swore at him, but he shoved my face into the bed, and this wasn’t what his file had said, it never mentioned anything about cruelty or humiliation or an inclination for extreme roughness, yet he didn’t stop, and I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. I lost my voice in the pain until I was deaf from it. Blind from it.
It rolled over me like a machine.
The more I moved the worse it felt, so I just stopped.
I stopped.
The menu above the table nodded, expectant, waiting for someone’s hand to intervene and make it come alive.
“Well, pull your pants up,” he said.
I couldn’t move.
“You’re not passing out here, pull your pants up and get out.”
I bled. I felt it even past the numb. I tried to push myself up to my knees, and I guessed I wasn’t moving fast enough because he grabbed my arm to drag me from the bed.
And it was reflex. Or revenge. My switchblade landed in my hand somehow, popped from its sheath in my sleeve. It snapped open, and I stabbed.
Into his arm. He recoiled with a curse, and I stumbled to the floor. Saw his boots. I drove the blade into his foot.
He fell back with a cry, heavy on the carpet, and he hadn’t even pulled up his pants all the way so I saw his thing, all wet and red and still half-aroused, that thing he’d used to rip me apart, and he hadn’t warned me, he knew the rules, he must’ve known, and still he had something to prove, or he was just that cruel. I had tears on my face, but I crawled onto his chest and stabbed him in the heart, just like I’d done with that strit long ago.
Stabbed him to make him bleed, like I was bleeding.
And he bled. A lot.
I commed Estienne. I told him the room number. Then I curled in the corner and watched the stain grow on the carpet.
“What’ve you done?” Estienne said, standing over me. “Yuri, what’ve you done?”
“He hurt me!”
But Estienne wasn’t looking at me, he stared at the body. Its pants were still down. “Come on.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me to my feet. “You have to get the blood off your hands before we walk out of here. Put that blade away. At least you’re wearing black, so it doesn’t show up.”
“Stop it!” I could barely walk, but he made me hobble to the bathroom anyway and waved on the tap himself. Water gushed out and he pried the blade from my hand, folded it, and shoved it into my pants pocket. Then he took my wrists and put my hands under the water. I had no tears. “Why’re you doing this?” I meant, Why don’t you care?
He said, with a little shake in his voice, “The captain is going to be mad.”
Before he took me to see Doc Wachter, he took me to Marcus, who was in the primary cargo bay looking over some of the arms shipments. Crates of it lined up like soldiers on the deck, falsely labeled and electronically sealed. Marcus paused in his conversation with one of the crew and stared at us. At me. Seeing my state.
“What the hell happened?”
“Arnell’s dead,” Estienne said.
Marcus didn’t ask him. He said to me, “What the fuck did you do?” His voice was slow and a cut below an outburst. But his eyes raged. Flame blue.
Everyone was staring. Crew in the bay, Marcus, Estienne. I wasn’t going to act like that bastard hadn’t deserved it, so I looked the captain in the face, even though I was feeling so sick I thought I was going to puke on his shoes.
“He raped me,” I said into his face.
Marcus moved a step until we were toe-to-toe. I would’ve backpedaled, but Estienne was behind me. “That’s what you’re trained for!” he shouted down at me. “It’s not fucking rape when you’re assigned to fucking take it! Do you know what you did?” His hand shot out and grabbed me by the side of my hair. Wrenched my neck to the side. He yelled right into my ear. “Do you know what you just did?” Then before I could answer, move, or make a sound, he said over my shoulder, “Get his friend. Now!”
I heard Estienne go away.
Marcus shoved me to the deck, just pushed my head so hard I lost balance.
“You’re going to learn,” he said. “I know you have it in you, Yuri. You were doing so well. Now what’s gotten into you that you can’t follow simple orders?”
I lay there, half on my side because it hurt too much to actually sit. Supported my weight on my right hand and didn’t want to stand in case the captain decided to toss me down again.
The logic of everything just seemed to stand in columns in my mind.
Don’t look up.
Don’t move.
Don’t make a sound.
I just breathed. It was all I felt.
Then footsteps came up behind me, and Marcus said, “Get up.”
So I hauled myself to my feet and Estienne had Bo-Sheng, holding his arm. Bo-Sheng’s eyes captured mine, and he was scared. He tried to wrench his arm from Estienne’s grip, but he couldn’t, and Bo-Sheng said, “Yuri,” in a choked voice, red eyes, red like his tears were made of blood.
Marcus held out his gun to me. “Shoot him.”
Now I couldn’t breathe. I looked at the captain. I didn’t move.
“Take my gun,” Marcus said, slowly, “and shoot your friend in the head.”
Bo-Sheng was crying. I felt my chest start to heave, to force myself not to join him.
“Take the fucking gun!” Marcus shouted.
It made me jump. I took the gun. It almost slid right out of my grip, but Marcus grabbed my wrist, swung me to face Bo-Sheng, and lifted my arm to aim.
Estienne stepped out of the way.
Bo-Sheng turned and looked at the exit, but two of the crew from the deck were standing there with their own guns out.
“No,” Bo-Sheng said. “Please.”
“You kill him,” Marcus said, “and I’ll call it even for what you did to Arnell.”
“No,” Bo-Sheng said. “Please, Yuri. Please, Captain.”
But Marcus wasn’t listening and my ears rushed with blood.
“He’s injetting drugs,” Marcus said, “and he’s had warning. He’s weak. I don’t want him on my ship. It’s either this or the airlock.”
The airlock, I thought. Like a coward.
“Shoot him,” Marcus said. “And make it count or you’ll be making it worse.”
“Don’t,” Bo-Sheng said. Started to back up, but Estienne gave him a shove to set him back in front of me.
Estienne. He didn’t even look at me. His eyes were on Bo-Sheng.
My hand shook. I couldn’t aim. I didn’t want to aim but it didn’t matter. It was point-blank range. And the captain was right beside me.
“Are you weak? Are you going to screw me again?” he yelled into my ear. “Pull that trigger!”
“Please please please,” Bo-Sheng was saying.
“Do it or you’re next,” Marcus said.
So I him Bo-Sheng. In the head.
I didn’t cry. I handed Marcus
his gun. He grabbed me around the neck, and I thought he was going to break it because now they had to clean up the deck, but he just held me and stared into my eyes. I stared back, but I didn’t really look.
“You’re going to do just fine,” he said. “You kill for me. You kill for this ship. You don’t take it on yourself when you have specific orders. Copy that?”
My voice was hoarse. “Copy that.”
“I want you to think about this, Yuri. Control. For the sake of our Blood.” He meant the Khan. There wasn’t any other blood between us. Not the kind that bonded, anyway.
“Yes, sir.” I remembered that much. The words fell out like some more awake part of me pushed them with a blunt finger.
Marcus let go of me. “Estienne, take him to see Doc.”
I still felt the pressure of his hand. But he wasn’t going to kill me.
But I couldn’t properly breathe.
And now Estienne put his arm around me, held me close. As we walked out he murmured, “It had to be done, Yuri. It had to be done. Arnell made a deal, and now it’s threatened, but if the captain tells them he punished you properly, it might appease them. The deal will go forward. It’ll be all right.”
Fuck the deal, I thought.
Fuck you, I thought.
But I didn’t say anything all through the checkup in Medical, didn’t speak as Estienne took me to my quarters and inside, and held me there in his arms. He said, “Do you want me to stay?”
I said, “Do what you want,” and went into the bathroom. I locked the door. I took out my switchblade and flipped it open and there was blood still crusted on the steel and all over the handle. From that man’s body.
My legs lost their strength. I crouched on the floor, rocking, the blade in my hand.
Why couldn’t I cry?
I wanted to tear at my hair. Claw at my eyes. When I rubbed them my fingertips came away red from the makeup.
My nails were too blunt as they pulled and stretched my sleeves, pushing into my arms.
Why couldn’t I cry.
I was sweating. I was cold. The air sank to the floor and swirled around my ankles and all of my body hurt in the distant way of a half-forgotten dream. Not even the pain would come when I most deserved it now.
So what if the blade was dirty?
So was I.
I pressed the edge to my forearm. Nothing but a pressure, and it wasn’t enough. Not to make me feel.
So I drew it back along my flesh, and the red came out in a line, my scarlet fever. It painted my skin like a tattoo.
THE DEEP
4.14.2198 EHSD—Caged
Taja’s blood is on my hands, and if I don’t do something, so will Archangel’s be. This is what it comes down to, what Finch doesn’t have to say because I hear it already in my head, in the captain’s quarters. My quarters again. But different. Different sheets, different scent, different occupation because of this person I had no intention to save or protect beyond the walls of a prison.
But he’s here, and he wants to protect me. Not in any way physical. But quieter. Intangibly. He sits on the deck in this cabin while I pull at my hair. While I try to claw my arms with my fingernails. He’s never seen me cut, I was always careful about that; but he’s seen the scars on my skin, and he says he knows why I started. He’s heard things from me when I didn’t consciously tell him. But isn’t that what I was trained to do too? Geisha can read people like people read the Send. So many stories.
I want to know yours, he says. Because he doesn’t believe I’m a pirate. Not truly. If he did, he would never touch me.
And if I am completely a pirate, I guess I wouldn’t let myself be touched. I’d never consider doing what we’re going to do. I’d never be feeling this need, like my scarlet fever, to tuck myself away from my memories. To go back, somehow, to another birth. Search in some other womb for answers, because this one suffocates. The mother fluids try to drown, or she’s a drug addict pumping filth into my system. This is what it feels like, even here on my own ship. My lungs are black from breathing someone else’s shit.
No, Finch says. Just by the way he sits here with me. Just in how I can read in his eyes that killing Archangel would be another layer of taint. There is an umbilical cord to Caligtiera and I need a sharp blade.
It’s so tempting to cut. It’s what I want, it’s my release. But now Finch looks at me and stills the clawing on my arms.
Caligtiera wants me to set up the initial meeting with Lukacs at Ghenseti, but Finch and I work out a plan. I tell Cal that Lukacs wants a pickup from Austro Station, no arguments, because he’s doing business there, then I comm Lukacs from the memorized codes in my head and tell him Caligtiera wants me to pick him up at Austro Station. It’s an old trick, usually reserved for setting up blind dates, but it works exceptionally well when the parties in question aren’t communicating. We’ll all rendezvous at Ghenseti. Finch is coming with me to Austro and while I meet with Lukacs and his partner, Finch will find Otter to tell him about Cal’s plans for Archangel.
Otter. Tunnel kid on Austro Station, sympathizer contact working for the Warboy, but also someone who knows Captain Azarcon. If I can’t get to the captain directly, this will have to do. I’m risking Finch, but I can’t trust anyone else, and Finch says simply, I’m not staying on this ship if you aren’t here.
It makes sense I’d take him with me anyway. Everyone already thinks he’s my protégé.
With Taja dead, my loyal crew wouldn’t be keen on Ops. They didn’t know about Taja’s deal anyway, so in a command meeting in my office I just tell Rika and Piotr that I’m running an errand for Caligtiera to pick up a couple of clients. Captains don’t have to overly explain themselves, and it isn’t any surprise that Caligtiera might want to test me in some way. Rika will be left in command, and she’s pleased about that, not because she wants the seat on a permanent basis, but unlike Estienne she rather likes it on occasion.
And Finch is here, in my quarters, two hours before we plan to leave. I sit looking through the comp to try and crack Taja’s security protocols. To get into her files. To not look at Finch as he sits on the bunk with Dexter next to him on the locker talking in bird voice.
“Yuri,” Finch says.
I keep my back to him, staring at the comp. I’ve stopped seeing the words a long time ago.
“You should go sleep,” I tell him, not turning. “You mightn’t be able to for a while.”
I hear him shift, the flap of a blanket that he went ahead and found somewhere and changed with the sheets while I was talking to Rika and Piotr. Just like he removed everything that was Taja’s from the quarters while I was gone.
Now he’s in my bed, not saying a word. I keep staring at the comp until I start to hear him breathe, then I turn and look. He’s a cocooned shape beneath the heavy brown blanket, curled toward the bulkhead. Steady rise and fall of breaths. Maybe this is the first real sleep he’s had since we left Earth. Even Dexter’s asleep on the locker, beak beneath his wing.
I stand and walk over, look down at Finch. He trusts me. But of course he does, we slept in enclosed quarters for two months.
But there’s more here. He put himself near enough to the bulkhead to give room for me to lie down. Why this change? Because he saw me break a little? Because Taja treated him worse?
I could sleep on the deck. I tell the lights, quietly, to dim to 20 percent, then I fold down beside the bed to sit, leaning my arms on the mattress, watching his back.
I don’t realize my head drops to the hollow in my arms and I sleep until I start to feel a hand in my hair, stroking. And there’s dark until I take a deep breath and lift my eyes. Finch has rolled over and watches me now. Still half-lidded with sleep.
“Come up here,” he says.
Maybe it’s my fatigue or the fact it’s an invitation without any expectation in his eyes, but I crawl up beside him and lie on my stomach on top of the blanket, head turned away and arms beneath the pillow. So he doesn’t have to look at my
face. He can roll away if he wants.
But instead he folds his half of the blanket over me and I feel his arm make a tight line across my back. To hold the blanket there maybe. Or maybe just to hold me. I’ve taken the pillow, but he doesn’t ask for it, he doesn’t need it, he just rests his cheek on the back of my shoulder, a shell against my side. I feel his breath against the ends of my hair, his breathing against my body. Both of us clothed, but I don’t think I’ve been this close to anyone.
I shut my eyes, and so does he. I don’t have to look at him to know.
Somehow Finch is in my bed, a long warmth against my body. Making me nervous in some weird way, just by breathing. I look at the white glow of the time stamp on the wall. Slept an hour, but it feels like I sank for a week. His head’s still on the back of my shoulder, and I think of Estienne.
And even now it builds up pressure behind my eyes, so I sniff, and it’s pathetic and old, this feeling, this reaction to roll over, dislodging him only enough so I can put my arm over him and tighten my hold as if this is something that can’t be broken. When in fact everything breaks. Especially people.
He wakes up, I don’t feel it, but maybe I’m holding him too tight because he says, “What’s wrong?”
Of course everything is wrong, we’ve talked about it, I opened my arm and bled it out for him, this world that he’s in. But he asks it anyway because it’s not the world he’s asking about.
It’s dark, and I’m glad of it, but not even darkness can hide a voice. “Nothing.”
He shifts onto his back, and I let him, pulling my arm away, but he grabs it and lays it over his chest again, then he rests his hand along it, just easy like that.
“You haven’t kicked me out yet,” he says, “so it’s not so bad.”
“I have a knife under my pillow.”
“You want me to get it?” He’s amused in some way.
“Finch.” I really don’t understand him. “I’ve killed in my sleep.”
“Is that a threat or a résumé?”
“Why are you joking about this? It’s not funny.”
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