The Color of Rain (8 page)

Of all my rushing thoughts, the words that come are soft. “I didn't know you knew my name.”

“It's a hard one to forget.” He slips something papery through my half-open lips. “Do yourself a favor and dream of someplace else.”

A minty taste spreads across my tongue and darkness crowds my vision.

“But the Void is my dream.” I keep my eyes open past the moment when they can no longer see.

I
fall . . .

And slam face first into the floor. Bright spots pop across my vision.

“
Move, move, MOVE!
” someone shouts.

Groggy, I lift up on my elbows. My cheekbone aches as I squint around the cargo room. Someone unsnapped my harness. Someone let me drop to the floor. But I'm in the Void now—I jumped Earth City.

“
GET UP!
”

I peer at the voice, and a familiar thin frame and pink hair come into focus. “Lo? What're you doing here?”

“Tell you later.” She gets under my arm and hauls me to my feet. “We're in one sweet freakin' mess, Rain.”

Someone barks orders while Lo drags me to the center of the room. Beautiful girls with varying shades of skin and hair are arranged in a line like they're waiting for an inspection. “Can you stand?” she asks. “I've got yelled at twice, and I think we'll be in it deep if we don't do exactly like the others.”

I plant my feet and push off her shoulder. “What's going on?”

The line of girls straightens as the wheel on the chamber door
begins to spin, and by the time it opens, the girls are as silent as though they've been struck. Ben enters, his wild hair covering most of his expression, but he's not the one who sends shivers through me.

Johnny's smile is daring. He steps in behind the Mec, one hand in his pocket as he strolls up and down the length of the room. His clothes are as elegant as they were on Earth City, but in the new scene, it's something more . . . commanding? Threatening? He inspects the girls one at a time, while Ben works his way down the line, injecting each of them in the arm with the same needle instrument that he used on Hallisy.

I panic as Johnny approaches, but a girl with black, tightly curled hair takes his arm before he reaches me. Her skin is so dark that it reminds me of a cocoa bean. “Johnny, I haven't seen Shara. My cousin. Do you know if she . . .” Her voice trails off as he shakes his head. She lets go of his arm, and her eyes begin to redden.

What have I gotten myself into?

Dizziness makes me reach for the girl next to me, but she throws me off with an elbow to the ribs. I stumble forward and end up on one knee before Johnny's great height.

He takes my arm and lifts me back to my feet. A smile touches the corner of his mouth. “Welcome to the Void, Rain.” His fingers skim my hair, and I can't help but notice the looks from every other girl in the room. Jealousy and heat.

Johnny spins on the spot to face Ben. “She needs a shower and some color. Get the others on their way.” He leaves and the girls burst into hushed whispers.

“Some party, huh?” Lo chews on her thumbnail. “Never thought I'd be under a pimp again. Not after Bismark.” She rubs the jagged scar that runs around her neck like a perverse necklace and laughs shrilly.

She's in shock. I'm in shock. What
is
going on?

Ben makes his way to me and slips my shirt off my shoulder without making eye contact. I was waiting for him to get down the line, but now I don't know what to ask. The shot jars me back to the starship. To outer space. To being a prostitute.

“What was that?” I rub my shoulder.

“Birth control and a resistant antibody for STDs.” He moves on to Lo. “You're all set.”

All set?

He tries to get a hold on Lo's arm, but she slaps him away.

“It's all right. He isn't going to hurt you,” I try.

“But he's a . . . he's a . . .” I get a hold of Lo's arm and hold it still for him. Ben injects her, and I wait for him to say thank you. Instead, he calls for the attention of the room.

“Green tags to the Family Room. Blues to the passenger levels,” he orders. “And yellows to the crew deck. That's it. Go on.” The girls stream toward the door in a rush. Those with blue-rimmed bracelets find others with the same color. And the greens converge with the other greens. The white-blonde girl next to me whimpers as she stares at a yellow-rimmed bracelet. I look down at my own wrist, happy to find no bracelet—no bizarre identifier.

Lo is unbraceleted as well. “What do we do?”

“We ask the Mec.” I touch my cheekbone where my face smacked the floor. It's hot and tender, bruising most likely.

“We don't have bracelets,” Lo says in a mousy voice that I've never heard before.

“You two need to be cleaned up.” He touches the arm of a green-braceleted girl with the longest, prettiest dark hair I've ever seen. “Kaya, take the new girls up to the Family Room and get them bathed and colored, will you? I'll be by to tag them.”

Kaya nods, but withdraws from Ben's hand as though it burned her. She beckons us toward the door, and Lo grips my waist like she's forgotten how to walk.

We pause at the very end of the crowd of girls, waiting for our turn in the elevator. Kaya combs her fingers through her dark hair, staring at Lo. Her eyes are a stretched, almond shape that I've never seen before. “You're much uglier than most. Johnny recruit you personally?”

Lo picks at the pink streaks in her stringy hair. “Was just having a drink at the Blackstar, and this guy offers to get me off planet.” She looks at me. “I thought he was that same captain guy that chatted you up, so I thought, why not?” She touches her neck scar, her whole body shaky. “Couldn't pass up the Void. Plus I wanted to be with you, Rainy. Then next thing, I'm waking up strapped to a wall like a freakin' nutso.”

I rub her back. “You think you've been abducted like the Touched?”

She leans into me, fishing out the photo of her mom from her cleavage and rolling it between her palms. “Feels a bit that way, doesn't it? Like no one will ever see us again?”

I can't help but agree.

She stops fidgeting. “Where's Walker, Rain?”

“He's safe.” I don't like the way Kaya watches us while we talk. Me in particular . . . and mostly my hair. “He had an accident, but I'm going to get him help when we reach the Edge. He's going to be all right.”

Kaya laughs as the elevator opens. “You new girls,” she says. “You always have your heads up hope's ass.”

I yank Kaya's hair so that her whole body jerks back, and she yelps. “That's for calling Lo ugly,” I add, stepping past her and into the elevator.

She's ready to fight, but the doors close and a siren blares:
SCHREECHEEENSCH! SCHREECHEEENSCH! SCHREECHEEENSCH!

All three of us fall to our knees, covering our ears. The sound slices straight into my brain so that I can't think or move.

After a few moments, it cuts off, and we breathe into the now deafening silence.

“Let me outta here!” Lo beats fists against the elevator doors.

“No use,” Kaya says. “You see that red light?” She points to the ceiling. “We're in lockdown.”

“What the shit is lockdown?” I say, wiggling my finger in my ringing ear. “And what was that siren for?”

“An alarm. Means something's loose. We don't go anywhere until it's been collected.”

“What'd ya mean by ‘something'?” Lo turns, her tiny features all bunched up. “Like some kind of space demon?”

“You for real, girl?” Kaya snorts. “Something or someone set off the alarm.
Imreas
is a passenger ship, but there's also things down in the storage areas. Questionable things. People bringing
animals to sell on Entra. Or some other nonsense. Who knows.” She snorts again. “Alarms don't usually get tripped this early in a run. Bet that Mec is sprinting around like a fool to fix it for Johnny.”

“I didn't think Mecs could be fools,” I say, both heated by the fact that she'd dismiss Ben and the hint that I care.

“Yeah, well, most Mecs stay on the Edge where they belong. Only the idiot ones leave their paradise.” Something about her words is strange. Not to mention that her skin is a warm, toasted color that I've never seen before.

“You're not from Earth City, are you?” I ask.

“Are you kidding?” She gets to her feet and swings her long hair behind her. “I was born on the Entra settlement, and I've been with Johnny since his early runs. Back before he owned this ship.” She rubs the green bracelet. “Takes a lot to keep in his favor, so don't think you can pull anything over on me. No matter your stinking hair color.”

I stand. “What
is it
with my hair?”

“Johnny's always wanted a true red.” She squints at my roots just as the warning light clicks off and the elevator begins to rise. “Can't believe he finally found one.”

Lo grips my hand, and I give her fingers a squeeze. Kaya leads us down hallways lined with glass ornaments and plush carpets to a large open room filled with couches and pillows and a variety of floor mats.

“This is the Family Room,” she says. “This is where Johnny's
faves sleep when they're not with clients.” Girls with green bracelet tags lounge around, and a half-dozen well-dressed men stand at one corner as though they're about to take a survey.

“Not bad,” Lo says, looking over the colored veils. They hang from the ceiling, creating secret-looking nooks around the room. “Better than I'm used to.” Lo leans in to whisper. “So this is where the green girls go? How do we get a green tag? And what happens to the other colors?”

“I don't know,” I whisper back. “But we need to find out.” Before we left Earth City, Ben had called me a “red tag,” but I don't see any other red tags, and like hell do I want to be the only one.

Kaya brings us into a shower room with a steamy atmosphere and tiled walls. Lo coughs, and I rub her back, as Kaya points to a huge tub sunk into the floor. “Get in,” she says.

“With our clothes on?”

“If you call those clothes.”

Lo places her mother's picture on a towel, sinks to the edge, and wades in. “It's not bad, Rain. It's warm.”

“Your name's
really
Rain?” Kaya chirps. “You should change it to something more suitable. How about Ginger or Scarlet?”

“Just as soon as you change yours to Jerk.” I squat by the tub to keep from lashing out further. My mom gave me my name, and it's all I have left from her. I drag my fingers through the warm water and though our pool was always empty, I can't help but picture it how I last saw it: blood smeared across the deep end and Walker's desperate cries. . . .

Kaya shoves me, and I topple headfirst into the tub with a violent splash. I resurface, kicking and spitting.

“Hey!” Lo yells. “We're on your side! What's wrong with you?”

“I'm fine, Lo.” I hack up a mouthful of water and eye Kaya. “She's just playing the queen. No doubt it's been a long time since anyone wanted her.” I pause. “I bet Johnny barely even looks at her anymore.”

Kaya stomps across the room and riffles through a shelf of products.

“You need to do what I do,” Lo says so quietly that I almost miss it.

“What?”

“Stop running your mouth.” She squints angrily. “Don't think that these girls are on your side. They all want to make the pimp happy. They all want to be his favorite. That's how this works. Trust me. And
if
you're his favorite, they'll all want to take you down.”

I start to argue, but she splashes me in the face.

“Just keep your mouth closed. I don't want you getting hurt!”

I want to say that she's wrong and to point out that it's always been me taking care of her. What does she know? But then I see her terrible neck scar—how Bismark strung her up with a wire when a guy complained about her service. Perhaps she does know a thing or two that I don't.