Girl From Above #3: Trapped (2 page)

Bruno wanted the synth, and so did the Nine. One offered enough money to set me up for years. Fuck, with credit like that, I could fix
Starscream
up good and proper. Then there was the Nine. They’d pay, but not a lot. Their payment came in the shape of a way to cleanse the shroud of guilt from my soul. If I sold #1001 to Bruno—to Chitec—that guilt would sit on my soul forever. I’d already lived with my guilt long enough to know it wasn’t getting any lighter. If I betrayed #1001, the guilt would kill me, same as my brother had warned. Drink, the drugs, the life—it was a death sentence, and I welcomed it, because it was all I deserved. On the plus side, I’d die a rich bastard. Someone somewhere once said:
You can’t take it with you
. Apparently, the smartass thought those words might encourage generosity. I figured it meant:
Spend it before the universe takes it away.

All I had to do was give her up to The Fenrir Nine or Bruno.

I had a third option: not give her up at all. If only that were a real choice. I didn’t have enough credit to pay for food, and #1001 would always be hunted, dragging me and
Starscream
down with her.

The pod dropped me off outside my hotel. Given Bruno’s parting words, I wasn’t entirely surprised to see Jesse outside my door.

“Cale.” She smiled a closed, guarded smile as I approached. She was dressed in a sculpted silver silk dress that hugged her curves like a second skin. Her scars were gone and her artificial enhancements had all been tweaked and perfected; she was earning good money again. I’d killed a man to help her escape that life, and here she was, back in the game.

“Let me explain.” Either she’d seen the disappointment in my eyes, or she was carrying her own guilt.

I invited her inside, shrugged off my jacket, and tapped the personal interface screen, waking it so I could scan Bruno’s card. “Sit down.”

She loitered by the door, wringing her hands. Usually she’d be better at hiding any apprehension from her clients. The hand wringing wasn’t like her, or maybe I wasn’t like other clients.

“Relax,” I said. “Who the fuck am I to judge?”

Her shoulders slouched. She let go of her tension with a sigh and made her way to where the cupboards concealed a selection of drinks, clearly knowing her way around this hotel’s rooms.

On screen, the contents of the card blipped into existence: 50,000.
Shit.
I tapped “transfer” and watched the numbers switch to my credit account, as easy as that. A twitch of a smile hooked into my lips.
Fifty thousand fucking credits.

“Jess, share a drink with me.”

“You have vodka, some Red, champagne?” She saw my look and smiled. “Whiskey it is.”

I switched off the screen, heart fluttering too fast. Fifty thousand was a lot of credits. Ten percent of five million? Five hundred thousand. And all I had to do was hand over the synth.

Jesse handed me the glass. I lifted it in a toast. “To luck.”

She frowned and smiled at the same time, giving her expression a comical lilt. She knew I didn’t believe in luck, but she still chinked her glass against mine. “Luck.”

I leaned against the wall of cupboards, my thoughts wandering to what I could do with my thousands, while Jesse cupped her glass in her hands and gazed out of the window at Lyra’s never-ending ocean of lights. There was no sunlight here. Lyra’s casino domes occupied a hemisphere bathed in perpetual darkness, though artificial light leeched through the protective glass domes, into the atmosphere. You couldn’t see the stars, but you didn’t need to. The view from the window sparkled as though those stars had joined us. It should have been beautiful, and it was, but it wasn’t for me. I preferred reality, in all of its dirty, downtrodden, war-torn ruggedness.

My wrist comms gently vibrated. I glanced at the screen and saw a message from #1001: DO YOU REQUIRE ASSISTANCE

No question mark. She was too efficient to waste space with punctuation. I dismissed the message with a flick of my wrist. She’d read me like a book the second she saw me. I needed to muddy the telltale signs that I was lying to her.

“There wasn’t any work on Mimir,” Jesse said. She lost her gaze in her glass, swirling the whiskey like it had all the answers. “I’m only good at one thing.”

“You don’t need to explain anything to me. We do what we gotta do. Fuck, I know all about that.”

“I know, but … what you did for me …”

The man I’d killed had beaten her. She thought I’d done it to save her, but I’d killed the bastard because some things I won’t let slide. “You owe me credits for that.”

Her pretty doe eyes widened. “I know. I hadn’t forgotten. It’s part of the reason I came to Lyra. There’s always work here for girls who’ll fuck for money.”

“Is that why you’re here?” I spoke into my drink, careful to avoid her gaze.

“After Ganymede, and when fleet attacked Mimir, I wasn’t sure if you were alive or dead.” She set her glass on a shelf and sashayed forward. Stepping into my personal space, she placed her hand on my chest. Her warm touch seeped through my shirt. Up close, I could admire her elegant eyes and smooth lips. Her beauty was enhanced, but not in the same way as the synth’s smooth perfection. A few lines gathered when Jesse smiled and crowded around her eyes. In her sunset years, she’d probably look to be in her late twenties, as long as she kept paying for the enhancements. When you’ve spent enough time staring at synthetic perfection, it was hard not to notice the imperfections in humanity.

Jesse knew I was an easy mark. We’d danced to the same tune more times than I could count. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. She got paid, and I got laid. Usually, I’d have been all over her the second she’d arrived. Maybe it was her demure appearance or the fact I was reeling from Bruno’s job and subsequent deposit, but I didn’t feel particularly inclined to fuck. I already had too much going on in my head, and something in the way she looked at me had me wondering if this was more than a business transaction. A silent plea saddened her gaze, begging me not to turn her away. At least she didn’t look at me like the synth, like she already knew my every secret, every grubby little piece of me, and found me decidedly lacking.

Jesse teased open some of my shirt buttons, diverting my thoughts away from #1001.

“Do you want to?” she asked.

No,
I thought, surprising even me
.
I downed my drink and let the burn work its magic all the way through. Maybe a roll in the sack with Jesse would serve up enough emotional bullshit to let me lie to the synth about where I’d been and what I’d been doing. She’d read the lies in my body language. I needed to manufacture an excuse.

“I can loosen you up …” Jesse peeled back my shirt and trailed the tip of her tongue around a nipple. I closed my eyes and dropped my head back, trying to focus on the soft touch of her tongue. She eased against me, sliding her smooth silk dress along my skin, and whispered, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quite so dashing. You look good, yah know. Lyra agrees with you.”

Then her light kisses roamed my neck. She slipped her hand inside my shirt and eased it back over my shoulder, revealing more skin for her to explore with her tongue. I should probably have started giving her something back, but my fucking thoughts weren’t even in the room.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing.” I caught her hands in mine. “I’m just distracted.”

My wrist comms vibrated again. It’d be the synth, or my brother, wondering where the fuck I was so they could get off Lyra and get to spending the credits the synth had won.

Ignoring her imploring expression, I let go of Jesse, slipped off the comms unit, tossed it onto the shelf, and curled a hand around her waist. The silk transferred her warmth and the feel of her curves and finally things started picking up. I tested her mouth with mine, brushing my lips against hers to see if she’d open up to me. She did. The kiss began oddly tentative and too intimate, and the slight shiver that travelled through her didn’t help. Fuck, this meant more to her than a paycheck.

“Jesse—”

She cut me off by mashing her mouth against mine and plunging her tongue in. I threaded my fingers into her hair, meaning to hold her back, but I pulled her close instead, fuelling her kiss with my own and riding the wave of not giving a fuck about anything besides the feel and taste of her. She yanked my shirt out of my pants and dove her hands around my waist and down my lower back to cup my ass and pull me in so fucking tight that pleasure spilled down my cock. Any protest I might have had died right then.

She backed me to the bed, pushed me down, hiked up her dress, and straddled my hips. Her kisses softened and slowed, while her body rocked against mine. I gathered her hair in a hand and gently pulled her to the side so I could nip just below her ear, teasing her. I would’ve carried on if I hadn’t realized that in my fucked-up head, I wasn’t kissing Jesse, but the synth. The realization was enough to give me pause. My heart thudded, body awash with pleasure, and I swallowed, debating whether I could do this at all.

Jesse plunged her hand between us and rubbed the heel of her palm against where my cock was straining inside my pants. “Well, this part of you wants me at least.”

I gritted my teeth. I was happy enough to let her carry on rubbing right there, but in my head, it wasn’t her hand working me.

Holy shit, I’m in trouble.

Sure, it had been a few weeks since I’d had any sex, besides my own hand that was. Fuck, even then I’d been thinking about the synth.

Jesse leaned in and whispered against my lips, “You’re thinking about someone else.”

“Nah, I—”

“Cale, I’m not new to this. It’s okay. Think about her all you like.” She averted her eyes, immediately turning her words into lies.

I could have spouted off a load of denials, but she shoved me back, unzipped my pants, and lowered her wet, warm self onto me, taking my cock all the way in. She started rocking, and any denial I’d prepped quickly vanished. I gripped her thighs and urged her on instead of pushing her off. Well, fuck, if she was giving me permission, I wouldn’t argue.

I closed my eyes and had no trouble imagining the synth riding me. She’d look at me in that studious way of hers and fuck me senseless, and oh man, I’d let her, because she knew all of me. She knew what made me tick, knew my weaknesses, and she knew exactly how I liked it, because her machine senses would tell her everything. I couldn’t hide a damn thing from her and didn’t want to. She’d strip me down, reveal the truth, and fuck if that wouldn’t be liberating. Just to be me, not the ex-fleet captain, not the fixer who’d do anything for credit, and not even the captain of a beat-up tugship, or the brother who’d gotten left behind. No expectations. No lies. Just me. Now.

The hotel door burst open and a man strode in. Unmistakable cool eyes scanned the room. He wore Chitec grey, tight as a fleet uniform. I’d seen him before—several of him, in fact—the night I’d watched Chen Hung kill his daughter. All 499 like him, lined up like toy soldiers.
A male synthetic.

I rolled Jesse over, shielding her from the synthetic, and met her wild eyes. “Run!”

The synth’s reflection flickered in her wide eyes. He locked his cool hand around my neck, lifting me off Jesse like I weighed no more than a doll. He tossed me aside just as easily. In a blink, I found myself facedown on the floor, wondering how the fuck I’d gotten there. Trying to move hurt. Trying to breathe hurt more. I lifted my head. Warm wetness trailed down the back of my neck. I reached back to cup the throbbing ache in my head. My hand came away wet with blood.

“Where is One Thousand And One?” the male synth asked, so fucking calm and polite.
Have a nice day, sir. Right after I kick your ass seven ways to Sunday.

I tried to focus through the pain. He was holding Jesse off her feet, his fingers knotted in her hair. She clutched at his wrist and arm but hardly fought. Fear and agony twisted her face.

“Let her go.” I got my hands under me and pushed upright onto my knees, but the room slid sideways.

“Where is she, Captain Shepperd?”

“I—I don’t know.”

He twitched, at least that’s what it looked like, and then he threw Jesse to the floor, where she lay, head and limbs tilted at odd angles. Her fingers contracted and her foot jerked, and then she went still. Panic, fear, confusion, they all screeched to a halt inside my head. I shoved off the floor and managed to climb onto unsteady legs.

“You just made an enemy of a fixer, you synthetic fuck.”

His straight face betrayed nothing. “Take me to One Thousand And One.”

“Fuck you.” I didn’t have any weapons, didn’t even have my comms. He’d snapped Jesse’s neck in less than a second. I couldn’t fight him. I knew that, and so did he.

I tried to tuck my junk away while swaying on the spot and managed it—barely. If I were about to die here, I’d die with some dignity. “C’mon, you fake freak. I’m ready to die. Are you?”

He stepped toward me and I bolted for the door. I managed to get halfway down the hallway before he slammed me against the wall from behind. I went down hard, sprawling face first, and then stilled as he leaned a knee into my back. The punch to the kidneys almost tore my consciousness away. A shock of cold sweat followed hot nausea. If I threw up and blacked out, there was every chance I’d die right here.

“Where is she?”

“Yah know …” I coughed and spat blood on the polished marble floor. “I’ve always wondered: Can synthetics even get it up—”

“Is One Thousand And One worth more to you than your life?”

“That’s a very astute question.”

“Halt! Police! Refrain and desist immediately!”

Thank fuck for that.
I blinked through the haze of pain and sickness to find the hallway choked with Lyra cops, all armed with pulsers. I’d been on the pronged end of those weapons on a few occasions, and every time I’d vowed never again. The electrical pulses would make a synthetic think twice.

The pressure of the synth’s knee lifted off my back, allowing me to breathe around bruised ribs.

“Face the wall, sir.”