Diamond (10 page)

“Right,” Emerald smirked. “If you say so.”

“You do the full body scan?”

Emerald shook his head. “I only gave her the one workup. I’ll test her again when I get back to my place and use the equipment there.”

Diamond would have preferred to have her with him. Once news got out about what he had in his possession, things would get pretty insane. There would be fights. Men would demand to see her. Some would even want to harvest her eggs. If they were even viable.

“All right, we’ll hold off on the announcement until you give me the all clear. I don’t want her gone longer than necessary.”

“Someone’s already attached.”

Diamond gave his friend the middle finger. “From the bottom of my soulless heart, this one’s for you.”

Emerald chuckled. “Like I’d let you fuck me. Besides, my dick only swings one way, and it’s currently tethered to my left hand.”

“I thought your hands were a little too smooth.”

Both men laughed while making their way out to the front room. Nadya was gone, and Lindy was there, sitting in his favorite chair. Her shirt still splattered with blood.

“Seriously, Lins, you need to get your ass out of my chair.”

She squinted before standing and made her way over to him. She was doing her sexy walk. The one she knew he liked. She hadn’t strutted towards him like that in a while. Fucking Lip. He must have said something in passing about Nadya’s status. He needed Lindy’s attention like he needed his guts hanging from a hook in the slaughterhouse. Lindy only got this way when he was focused on another female. If it wasn’t her, it would be another of his past bed partners.

“I hear we’ve hit the mother lode.” Her voice was a low purr as her hand snaked across his chest to wrap around his neck. She tried to pull him forward as she leaned up for a kiss. Diamond looked down at her petite form. She was soft in all the right places, and down for anything. Not that long ago, he would have taken her up on that. Would later tonight. He was not the type of man to let a woman tease him. If she wanted to offer up the slick juices between her legs, he wasn’t one to deny himself. Lindy wanted to be Queen to his King. He’d almost extended the offer, but something had held him back. He trusted his gut. Even when it didn’t prove to be to his benefit sexually. They’d split on amicable terms, and she hadn’t been in his bed since. Now that Nadya was the new prized possession, he knew Lindy wanted to stake her claim—if for no other reason than to prove she had the upper hand. Fucking females. Damn territorial.

“Lindy, since you know so much, I need you to do me a favor. Get Amethyst back here. She should still be hanging around. I need to speak with her.”

“She’s not. I saw her leave. She wanted to get back to the Den and check on Zira.” The Den was a thicket of dense trees, brush, and remnants of a time long ago. Amethyst kept most of her team there. All of them thieves and pickpockets.

“Well, get her ass back here, then. I need her to grab two people for me.”

“Who?”

“None of your business, woman.” Diamond tightened his grip on her arm and yanked her into his chest. “Since when are you so mouthy. Go and get her.”

Diamond shoved her away and turned towards the glass window.

Lindy was testing his last nerve. A trait he found displeasing and very unattractive.

“Fine, I’m going, but I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it. You just have to do it. Now go.”

Lindy left with a hiss, and Diamond shook his head. The woman thought because he’d had his dick in her she had a say. She didn’t. Emerald watched the entire verbal match between them and said nothing. What he did do, was look at Diamond with a smirk on his face.

“You may need to remind her who’s in charge and why. She’s stepping outside her boundaries big time. None of my girls get out of hand like that.”

“I didn’t realize you had any girls. I was under the impression you came to me for all your vaginal needs,” Diamond stated.

“I do, and like I said, my girls don’t get out of hand.”

“They aren’t your girls, they’re mine.”

Emerald stretched his arms above his head and yawned. “I just let you think that, bro.”

The man could talk a lot of shit, and Diamond could care less either way. He kept his inner circle close and made sure everyone was happy. His job wasn’t an easy one; he and his close-knit team had a lot of shit they had to deal with on a day-to-day basis. He rewarded them as often as he could. Their little slice of an island was not out of the woods. The inner-city gangs fighting to overthrow him and the Towers and council members plotting behind his back…he had to stay vigilant. He didn’t make his team stay within the walls of the Quarry. He wasn’t a tyrant, but when he called, they’d come.

Amethyst liked the solitude of the forest, compared to the constraints of the Quarry. Emerald stayed in his own dwelling, an abandoned home he was personally restoring. He kept a room at the Quarry on the same floor as the infirmary, but he rarely showed his face unless required. Marina handled all the details of the infirmary. Emerald was the only healer they had, but Marina was a close second. She was Emerald’s ward, who refused to use her gift to see into other’s futures. According to her, she mainly saw the death of the person she touched. And almost always, her visions came true. Emerald’s personal home was in an undisclosed location. He’d turned the entire structure into a pharmaceutical mecca. Phyr was his go-to man whenever Diamond had a problem that he needed handled quietly. Phyr lived in a location Diamond was unaware of. He also helped to maintain the public relations between the Towers and the inner-city gangs. Onyx lived in the Parygon Tower with his cousin Till.

The Towers were strongholds. Mini-communities. Each governed by an Archial. Each Archial made up the Magellan Council. The Quarry was his kingdom. His safe haven. He had a lot of luxuries most of the other Towers did not benefit from, and because of that, many people from the surrounding Towers and beyond came to experience all that the Quarry had to offer. Sex, alcohol laced with Pure Wave, and the only place one could secure an organ in order to continue their miserable way of life. He also housed the recruits for his Mugenix program, men and woman who volunteered to be a part of his elite military force. It was something Phyr headed up and worked closely with Gryphon on.

Anything that pertained to the making of fabric came out of Empyre. Stich and Worm ran their Tower in shifts. Worm specialized in finer threads, he’d get orders from the Mainlanders, as well as those who lived on the safer side of town by Eden’s Den and could afford to trade in goods and services. Stitch designed practical clothing. Things that were needed for survival and combat. They housed their assembly workers, and their families, for their payment, Stitch provided them with decent, drinkable Wave, and quarterly rotations to the Quarry, where they could blow off some steam. Diamond didn’t allow the assembly workers his top-quality items, but he gave them good viable product, and a warm body to lay with, if they asked for it.

Parygon was a warehouse filled with old tech, as well as hard to come by items. Gearheads would come and work on a six-month rotation. Those that didn’t dwell inside the Tower were in Gearhead Alley—a block just outside the Quarry littered with abandoned vehicles that they lived in. He knew they did it to piss him off. He couldn’t complain too much, most people thought twice before going through Gearhead Alley. Inside Parygon, Onyx and his cousin Till took care of the Grid and C-Tech, while their scouts traveled outside the walls and past the Outer Rim to the Wastelands to find anything that would assist in their way of life. The Grid gave them all their basic necessities and more. It also kept Diamond’s harvesting and transplant business viable. Ace was the Archial of Parygon, and the mastermind behind the trading routes. He traded with the inner-city gangs and helped keep the peace, he was also a master tinkerer. His parents were both Gearheads.

Eightball was their resident surgeon, and had the foremost information on splicing, and the harvesting of organs and transplanting said organs into others. He made sure the organs donated were of use, and he helped keep track of all the slaughterhouses in and around the city. There were three successful harvesting facilities, and the Blacke Tower housed not only candidates for harvesting, but served as a recovery center for those receiving organs. It also doubled as a recycling center for humans.

Gryphon oversaw the genetics in Genysis Tower, and until recently, all had been going smoothly. He’d helped Diamond with the Mugenix gene that was injected into those who volunteered for his program. The Tower housed test subjects, a species of humans who had somehow adapted to their new world. Their bodies acted as filters. Turning harmful products introduced into something pure. From their blood alone, Diamond had been able to produce a sort of filtration system. It was why his Wave was almost pure. But the blood only lasted for a handful of months. They’d been working on a way to prolong its usage, but so far, they were unsuccessful. He’d wanted to approach the council with his findings, but was unable, especially now that Gryphon had stopped showing to the meetings.

The Magellan Council was comprised of those that ran the Towers, Diamond being one of them. He sat at the head of the council as the city’s Sovereign, and had final say if they couldn’t all amicably agree. There weren’t any written laws, but there were plenty of spoken ones. For the last month, it had felt like the tight leash he held on the city was slowly being yanked. His team was responding to more incidents than usual. Things had to be sacrificed, and constant power was one of them. They had to conserve their resources. The council disagreed with him, however. They wanted the power on at all times. It wasn’t going to happen. There was a saying he remembered one of the old-timers saying once, “People in hell want ice water, but it doesn’t mean they’ll get it.”  He wasn’t about to bend on his stance when it came to power, and if the council didn’t like it, they could step down.

“You headed out?” Diamond asked Emerald, who was looking outside the window again. His friend was an optimist; he, on the other hand, was a realist. The other male looked back and grinned.

“Nope. I want to see how this all plays out.”

“What do you mean plays out? There is nothing to play.”

“Sure, there isn’t. I’d like to stay a couple of days just the same. Unless you want me to leave?”

“You can stay as long as you like. Pussy, as usual, is on the house, but I still want Nadya scanned.”

Marina, who’d been quiet the entire time, spoke up then. “We can scan her here. I can grab the items you need, Emerald.” Marina’s voice was whisper-soft, but still held deep, throaty notes. Her words vibrated against Diamond’s ears in a pleasing way.

Emerald nodded in her direction with a slight tilt to his lips. “Much appreciated. Have one of Diamond’s guards take you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long do you think it will take Lins to get ahold of Amethyst?”

“Shouldn’t take too long.”

Diamond’s brow furrowed at the mention of Lindy. She was slacking. That someone was able to get past her and through his guards checking bodies at the door only showed her lack of thoroughness. It also painted her in a non-trusting light. Someone inside his house was trying to take him out. He needed to be careful, and now with Nadya staying at the Quarry, news would be spreading about her status. The people around here had a hard time keeping their mouths shut. Lip wasn’t called Lip for nothing. Goddamn. A fucking virgin. He hadn’t had a virgin up for auction in at least two years. She was going to bring in more than enough resources and pure Wave to see him through until the next Solar Summer. Maybe even work it out to where he had regular access to the mountain itself. The lights from the Mainland were a constant reminder of what he didn’t have. But there were things the pompous pricks wanted from him. They didn’t have a choice but to deal with him. His methods may be savage, but they yielded the best results.

If they only knew just how much they needed him, they wouldn’t be so quick to judge. But everything would reveal itself in due time. They were still testing subjects, and once the trials were complete, he could move forward. Until then, he’d do what he did best. Sell pussy and peddle organs.

V

Nadya was being cleaned. Again. She’d allowed the ink on her body for the sole purpose of fitting in. It had taken all of twenty minutes to complete. She’d stood completely still as one of Diamond’s Bionics inked her. The design started from underneath her left arm and ran down her rib cage, outlining her hipbone. It swept across her lower stomach to her right hip and down her thigh, stopping just at her knee. The ink wasn’t one connected piece, but rather a series of curved lines with half-circles. Each one separate and unique. She knew it meant something, labeled her as property. Something for sale.

Nadya was being subjected to some sort of bathing ritual now. The water was warm and they rubbed white, silky mud all over her body. She had two attendants, but neither of them spoke as they went about washing her. At present, she was on the eighth floor. She’d counted on her way down from Diamond’s private quarters. There were large broken mirror pieces hanging loosely against the worn rust-colored walls. The ceiling appeared caved in and supported by thick metal beams.

“Step out,” a woman with bright pink hair said. She wore white, gauzy material that only covered her private areas. Her right arm had pink floral patterns curving around her wrist to shoulder. Her eyes were a warm brown that stood out against her cream-colored skin.