Page 17 of Skyn (After the End #3)

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“The problem with eating at those damned fundraisers is that you’re still hungry after you leave.” Ben peeks through a sliver of the door, springy black hair standing up in sharp tufts like some accidental crown.

“God, I’m starving,” I say, pulling a microscopic skirt over my hips.

The mannies buzz around me nervously. And the door lurches open like Ben’s stumbling into it but catches his footing. He can’t even be properly clumsy.

“Fawl, I…wanted to share something with you.”

Here it is. He’s about to bail. I thought I could withstand the ridicule, but it is all just too much.

I drape his jacket, still soiled and spotty, over my shoulders.

“I told you the mannies would be able to get the stains out,” he says.

“Ha, you’re calling them the mannies! And I don’t want the stains out,” I say, the words slipping out before I have the chance to rethink them.

“You never say what I think you’re going to say.” He looks at me.

“And you never say what you actually want to say,” I shoot back.

He moves closer; even as I know I’m about to be kicked out on my ass, I have to admit there is something undeniably elegant about Ben.

“I should start saying what I mean, then,” he says, licking his lips a little. He steps closer, and geez, nobody moves like him.

The space between us feels tight, like an expanding balloon. Have I misunderstood him? That flicker of heat in his gaze—is it for me?

“I stopped all the dampeners,” he announces. “No side effects.”

There’s too much to respond to. Wow, he is capable of surprising me. “I’m sorry, What? When? All of them?”

“Yes, all of them,” he says. He’s proud.

He’s fucking crazy.

I…am…nervous.

“All?” I echo, my voice pitching higher. “Cold turkey? Don’t people wean themselves off them for weeks?”

“I was ready,” he insists, pressing his hand to his lower belly as if to prove something to me. “All the dire warnings were overstated. I’m fit as a fiddle.” He stands with his chest out. The way his muscles shift under his shirt and the clean lines of his chest and arms make me look away.

He’s delusional, though. Fit as a fiddle?

“Will you be okay?” I ask, unsure whether to be concerned by his sudden dive into whatever he thinks this is. Maybe I should call a doctor.

“Of course! I’m ready to feel everything,” he says, and there’s a wildness in his voice that wasn’t there before. “I agree with you. With what you said about passion and innovation.”

“So, you just cut yourself off?” I can’t hide my disbelief.

“Yes! Before the Ball. Why shouldn’t I connect with my instincts?

I want to have a hunch or try an impulsive change to the process.

Experimentation actually requires it. I want to be a scientist of everything!

” He shakes my shoulders, eyes wide with a kind of mad clarity, and then he starts throwing blouses into the air like confetti.

“We’re going to eat. Eat without dampeners. ”

That Food Science Ball broke him. I’m seeing a machine lose his shit.

“I’m scouting out places to eat meat,” he says.

The words remind me of Josh suddenly. How much we loved that lamb place belowground.

Not that I’ve had time to dwell on Josh lately.

Everything’s been slightly off, like I’m walking with a heel and a loafer.

Ben slides his holopad to me, and I point to a place that promises real underground-style MEAT.

“That’s an hour’s railcar ride away, though.”

“Did you have anything more interesting to do tonight?” He challenges, his volume rising high, then dipping. His voice modulation is the first hint that something is off with him. It’s like he can’t pick a tone.

“Nope.”

“Then we shall have lamb burgers,” Ben declares with an almost-manic glee. “Until we burst.”

* * *

The railcar shudders to life beneath us. It’s not the sleek, whisper-quiet transit of the high-tier sectors; this thing is old, industrial. It smells like rust and electric ozone, and, when Ben leans back against the worn leather seat, he looks absurdly out of place.

I drag my gaze to the world outside. The tunnels give way to the half city, the part of the metropolis that’s neither entirely below nor fully above.

We pass through a market that’s sprawled into the tunnels, vendors selling hot skewers of meat over makeshift coal pits, the air thick with spices and burning fat.

Ben barely glances at it, but I see everything: the counterfeit fruit dyed to look fresh, the jars of synthetically grown honey glistening like liquid amber, and the woman crouched behind her stall sewing new soles onto old shoes with fishing wire.

Beyond the market, we pass an old theater—a relic from before the Flesh Wars, its grand marquee now scrawled over with phosphorescent graffiti.

Then the tunnels open again, and the sky—God, the sky—slams into me. It literally never gets old.

I glance at Ben, but he’s still staring ahead, unbothered by the world shifting around him.

The lamb restaurant is tucked away in a narrow alley just off the main thoroughfare.

The kind of place you’d miss if you weren’t looking for it.

Inside, everything smells like roasting meat.

The tables are small, crowded together, and mismatched, with chairs that wobble in a way that feels more precarious than charming.

Ben swivels around, taking it all in with a kind of touristic wonder, as if he’s never set foot in a place like this before—and he probably hasn’t.

Underground, this would be considered fine dining.

But even with only two weeks’ distance, I see this is essentially a ghetto for the underground community aboveground.

The host leads us to a private dining room without my asking. It’s like he senses something volatile about us—Ben especially—and decides it’s best to put us behind a closed door. Ben steps inside first and brushes past me, his arm grazing mine, and I know it is intentional.

The waiter closes the swinging doors with a quiet finality, sealing us in. Suddenly, everything feels hushed, exclusive, and faintly dangerous.

I’m just about to make some joke about the romantic-murder-room vibe when I see another being pushed out of the side entrance, tablet in hand.

He looks nervous as all hell.

Ben doesn’t even glance at the menu.

“Lamb burgers,” he says. “Two. Extra sauce.”

He pauses.

“Rare.”

The server gives a tiny nod and vanishes without a word.

I move toward a chair across from Ben, but before I can even fully commit, his hand catches my wrist.

“Here,” he says, guiding me down beside him instead. His touch is firm, but not rough. Decisive. Like six inches of space is six inches too many.

He sits so close, our thighs touch. And this I also know is intentional.

When the food arrives, he’s on it before the server can fully set the plate down.

He grabs the burger and takes a bite so aggressive, I flinch. The sound is messy, wet—a low, satisfied growl escaping him as juice drips down the side of his hand.

His pupils are blown wide, swallowing the color. His eyes are black, starved, and locked on the next bite like he’s fighting the urge to devour the entire table.

I sit still, my own food untouched, a little transfixed at the change in him.

“Does food always taste like this?” he asks, voice unsteady, wild.

He finishes the first burger in four frantic bites and signals the waiter without breaking eye contact with me. His eyes are glassy, glittering with a feverish gleam. Too bright. Too sharp.

“I want more,” he says to no one in particular.

A sheen of sweat glistens on his forehead. Tiny beads form on his upper lip. He reaches for his drink with a slight tremble in his hand, then downs it in a few heavy gulps.

I push my burger slightly closer to him, just in case.

“Yeah, it’s…it’s good,” I manage to say, watching him with a growing pit in my stomach.

He looks over at me, still chewing, still locked in.

And for the first time, I sense it.

That edge in him. That hunter learning the limits of his own hunger.

“I want to taste everything,” he says. His gaze slips from the burger to me, lingering too long, and heat—undeniable, visceral—snakes in my belly. I swallow hard; an image of him, his face buried between my thighs, flares hot in my mind.

I want him to look me over and tell me, in that scientific way he has, what is beautiful about me. But he’s staring me down like a jungle cat, and my voice can barely make it over my vocal cords.

His eyes are like hands on me, and they lock in on my mouth. Before I can even start to protest, he leans in, grabbing both sides of my face, and kisses me, quick and sharp.

It’s so fast that it takes me a moment to process it. He pulls back just as quickly, and I’m left breathless, my lips tingling.

“What…what was that,” I ask. My underwear feels tight, like I’m pulsing out of them, and I cross my legs for fear that he may have the heightened senses to smell my desire.

He shrugs and leans back slightly. “You’re so good at beating the probability matrix,” he says, his voice low and smooth. “I wanted to try to do it.” He taps my dangly earring and traces his thumb along my jaw.

He is entirely too nonchalant. This is nothing to him. A hot kiss on the mouth. Testing a hypothesis. Did I do that to him?

“Well, try on your hand. Not me,” I say, but don’t mean it.

“Illogical. I can anticipate my own moves. Where is the surprise in that? But I can never anticipate your response.”

“Proud to be another Iku lab rat at your service,” I say, with a mocking little salute, but he just watches me, and the look can be described only as—I’m sorry—desperately horny?

“No,” he says, like that explains everything. “I think that’s why you’re so good at upending my statistical models. You’re a hard woman for me to predict, Fawl.”

“Because you’re obsessed with these unified theories. People aren’t always rational actors, Ben.”