Sugar Skulls (26 page)

“That would depend greatly on the question, I should think.”

That’s an answer. Good start. “I heard screaming coming from the Carlisle. Is Vee okay? What did they do to her?”

He looks confused and starts stammering, “I have no—Oh, I mean, I’m not at liberty to say.”

Fuck.
Maybe whoever he’s taking me to will be able to answer that. This is a glorified delivery boy. Takes one to know one.

I clam up for the rest of the ride, down various halls bleached within an inch of their lives. Finally, two big double doors and a soft beep later, I’m there. Wherever there is.

Datapad pulls an injector from his pocket and tags me in the neck. Tranquilizer, same double dose they hit me with the night Vee and I crossed paths at Hellcat Maggie’s.
Not much of a learning curve there, fellas.

Things get a little fuzzy around the edges, but I’m still lucid for the transfer to the exam table. They’re not taking any chances, so the entire top of the gurney comes off and sits on the table, then they remove the side slats one at a time, slipping the magnetic restraints into designated slots on the table itself. They slide the gurney top out from under me and leave me on the slab, ready to be sliced up like a birthday cake.

The other three lab coats hightail it out of there, and Datapad follows after making a few final notes on his namesake and leaving it on the lab table. As he walks toward the double doors, I start fighting, my arms jerking and legs kicking, ignoring the pain in my ribs as I slam my body against the table, but the restraints don’t budge.

“Hey, hey! You can’t leave me here! Not like this!”

He continues through the doors without breaking his silence. I yell for help as long as the doors are open, and for a while after, but no one comes. Taking a shallow breath, I stop thrashing long enough to look around, hoping for something, anything that’ll get me out of these restraints. But there’s nothing within reach. Cabinets are against the wall and locked up tight. Except for the datapad, the table nearest me is spotless.

Then I hear footsteps from behind me. Someone’s been standing there the whole time. Silently. Watching. There’s a gentle click of plastic on metal as whoever it is picks up the datapad and stylus. “Hello, Micah.”

The speaker steps into view, but despite the sharpness of the light, my eye refuses to focus on him. I’m only vaguely aware of the lab coat, the close-cropped hair, the slow, measured walk. Instead, I keep seeing a tank top and track pants, hair shaggy on one side and shaved on the other, always in motion. Like my mind can’t reconcile the two.

This is insane. This is impossible.

I finally find my voice. “Trav?”

V

With platinum and diamonds a constant reminder of what’s at stake, I manage to keep my rage at a slow simmer for the rest of the evening. Damon’s uncharacteristically jovial, taking celebratory shots of Pennyroyale with a group of Corporate execs. It’s obvious they’re congratulating him on a job well done, and watching them fawn all over that psychopath slowly but surely unravels what’s left of my composure.

Guests start to wander off after midnight, headed out to the after-party. Of course, Damon’s booked it at the Chroma Room. Not-Micah has had his arm around me for the last hour or so, convinced he’s going to get a romp in the funhouse when everyone else is gone. The joke’s on him when I peel him off like a coat and maneuver him into the foyer.

“Going down, are we?” Half a dozen drinks have made him bolder, and his hand is sliding south as fast as he can manage. “Your room might be more comfortable.”

Nothing about him reminds me of Micah anymore. Not a goddamn thing. I’m not sure how I ever could have mistaken one for the other in the first place. “Not tonight, I’m afraid.”
Not ever.
He’s lucky to get a coy wave of farewell instead of a knee to the balls.

The moment the elevator doors close on him, Damon steps into the space left at my side.

“Disgusting little shit,” he observes. Despite all the drinking he’s done, the only telltale sign is the faintest whiff of alcohol on his breath.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“You handled it well enough.” His hand finds the small of my back when he adds, “I’ll have the car brought around. We need to put in an appearance.”

I slant a look at him, but all I say is, “Yes, Damon.”

He stifles a sigh, pressing a fist against his leg until his knuckles crack. “I was pissed, Vee. I shouldn’t have said that.”

You shouldn’t have said a lot of things. I might have burned the city to the ground, but you took out all the bridges on your own.
“No apologies necessary.”
Because it’s a total waste of oxygen.

“Good to hear.” His arm snakes around my waist, and he pulls me close.

“Corporate tell you anything that I should know?” Somehow, I keep my tone light, my body relaxed. “You all looked awfully cozy tonight.”

“Picked up on that, did you?” He reaches up and loosens his tie. Undoes the top button on his shirt.

Like he’s fucking home.
Suddenly, I’m made of ice. The small breath I’m able to draw is laced with the starch from his shirt, the light application of cologne he never forgets after shaving. I feel like I am choking on them.

“They agree that it’s better for everyone if we’re together.” Damon doesn’t mention Micah, but I can tell the exact second that he thinks of his competition. The muscles in his arms and shoulders bunch up as he dips lower to put his face in front of mine. His hands are in my hair—

Don’t scream, Vee. Keep your shit together.

—and his forehead meets mine. “This is how it was meant to be.”

The old Vee, the one before Micah, would scream. She would claw and screech and savage him to pieces. Instead, I get very, very calm. “I’m tired of fighting you, Damon.”

“That’ll make it easier when I move in.” He smiles. Another test. He’s waiting to see what I’m going to do, what I’m going to say.

“The sooner, the better, I think. I vote we skip the after-party so you can go get your suits. I’ll clear out a spot in my closet.”

He backs off enough to laugh. “I already sent out a couple guys for that stuff. There are a few things in my office I need to retrieve myself.” Another pause, another assessing look. “I need an hour, maybe two.”

I cross to the couch, picking up a glass along the way. Fresh off the nanotech reboot and full of fucking vitamins, I’ve been setting drinks down on passing trays all night. Now I only pretend to take a sip from the cup, barely letting the liquor touch my lips.

Need to keep my head clear.

I take a seat and curl my legs under me, red silk on black leather. “I’ll be here.”

“Of course you will. With two squads of security, so don’t get any ideas, all right?”

Putting an arm over my head, I slide down into the sofa just a bit, giving him a really good view of what he’s locking up. “I’m going to have another drink.”

“Seriously, Vee, behave yourself.”

“Not my specialty,” I tell him, “but we’ll see what I can manage by the time you get back.”

Also not a lie.

He turns on one heel and marches out, barking, “Lock it down!” into his phone.

As soon as the elevator doors slam shut, I head down the hall toward Jax’s room.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

M

Trav studies me, as if he can’t believe I’m here.

I know the feeling. “Trav, oh my god. What happened? What are you doing here? Where have you been? What’s going on?”

He ignores every question, locking my head in place with more magnetic restraints. I’m so stunned, it takes a few minutes before the million-dollar question occurs to me.
If he somehow survived . . .

“Trav, what about Bryn? And Rina, and Zane! Did they make it too?” For the first time since waking up on the gurney, hope blossoms in my chest.

The heat radiates off his skin as he leans close. “All dead. It’s just you and me.”

He has the same determination, the same will and drive that I remember. But now there’s a coldness in his eyes. “Trav, wh-what happened to you? I mean, after.”

He casts a long look my way as he replies. “A full neural reconstruction. Or damn close. The first they’d ever performed. Everything they would’ve done to you, if you hadn’t been in worse shape than me.” Every syllable is dispassionate and professional as he gives me the once-over. “Or so they said.”

“You don’t think—”

“That you faked brain damage and a coma just to screw me over? No, I don’t think that.” He pulls back for a moment, still physically close but miles apart in every other possible way. “You lucked out. I got the exploratory brain surgery, the poking and prodding to see how I managed to survive. They zapped me with so many microamp pulses, I wasn’t sure if they were gauging my responses or trying to make me dance.”

Not an ounce of humor in his voice, just the cold recitation of the words.

How badly did the applejack burn him out? If it got too deep into his nervous system, he might not be able to show more emotion than that . . .

“But I’m glad. They did what they had to. To bring me back, to rebuild motor functions. I couldn’t even talk at first.” He pauses, as if he’s out of practice speaking aloud. I would know, I suffered from the same affliction until recently. “You know when people do things that hurt you, and they tell you it’s for your own good? This time, it actually was.”

Trav hooks me up to all kinds of monitoring equipment and taps away on his datapad, syncing it up to the monitors. Suddenly he changes tack, his hands going still. “You’ve been off-grid for a while now.”

“Ever since the coma, yeah.”

“They had to map my neural pathways to chart how much damage the applejack had done before they could reintroduce my nanotech. So for a week, I had physical therapy outside during my recovery, and I heard this . . . white noise all around me. Only when I was outside, or working with a window open.”

The hum
. “Yes, I hear it too! Always. Ever since I came back to Cyrene.”
I thought I was
the only person in the whole damn city who heard it.

He nods slowly, eyes glazed slightly as he reminisces. “It stopped when I went back on the grid, after they repaired the worst of the scarring. My doctors said the . . .” He searches for the right word.

“I call it the hum.”

“Okay. My doctors said the hum was a form of tinnitus after the overdose, and that it would fade. But you’ve been hearing it for months.”

“It doesn’t fade, but it does settle into the background after a while. Took some getting used to.”

“I can imagine.” He’s interrupted by a beep on the datapad. His eyes scroll across the screen as he reads. “I take it Genevieve didn’t report hearing anything while she was off-grid?”

I’m thrown off by the swerve in topic. “I . . . don’t know who that is.”

“Black hair, hazel eyes, 1.65 meters tall.” Trav’s gaze flicks across the information on the datapad in his hand. “Professional singer. Prone to antisocial behavior and antiauthoritarian outbursts. Recent recipient of unorthodox treatment for an adverse reaction to applejack. Kudos to you for pulling that off, by the way.”

Genevieve. Another thing she doesn’t remember.
“Her name is Vee. And no, she didn’t hear it. What else do you know about her?”

“A lot. Tough girl. Resilient. Problematic nanotech. Tendency toward hysteria during preparation for memory revision procedures.”

I tense up and push against the restraints with everything I have. “No, please, tell me you didn’t mind-wipe her.”

Trav looks almost disgusted by my words. “You’d be fine with her carrying that pain around every second of every day? In her shoes, wouldn’t you want to leave the past behind? The blood, the brutality, the waking nightmare. All that suffering, gone in an instant. It must be so peaceful, starting over. A gift, really.” He hesitates, catching himself.

That didn’t answer the question. Is he toying with me?
Worry washes over me. Releasing the breath I’ve been holding, I wince as my rib reasserts itself into the conversation.

Reaching up, Trav activates the microphone to start the “official” exam. “Subject C-15 appears to be in quite a lot of pain. Unfortunately, the subject remains awake after multiple doses of tranquilizer, and I suspect any pain meds on hand would have the same negligible effect.”

He clicks the mic off for a moment. “You’re going to feel every bit of this.” Another click. “Before we scan the subject for any foreign implants, biotech, or other illicit body modifications, we need to get the lay of the land, as it were. Despite the anomalous—and quite miraculous—recovery from his previous misfortune, the subject has suffered some extensive nerve damage, and the severity of any impairment to brain function is unknown.”

Foreign implants? Biotech? Like I’m a spy, infiltrating the city for some rival company? They don’t know why I came back to Cyrene, why I’m still walking around instead of weighing down a couch or bed at home.

But Trav must know that’s insane. He knows me . . .

He used to, anyway.

What is all this? Is this for show? Is . . . is he on my side, after all?
I feel adrift here. Nothing to anchor me.
Not even my name.

An assistant steps into view, and Trav points out something on his datapad. The assistant nods once and moves behind me. With my head and neck affixed to the table, my field of vision is limited. Right now, all I see is Trav, picking up where he left off.

“With such significant scarring in the brain tissue, our less invasive scans will prove ineffectual. We’ll have to employ more direct methods before we can proceed any further. Fisher, I’ll make sure the braces are secure. You get the drill.”

I writhe, jerking my arms and legs with all my strength, but the restraints don’t budge. “Trav, stop. Please! You can’t—”

He purposefully steps over to me and slaps a thick adhesive patch on my neck. It stings like a dozen hornets striking at once, and I go silent, lips moving but no sound coming out.

“There we are. Mechanical paralytic. The barbs work directly on the muscles themselves, no chemicals necessary.” He examines the brace holding my head in place. “Means no more outbursts to distract us from our work.”

I’m still screaming, screaming for all I’m worth, but no one can hear me. No one at all.

V

I’m ready to unload the entire plan on her, but Jax is on board before I get three words out of my mouth. Leaving her rooting through her personal stash of pharmaceuticals, I detour through the kitchen.

Security is everywhere: in the hall, stationed at each door, blocking the service exit at the back. Taking a page out of Jax’s book, I’m all smiles and giggles and flirty flourishes when I skim past Damon’s private goons. They track every move I make, but that’s the only response I get as I grab the necessary supplies from the fridge and head toward Sasha’s room.

She avoided most of the party, pleading a headache and ducking out early. All the lights in her room are out, so it takes a second for my eyes to adjust. There’s a huddled lump in the bed sniffling with misery, and I home in on that, peace offering in hand.

“Hey, sweetie.” I peel the blanket back far enough to reveal her pitiful, tear-stained face and Little Dead Thing curled up in her lap. “I brought cookie dough.”

She moves over with a miserable sort of gulp. All the fire burning her up in the limo has faded down to embers, smothered by the heavy air in the room, her memories of the Redheaded Mini, the torment of not knowing where she is or how she is or what will happen next.

I can sympathize.

The next thing I know, Sasha’s crying her heart out against my shoulder. “God, Vee, I’m so sorry.” Hiccup, cough, sniff. “I didn’t want to do it, I swear . . .”

Appalled by the emotional fireworks, Little Dead Thing abandons both of us with a hiss. I put my arms around Sasha and let her get it all out, too fired up and focused on Micah to join her in a weepfest.

“It’s all right,” I murmur, patting her. “Jax told me what happened with . . .”
Shit. What’s the Redheaded Mini’s name? The girl lost a finger because of me, and I don’t even know her name.

“Callie.” Sasha wipes her nose on her sleeve. “But you’re back now, and Damon’s not going to do anything else to her, right?”

Tearing off the foil seal, I break off a blob of cookie dough and eat it myself, trying not to choke. “No. Damon’s probably done. For now.” I pass her the package and lean back, letting that last thought spin cobwebs in her brain.

She frowns. “For now?”

“Until he wants something else from you,” I explain, trying to swallow and silently vowing that I will never eat another chocolate chip anything ever again. “Corporate doesn’t know he’s up to any of this. What he’s done to Callie. The fact that he’s got Micah locked up, too, so that I never forget to behave myself. Once he’s got something on Jax, he’ll have all three of us sewed up in a pretty little package.”

Sasha peers unhappily at the cookie dough, then sets it down, like she’s lost her taste for it. “We have to get a hold of someone higher up the chain. Tell them what Damon’s doing. They can help us get Callie and Micah out—”

“By the time we get a hold of someone at Corporate with influence, and they figure out who’s lying and who’s telling the truth, Callie and Micah could be dead.” I swallow hard at the thought, then press forward. “I can fix this, Sasha, but I need your help.”

She hesitates.
All it will take to end this is her saying no.
She doesn’t even have to tattle to Damon, though that certainly would bring every bit of his wrath down on my head. When she starts to pull back, I grab her hands. My thumb finds a chunky piece of jewelry on her middle finger; the way Sasha gasps a little tells me it’s the Redheaded Mini’s ring.

Probably the one on her damn finger when they cut it off.

“We’ll get Callie out.” I press as hard as I can on the silver, pushing the tiny skull and crossbones into her skin.

She blinks once, twice, then whispers, “How are we supposed to manage that?”

I have to trust her now. Have to throw myself out of the nest. Fly or fall. All or nothing.

“I need you to help me make a few phone calls.”

M

It’s not when the pain starts that scares you. It’s when the pain stops. Even as the drill continues to whir behind you. And for a very long moment, you wonder if you’ll ever feel anything again. When the electrodes and exploratory probes begin snaking inside, it’s horrifying and reassuring all at once.

Describing their every action in excruciating detail for the official record, Trav and the assistant are hard at work behind me, like the monsters you know are lurking just out of sight.

Or one monster you thought you knew.

It’s been nine months since that night. Has he been here the whole time I’ve been running around the city? How soon did he know I was out of the coma? Why won’t he tell me about Vee?

What’s his role in all this?

My jaw aches from silent screaming, and eventually I stop, unable to summon the energy to keep at it. Better to keep my efforts in reserve for an opportunity down the line. If one ever presents itself—

There’s a ping, and Fisher stops to check his phone. “Your
guest
has arrived. I’ll send him in.” Trav nods slightly as he checks my vitals again. The whole time, his eyes refuse to meet mine.

The double doors open and shut out of view. “From street rat to lab rat. How fitting.”

I don’t know the voice, but I can guess. I see the pricey suit before the victorious sneer on his face.

He makes sure to approach me from my good side. He wants to savor this. “Well, what have we here? Huh. Micah. The survivor. The runner. The legend. The man who outsmarted every guard at the Dome.” He leans over, ripping the paralytic patch from my skin. His breath stinks of mint, as if he’s been sanitized. “You don’t look like much to me.”

If he leans an inch or two closer, one bite will make him regret it.

Trav replies before I do. “Damon, I have a great deal of work ahead of me. Determining Micah’s viability for the project will take time. So if you’d like to see your cut anytime soon, make it quick.”

Viability. The project.
I shudder at how casual that sounds.
How clinical.

“Oh, please, I gift-wrapped him for you. The least you can do is shuffle off and play with your chemistry set while I enjoy myself for two seconds.” With a hard glare, Trav steps away, and Damon turns to me, smiling wide, triumphant. “Hey there, lab rat. Sounds like your old friend here will have to dissect you just to find something of interest. You might be something special to this nutjob, but not to me. And certainly not to Vee.” He licks his lips before continuing.

“I can’t believe a piece of pathetic trash like you almost stole everything from me. Some delusional vigilante
clown
running around my city taking what’s
mine
!”

He leans close, grabbing my throat. “Unacceptable!” He looks at the restraints pinning me down, reassured that he has control once more, and he composes himself. “It’s unacceptable, so I put a stop to it. She’s been scrubbed free of your filth, and you’re nothing but a stranger to her now. Vapor. Dust in the wind.”