Snowburn

by Frost, E J

  “Where—?”

  She shakes her head. Pulls back a little and slides something between my lips. I suck on it. Fresh, life-giving water floods my mouth. I close my eyes and gulp it down.

  Another sharp jab of pain jolts me. I have a brief view of Kez sitting next to me in a small space defined by hanging plaz sheets. Then darkness is pulled across my vision like a curtain. “Kezra,” I whisper, as the darkness sucks me down.

  “No!” Her sharp shout snaps me back to consciousness. “Don’t you say my name like that!”

  I blink. Focus on her face. “Like what?”

  “Like you’re telling me goodbye.” She cups my face in her hands. Her fingers are bloodstained. “Stay with me.”

  I chuckle weakly. “Okay, kitten.”

  “Don’t you think about leaving me. I’ll follow you wherever you go,” she says. Her little face is as set and ferocious as her tone.

  “You do have first-class stalkin’ skills.”

  “Fuck you. Stay awake and tease me for the rest of your life.”

  “That’s a deal.” But darkness keeps chewing away at the edges of my vision, no matter how hard I push it back. “Where are we?”

  “You’re in Gray’s Grotto, Mister Snow.” Man’s voice. Behind me. Older. Authoritative. There’s a tugging sensation, inside my back, and a wave of pain so deep and hard it turns my guts liquid. Fuck.

  “You Doc Gray?” I grunt. I’ve never heard of Gray’s Grotto, but grottos are local slang for chopdocs: underground hospitals/pharmacies/head-shops for those who can’t afford legit medical care. Or who need something a legit medcen won’t supply.

  “That I am. You, on the other hand, are not Mister Snow. Or not Sandringham Snow, son of Rhesa and Sothfe Snow, born on Irroth on seven-four-eighty-four.”

  I tense, but Kez catches my face in her hands again. Holds my eyes. She wouldn’t be holding me, looking at me so calmly, if we were in danger.

  “You’ll be able to pass more easily for Mister Snow before we’re done here. But first I have to get the rest of this tegli out of your shoulder.”

  My head spins as the tugging in my back gets harder.

  “Almost there.” The chop doc sounds like he’s gritting his teeth. “Try to stay awake.”

  “Okay, Doc.” I hyperfocus. Take in the tiny details of Kez’s anxious face. The pores in the pale skin between her brows. The golden flecks in her blue irises. She has a white scar the size of a freckle between the corner of her left eye and the bridge of her nose. I try to reach out and touch it. Discover that I’m strapped down. I grunt in irritation.

  “Try to stay still,” Kez says. She strokes my cheeks. Looks into my eyes. All this eye contact would be hot if I wasn’t strapped to a fucking autodog slab while a chop doc digs a sea monster out of my shoulder.

  I hear a deep sigh behind me and a clatter of chitin against metal. The grinding pain in my back eases to a dull, deep ache.

  “That’s it,” the chop doc says. “Let’s turn him over and get this boneset into him.”

  Kez reaches down and loosens the strap around my chest. I shift, getting ready to roll. Grab the edge of the slab with my right hand.

  Lightning shoots through my right shoulder. So hot and sharp I swear I can hear it sizzle under my skin. I blink, trying to clear my eyes. Feel the hard edge of the table against my cheek. It’s nice and cool. I rest my face against that coolness while the lightning wipes away sight and sound and thought.

  I’ve always been a light sleeper. An instant-waker. Comes from being an orphan. Never really feeling safe. But when I have Kez in my arms, I sleep deep. Wake slow. I don’t know where I am or how I got there, but down deep in that reptile brain that’s done such a good job of keeping me alive all these years, I know I’m holding Kez, so I wake slow and gentle as a baby.

  My eyes focus on a fuzzy dome beside me. A scrubby forest dotted with the stumps of dead trees. I blink a couple of times. Reach up and brush my fingertips across that strange landscape.

  “How’re you feeling?” Kez whispers without turning over.

  “What the fuck happened to your hair?” I ask.

  She blows out a breath. “You nearly die and that’s the first question you ask?”

  I rub the ragged wisps tucked behind her left ear between my fingers. Her hair’s soft, but it feels abrasive against my fingertips. “Answer me.”

  She sighs again. “My vcom wasn’t enough to pay the chop doc. So I sold my hair.”

  “You what?” I half-sit and feel pain lance through my shoulder. “Fuck, didn’t he close me up?”

  “That tegli chewed a hole as big as my fist in your back. And cracked your shoulder blade. We had to pour newskin into you. It’s still setting, so don’t move around too much.”

  I lie back and run my hand over her head again. Feel the fuzzy nubs that are all that’s left of her dreadlocks. I like the texture. And the graceful length of her neck that’s left bare. I trace the long scar that Ma Quaak gave her with my thumb.

  “You get a good price?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “You didn’t die.”

  That is a pretty good price. “Yeah.”

  “And he threw in a new set of fingerprints.” She scratches at the fuzz, pulls at one of the stubs until it begins to unravel. “The monofilament was more valuable than my actual hair. That’s what paid for most of it.” She’s silent for a moment. Then she says quietly, “It’ll grow back.”

  I blow a warm breath across her bare neck. “I like it. Just as it is.” Let my eyes travel slowly up that pale, sweet length. I love how vulnerable it makes her look. I lean in and run my lips from the knob at the base of her neck to her nape. She shivers, wriggling her soft ass against me. “I really like it,” I murmur into her skin.

  “An hour ago you were almost dead.” She reaches back and prods my hip. “So don’t get any ideas.”

  “I’m feelin’ better.” I mouth her nape. Sweeter than the sweetest awril. “I know who I got to thank for that.”

  She rolls over, props herself up on one elbow and looks down at me. A frown draws the skin of her forehead into furrows. Her eyes and nose are red, like she’s been crying, or is about to. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re sorry for savin’ my life?” I cup her face. Her soft skin feels good in my hands. Feels good to move without pain. I’m sore, and I’m going to be sorer when the derms I can feel stuck to my shoulders and neck wear off, but it’s the pain of skin and muscle healing. I’ll take that kind of pain any day.

  She shakes her head. Kisses my palm. “My sister shot you. Twice.”

  I consider that for a moment. Maybe someone snuck up on me during all the noise of the bowship’s departure, but I doubt it. And they wouldn’t have tossed Kez’s backpack into the drink if they had. Yeah, I’m pretty sure Erin shot me. Twice. But now that the worst is over, I’m having a hard time hating her for it.

  “We’re even,” I say finally. “I’ve been a shiv in her side since the start of the run. She was just gettin’ her own back.” Strange thing is, I respect her more now than I did before she shot me. “I’m not goin’ after her, kitten. An’ I’m sure as hell not gonna hold it against you. So why are you apologizin’?”

  She shakes her head again. “I can’t believe this happened. It’s bad enough I’ve had to sell practically everything we have and we still don’t have enough to pay for the hover tomorrow, much less a place to sleep, and I’ve dragged you through all this and then my sister shot you—!”

  I chuckle and pull her down so she’s tucked against my chest. I stroke her bangs back from her face. Kiss her until she stops protesting. Until the red of her nose and eyes fades to her usual soft pink flush. Until she’s kissing me back despite the fact we’re just curtained off from what I can clearly hear is a busy medcen with just a few thin sheets of plaz.

  Finally, I run my fingers down the back of her neck and tickle her until she giggles. No sound is as good as the sound of her laughter.

  “So yo
u sold everything we got, huh?”

  She sighs. “Pretty much. The suits were trashed after that orclas hit us. They weren’t worth more than a few credits. I kept your boots and your big knives.”

  “You coulda sold the kukris.”

  She shakes her head against my shoulder. “They’re special. I don’t know anything about knives, but even I can tell that.”

  I kiss the tip of her nose. My smart kitten.

  “Besides, we might need them. Tiv’s not the safest place.”

  That’s the truth. The Cloud Cities are all extremely unfriendly to outsiders, but the ports are dangerous to boot. The kukris will probably come in handy if we’re spending a night sleeping out in Tiv.

  I take a deep breath, relish the absence of pain. Stretch. My right shoulder twinges in a way that says I shouldn’t fuck with it for a while, and the rest of me’s stiff and sore, but that’s all. I smile down at my kitten. “You ever sleep rough?”

  “Not recently. And when I did, I haven’t really slept. Just found a place to wait out the night. It’s not safe for a girl.”

  Also the truth. I think of Joh, the kid who crawled into my bed on Enlyoss. Wanting protection from the night-monsters. I gave her one night of safety, mostly from myself. It wasn’t enough.

  “You’ll sleep tonight. We both will.” I roll my shoulders experimentally and when there’s nothing more than a grumble, slowly sit up. A thermoblanket falls to puddle in my lap, baring my chest to the night air. The air’s pleasantly warm; it’ll cool down a few more degrees overnight. Good sleeping weather. All we’ll need is a groundcloth to sleep on, and a light cover over us. Or a nice thermoblanket.

  “Think Doc Gray would mind us borrowing this for the night?” I ask Kez, fingering the thermoblanket.

  She sits up beside me. “No, but I think we should ask.”

  I chuckle. “Such a low opinion you got of me, kitten.”

  She rubs her cheek against my shoulder. I stretch my left arm around her cautiously; smile at the absence of pain. “The doc patch this up, too?”

  “Mmm-hmm. You tore your rotator cuff. And a bunch of ligaments in your knee.”

  “All that and new fingerprints, too.” I lift my left hand from Kez’s bare arm and flex my hand between us. When I touch my thumb to forefinger, I can feel the slight roughness of my new fingerprints. “You got a good price, kitten.”

  “I also got some clothes. But I didn’t think to ask for a blanket.” She sighs. “I’m glad you’re awake.”

  “Me too.” For lotsa reasons.

  She swings her legs off the cot, pushes the blanket aside and stands. She’s wearing a sleeveless, loose shift that falls to her ankles. Her breasts and hips create soft swells against the dress’s straight lines. Not too revealing. A pattern slides across the fabric: pale gray roses. Then another one, pink hearts that pop in sprays of bubbles. I chuckle. Not my kitten’s style. Not at all.

  She catches me staring and smiles at me. I know that smile. Not her mischievous grin. This is a wicked smile. Nothing good comes of that smile. “I picked out something for you,” she says.

  She moves to the autodog slab, ducking the tangle of diagnostic arms that hang over it. She picks up a blue bundle from a folded pile sitting on the slab and holds it out to me.

  “Anythin’ in black?”

  Kez shakes her head. “What you see is what you get.”

  Blue check, haylon green, deep red and dusty orange. “I’ll go naked.”

  Kez’s smile widens. “I’m sure the Marketers would appreciate that. Civil Patrol? Probably not so much.”

  I take the blue bundle from her. Hold it out, expecting it to unfold into pants. It unspools into a long rectangle with ties at either end. “You’re just fucking with me now.”

  “Nope. All the rage here. You’ll fit right in.”

  “I am not wearin’ a skirt.”

  “What, too feminine for you? Come on, if I have to wear this stupid LeLo dress, you can wear a skirt.” She gestures at her dress, which has shifted to stylized kemwars, running in spirals from her breasts to the hem.

  “Suits you, kitten.”

  She snorts eloquently. Gathers the rest of the clothes into a bundle that she tucks under her arm. Guess the other options are even less appealing. I stand slowly, getting my balance. Shake out the skirt and wrap it around me. When I tie it off and look up, Kez is watching me, grin stretched as wide as an orclas.

  “Nice calves.”

  I shift so I can give her the finger. Feel the breeze around my balls as I move. “Well, it’s easy access, I’ll give it that.”

  “Let me get the Doc. He wants to check you before we go.”

  “No need, Miz Kerryon.” A skeletally thin man pushes through the plaz drape. “Although I may look it, I’m not deaf.”

  When he turns to me, I see why he’s running a black-market medcen. He’s an extreme Mod: so heavily geneered and surgically modified that he can’t pass for human anymore. His skull’s been stretched into a peak. His ears have been removed: crescent depressions on either side of his head are all that remain. His eyes have been replaced with silvery fish eyes. I can see gill slits on the sides of his neck, and webs between his fingers.

  “What’re you doin’ on land, Doc?” I ask.

  “It’s orclas mating season, Mister Snow. Not the best time to take a dip. As you discovered.”

  I sit down on the cot so he can examine me. He prods at the newskin seal with cold fingers, and I have a vague memory of how cool his hands felt digging the tegli out of my shoulder. Soothing. I can see why his chopshop is busy, despite his modifications.

  “Excellent adhesion,” he says. “You’re good to go. Try not to get eaten by any more tegli, Mister Snow.”

  “Thanks, Doc. Any chance we could borrow this for tonight?” I finger the edge of the thermoblanket.

  “Take it with my compliments. I’ll find you some pillows, too. My apologies for not being able to offer you accommodation. Between orclas attacks and a tainted load of Hex that’s just hit the island, we are unusually busy tonight.”

  I look over my shoulder at him, searching for the catch. I’m not used to such generosity from strangers.

  He looks back at me with those strange, flat eyes. “I don’t like kicking my patients out half-healed, Mister Snow. Both you and Miz Kerryon need rest.”

  I shift until I can hold my hand out to him. “I’ll take care of that, Doc. Don’t worry.”

  He shakes my hand. His lips are thin and lightly scaled, but they stretch into a smile. “Good luck to you, Mister Snow.” He nods at Kez. “Miz Kerryon.”

  Kez follows the fish-doc off to get pillows and a carrier while I inspect my boots. They’re a write-off. The lining is soaked through. The uppers are beginning to dry and crack. Guess I’m going barefoot. Kez is, too. Her footwear was built in to the shadowsuit. If we’re lucky, we’ll find somewhere on the beach so we’re walking on sand instead of permacrete.

  I pull my kukris out of their sheaths. The blades are fine, although they still need cleaning, which I take care of. Once they’re clean, I cut the sheaths out of my boots, then a strip off the skirt to hang the sheaths on. I tie the make-shift belt to my waist, inside the skirt, and tuck my knives away. Having their familiar weight at my waist makes me feel more like myself. Even in a fucking skirt.

  I run my hand over my head. Feel the stubble there. Been a long time since I stood next to Kez at her house’s triple sink and shaved. It’s tempting to try to get back to Nock tonight. But that’s a long way to go with no credits. Longer when Kez and I are both so battered. Once we’re back on the mainland, I’ll be able to call in some favors. Get us back to Nock with minimum effort. But out here on the Cloudlands, we’re cut off. Nothing to do but wait it out. Find a place to sleep tonight and hop that hover in the morning.

  But I can make us comfortable. Least I can do for my kitten.

  I draw one of the kukris, lather my face and head with foam from the autodog’s tiny slot s
ink, and shave. Step one in making tonight comfortable for my kitten: not abrading that soft skin.

  Step two is finding us something to eat, and step three is finding somewhere warm and dry to sleep. When Kez returns with a powder-purple, fringed carrier, I help her fold the thermoblanket into it. Doc Gray provides two pillows that also go into the carrier. I thank the fish-doc, tuck Kez’s arm through mine and get on with step two.

  The chopdoc is just a few steps down an alley from the Night Market. I’ve heard about Tiv’s all-night market, but I’ve never stayed overnight in the Cloudlands, so this is my first time seeing its glorious chaos. Despite the fact that the Cloudlands have an ostensible curfew of twenty-one hundred and it’s already half-past by the chrono in my eye, the Market is heaving. Men, women, and some that are not recognizably either pack the narrow alleys of the city’s waterfront and spill down onto the long crescent beach. Small floaters scoot overhead. ‘Bots wind through the crowd, collecting and delivering. Kez elbows me in the ribs when I chuckle too loudly at a woman who strolls past us. She’s leading a pagia, one of the bipedal, carnivorous, feathered reptiles native to the Cloudlands, on a polymem chain. The woman’s hair is done up in twists that bob like the lizard’s crest, and she wears a black and white dress that flutters around her like feathers. Her legs are bright yellow and scaled, and I can’t tell if it’s fabric or she’s had her skin regenned to look like her pet’s.

  “Cute couple,” I tell Kez. She gives me a wry grin.

  The beach is defined by the port to the north and high cliffs to the south. On the cliffs, the houses of Tiv’s affluent perch, their bright lights twinkling. There are no bright lights on the Night Market. Signs, banners and graffiti fluoresce under UV panels mounted on the sides of buildings. The alleys are narrowed by the stalls and arcades that line them, advertising everything from fresh flash to an hour on the universal virtual-sex loop. Down on the beach, bodies and wares are lit by the mellow flicker of bonfires. There’s skin everywhere. Men are mostly bare-chested, and some of the women are, too. Kez was right about fitting in; no one gives us a second glance. My kind of place.