Souljacker (5 page)

I peer into the shadows, straining my ears
for the click of his claws. I hear nothing except the whoosh of
cars zipping by, blowing my hair away from my face. I stand there
for a few moments, staring into the empty alley, before giving up.
Maybe he’s patrolling the city, or whatever it is that cyberhounds
do.

Matchlight Diner has been around for years, a
booming family business that started in a tiny little corner of the
city. Now it’s huge, right on Main Street. The menu and daily
specials flash on the large electronic billboard positioned
perfectly where people in their cars can see it. Looks like they’re
having turkey manhattans with a salad bar half off today. Guess
what I’m getting?

I shoulder through the door and bells chime
out, announcing my presence. Caddie is sitting in a corner booth,
elbows on the table, stirring the straw around in a glass of
lemonade. She perks up as she sees me.

“Hey!” she all but shouts, waving me over. I
duck my head and slide in across from her.

“You’re early,” I say, looking at the clock.
But then again, so am I. “I figured I’d have to wait a little while
for you to get here.”

“Nah. Early bird gets the worm. Or in this
case, the lemonade.” She sips and makes a face. “Needs sugar.” She
opens two little packets and dumps them in, and the sugar makes a
white mound on top of the ice before slowly disintegrating. She
stirs it and grins up at me. “So what’s up, blue jay?”

“What’s with the nickname?”

“I call everyone chickadee, but…well, with
that hair color, you look like a jay.”

“Aren’t they loud mouthed, opinionated little
bastards?”

“Are you denying it?” Her eyes gleam as she
jokes like we’ve been friends for years versus not even a full
day.

“I guess not.”

“So who was playing at Cosmo last night?”

“I don’t know—whoever it was sucked
though.”

She launches into a story about how she met
MaXXX from Elysium once, before they were really big, and I settle
back into the booth, content to listen. I haven’t had girl time
since Sophia, though back then we mostly talked about cute boys and
which girls would turn out to be busty cheerleaders when we got
into high school. It’s kind of strange to have Caddie yapping away,
pausing only to sip at her lemonade.

It’s almost… Normal.

“I don’t think I’d ever date MaXXX though,
given the chance. He’s hot, yeah. He’s totally orgasmic, but he’s
so…” She trails off and I feel my bag twitch. I reach down and open
the flap and Sync bursts out, buzzing like a bee.

“MaXXX is perfect, just the way he is!” she
says hotly. “I would
totally
go out with him.”

“You’re a robot,” Caddie says, stifling a
grin with her cup.

“You never know; he could have a robot
fetish,” I pipe in, brushing my fingers against the glowing red tip
of Sync’s antennae. She hums and settles a little. “Caddie, this is
Sync. Sync’s been a friend of mine for years now. Sync, meet
Caddie.”

“It’s perfectly possible,” Sync says. “In the
future, Luce’s going to find me an android body with long, sexy
legs and then MaXXX will look my way.” She sounds almost smug and I
have to laugh.

A pimply-faced waitress takes our order—turns
out we’re both hopelessly broke, so to spite Mr. Rockwell, I use
the fifty he gave me—and eleven minutes later, we’re digging in to
steaming turkey manhattans, soaked in gravy. I cut mine with the
edge of my fork, taking a bite and burning my mouth. “Ouch,
hot.”

“It just came out of the oven,” Caddie
chides, then takes a big bite. “Ouch! Hot!”

I laugh, but I think that was her
intention.

“So, you seeing anyone? Since you’re not a
lesbian and all.” She winks at me.

“No.” My mind, on the other hand, has other
ideas. It flits to Iofiel, the boy who claims I’m his soul mate.
He’s beautiful in a wild way, his hair naturally spiky, no need for
gel, and his good eye the color of melted chocolate. It’s warmer
than the sun. Just one look and he gives me shivers. The pleasant
kind.

Caddie raises an eyebrow. “Really? No
crushes?”

Sync looks at me, but I’m already shaking my
head. For all I know, Iofiel was out on a prank with buddies. He’s
not something I want to discuss with an almost-friend. Not yet.

“I’m not really in the market for a
boyfriend. What about you?”

She ducks her head, dropping her voice to a
murmur. “You know Jale Halvers?”

My turkey manhattan sinks to the bottom of my
stomach. Of course I know Jale. He’s my own personal cafeteria.
“Uh, yeah. He’s pretty rich?”

“And hot.”

“He sleeps through most of his classes.”

“So? He’s got enough brains.”

“He’s one of those people who will float
through life with no worries, just because he’s born into money,” I
mutter, shoving my plate away from me. That’s why I chose him in
the first place. If I got out of control and Jale died, well, no
big loss. His parents could just buy another son.

She wrinkles her nose. “Well I think he’s
hot. I’ve been trying to get him to notice me. No such luck
yet.”

“Want my opinion?”

“On?”

“Jale’s taste in women.” Slutty and cheap?
Totally not Caddie. She shrugs, so I go on. “Ever thought about
changing up your hair color?”

“To what?”

“I don’t know. Violet? Pink?”

“I don’t know if it would look good.”

“Well then, what about a pink streak? If you
straightened your hair…” I reach out, tugging a curled strand flat.
It comes down past her chin. “And put a bright streak in it, just
enough to set off your jaw line, I think you’d be really cute.”

“So I’m too ugly for Jale Halvers?”

“Wha—no! I didn’t say that!” Great, one
chance at a friendship with a girl who’s not afraid of me, and I
insinuate she’s ugly. “Really, Caddie, I—”

“Lucy. Breathe,” she says, mocking me with a
grin. “I’m kidding. If I decided to get my hair done, would you
wanna come with? We could make it a girls’ day out.”

“Isn’t today a girls’ day out?”

“We can never have too many days out!” She
finishes off her plate and stacks it on top of mine. I gulp the
rest of my cola and she sets her lemonade aside, deeming it too
sour even with four packets of sugar.

I glance up at the clock. We’ve been here a
lot longer than I’d expected. “I’d better go. Mr. Rockwell will
have a fit if I don’t get home before three.”

“Cool. I’ll talk to my mom about the whole
hair thing. See you at school?”

“Yep.” I plop Sync back into my bag and give
a little wave, my heart floating in my chest as I walk out the
door. She wants to go out again. With me. AKA: She doesn’t think
I’m a freak, or else this is some huge elaborate plan to show the
world what I truly am. From Caddie? It’s hard to believe.

My tablet beeps in my bag and I dig it out to
find Mr. Rockwell’s sent me the list of groceries in its entirety.
And it’s a huge list. I groan loudly and resist the urge to chuck
it.

“Issues?” That smooth voice ripples through
me and I jerk my head up, meeting Iofiel’s stare. He’s leaning
against the plate glass window of a large clothing shop, a smile
playing on his lips. My heart picks up speed as I memorize the
shape of his lips, imagining what they would feel like on mine
and—no. I look at him, sliding my tablet back into my bag.

I slowly shake my head. “No. I just don’t
wanna go shopping.”

The corner of his lips quirk into a
knee-quivering grin. “Well what if you had a little eye candy to
tag along and help you?” He winks and I suppress another groan.
Instead, I roll my eyes.

“I don’t see any eye candy around here.
Sorry, pal.”

“Lucy, Lucy. Hasn’t anyone ever told you not
to judge a book by its cover?”

“You’re pretty vain for someone with one
eye.”

“So that’s a yes?”

I can’t help my grin. “Hurry up. I don’t
wanna get my ass chewed.”

“Aye, captain.”

Chapter 7:

Iofiel

“Give me the cart. You take the list,” I say,
unhooking one of the hover carts from the row at the front of the
store. It hums softly under my fingers, floating along in front of
me. Lucy makes a face and pulls out her tablet, tapping it to turn
it into a checklist. “Alright. We need the necessities. Milk,
bread, yada yada. Along with all this other shit he added.”

“He?” I tip my head.

She wrinkles her nose. “Daddy Dearest…”

“Ah, fathers can be like that. Mine’s a hard
ass.”

“Mine’s not blood, thank God. He’s my foster
dad.”

I glance to her, a little surprised that
she’s admitting this to me. “I didn’t know you were in foster
care.”

“It doesn’t really matter. Don’t worry about
it.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t
know my blood parents.” Probably due to the fact that I was a
test-tube baby, raised by Nursemaids and then handed over to a Pack
of cyberhounds. Surely they used DNA from somewhere, but I don’t
know who it was from. Lylan’s not my real father; that’s laugh
worthy.

“You’re a foster kid?”

“Kinda? I live with a group of guys, but
we’re pretty tight-knit. They’ve been my family since I was a baby,
so…” I shrug and trail off, then flash a grin. “I love them.
They’re my family.”

“Lucky boy,” she says, unable to hide her
smile, but her eyes cloud over. “My mom died when I was five. I’ve
been in the system ever since, tossed from foster home to foster
home. I thought I found my forever family once, but…” She shakes
her head. “Life doesn’t work like that.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. I want to
reach out and take her hand, lay a kiss across her knuckles, twine
our fingers together, but I know it’d just scare her off.
Slow
and steady wins the race, Io,
I tell myself.

“It doesn’t matter. One more year and I’m out
of here. I’ll be my own woman, pave my own path.” She grins, but it
looks almost wounded under the fluorescent lighting of the grocery
store. She throws a loaf of bread in the cart and we amble down the
aisle.

“So why are you really here?” she asks after
a moment, looking at me through tangles of blue hair.

“You don’t believe I just want to be in your
company?”

“That’s sad. Surely you’ve got more
interesting things to do with your time.”

“Alright then. What if I said
I’m
along for the eye candy?” I wink at her, and she blushes, then
seems mad that she’s blushing. She huffs and storms ahead and I
can’t help but chuckle.

I call after her, “You’re beautiful, Luce.
Whether or not you believe it’s up to you, but I think you’re the
prettiest thing on two legs.”

“What if I shaved off my hair and eyebrows
and got a bunch of piercings?”

“Mm. Exotic.”

“What if I gained three hundred pounds?”

“Fluffy.”

She throws her hands up in the air.
“Whatever.”

“You can forgive me cuz I’m cute, right?”

“You’re so damn vain.”

“Yep.”

We collect cereal, milk, bottled water, eggs,
and a bunch of oddly useless necessities in silence, the only
sounds being the cruddy music playing over the intercom and our
shoes squeaking on tile.

I can’t wait any longer, else my heart’s
going to lunge out of my throat and flop around on the floor in a
pool of bloody emotions. “Do you wanna go out sometime?” My words
stop her in her tracks. She spins on me, her eyes round as saucers.
I offer an innocent smile to show I’m not playing games.

“Where?”

“A movie? Or maybe mini golf?”

She seems to consider, nibbling on her lower
lip, making a pouty face that’s so damn kissable. I have to clench
my hands around the cart just to keep from reaching out and
stealing one. I see emotions flicker through her eyes like a TV
flipping stations.

“Okay,” she says in a voice that’s all too
feminine.

I beam at her. “Awesome. Does tonight
work?”

She nods. “Yeah. Curfew’s for sissies
anyway,” she says around a wry smile.

“I’ll have you back in no time. Seven?”

“I’m bringing Sync.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She rolls her eyes and trudges ahead, but I
can see the bounce to her step and my heart rockets. We pick up the
rest of the groceries and I stay with her while she checks out at
the Do-It-Yourself aisle.

“Seven,” she repeats as we head out the door.
“See you then.”

I watch her stride off and smile to myself.
Now I just have to get out of border duty on time.

***

I trot down the street, following the built
in GPS on the chip in my head. Pretty handy when you’re a
directional idiot. Still, I hate the idea that they could track me
if they wanted to. My paws pound the street at a steady pace, my
eyes darting back and forth as I try and pinpoint Sariel’s
location. The little map has a blue dot where he’s supposed to
be.

I find him on the outskirts of town, over the
old railway tracks that signify end of boundary lines. He’s propped
up against a building, a cigarette between his lips, the tip
glowing cherry red in the twilight. If any of the cyberhounds look
like their angel names, it’s Sariel. Tall and slender, with blond
curls that frame his face and azure eyes, he’s beautiful. He even
gives the Fae a run for their money.

His face tilts towards me and I know my scent
has wafted in his direction. I shift and make my way towards him.
He takes a drag, then offers the smoke to me with a quirk to his
thin lips. “Oh hell no, I don’t need a bad habit,” I say. He merely
shrugs and flicks off ash, smoke trailing a thin line from the
ground to the sky.

“You mean
another
bad habit?” His eyes
lock on mine and I freeze, unsure of what he means. “I’m not an
idiot, Io. I see the way you look at that punker girl, all
googly-eyes and goofy smiles.” His lip twitches and I can’t tell if
he’s amused, annoyed, or a bit of both. He drops his voice. “You
know that’s not safe.”