Page 24

I wake slow. Slow but not easy. Fighting my way up through the suffocating layers of unconsciousness. Even before I’m fully awake, I know Kez isn’t beside me.

I know she’s not safe.

I blink painfully. Feel the tug of my eyelids as they stick together. Reach up and rub them and spare a moment’s gratitude that I can use both my hands again.

A dark shape moves in my peripheral vision.

Her hot jasmine scent registers before I turn my head to look at her.

The motion makes me slightly queasy, and I hope that’s because of the squishiness of whatever I’m lying in – feels like liquid, although I don’t feel wet – rather than a permanent head injury.

“Myhre,” I say. ‘Least I’m not slurring anymore, although my voice is rough and rusty.

“How are you feeling?” She puts her hand on my shoulder, warm pressure through whatever soft cloth I’m wearing. She’s touched me less than a dozen times in the two weeks I’ve known her. I must have been seriously fucked up.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Better than I was at any rate. I ache like a motherfucker, and my thoughts are weirdly disjointed. But at least I can use all my limbs again. “Where’s Kez?”

“With Chiara. Something to do with her contract celebration.”

I grunt. My kitten’s a busy woman. I wouldn’t expect her to wait by my sick bed. Only she did when I collapsed from that infection. That she’s not here bothers me more than it should.

I shake it off. Stretch and assess. There’s still a deep ache in my right shoulder. Tightness across my back. A numb, tingly feeling in my right hip and thigh. But I can move everything. I reach out and grip the right edge of the long cradle I’m lying in. My grip feels strong and sure.

“No, you’re not supposed to move,” Myhre says. She pushes down on my shoulder with surprising strength. More than I expect. Maybe she’s a closet Mod. Or maybe I’m just that weak.

“How long?” I ask.

“Have you been under? Thirty-two hours. I don’t know if you have any idea how injured you were. Or how lucky.” She rubs my shoulder now that I’m not trying to move. “I know Kezra doesn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She leans over and her face comes into sharp focus.

“She said you knew. Before the skimmer malfunctioned. You knew somehow and grabbed her. You shielded her from the explosion and cushioned her fall. Not many men would do that.” Myhre sits back, still rubbing my shoulder.

“Kezra walked away with a sprained ankle and some cuts and bruises.”

Any man worth the name would do that for his woman.

Acker would understand. I spare a moment to wonder if he’s heard about the crash.

Make a mental note to have Kez plex Tiancha to make sure the rats know we’re all right.

Wouldn’t want our brand-new allies thinking we’ve died and left them out in the cold already.

“Wasn’t a malfunction,” I tell Myhre, remembering that moment where the fire blossomed in Kez’s eyes. “It was a hit. Get Chi and Kez back to the Warren. I want everyone where I can see them.”

Myhre shakes her head. Pats my shoulder. “The skimmer malfunctioned and a neg cell blew. I’ve read the forensic report. It was an accident.”

“This was not a fucking accident,” I growl at her. “They picked us up at the Night Market or at Payton’s, they followed us, and they hit our skimmer with a fucking rocket?—”

“Snow, be reasonable. I’ve read the report.

There was no evidence of impact. Where would anyone on the Clouds even get a rocket?

You know how tightly weapons are regulated.

A neg cell malfunctioned. It was a commercial skimmer.

They’re barely maintained. The taxi company is taking full responsibility?—”

She’s really pissing me off now. “They can take whatever fucking responsibility they want. I know what I know. It was not an accident. It was not a malfunction. Kez and I were shot down and I want everyone home. Right. Now.”

She takes her hand off my shoulder. Purses her mouth. “If that’s what you want?—”

“That’s what I want. Now, Myhre. Stop fucking around. Get Kez and Chiara back now. Call them now .”

Her mouth thins down to a dark line and her eyes go as dead as an orclas’s. I’ve never seen her wear that expression before. I don’t care. I don’t care if I’m hurting her feelings. I don’t care if she thinks I’m out of my fractured skull. I want Kez and Chiara home safe.

She rises stiffly. “I’ll call Doctor Jacklan.”

I slam my hand down on the edge of the cradle. The goo around me ripples with the impact. “Call Kez! Right now!”

Myhre gives me an extremely rigid bow. “Forgive me, sir, I should have said that I will call Doctor Jacklan after I call Miz Kerryon.” She turns on her heel and stalks out of the dim little cube.

I sink back down into the goo. Arguing with Myhre’s made my head pound and bright sparks shoot behind my right eye. Fuck.

Doc Jacklan makes my head pound even harder when he leans over the cradle and shines a bright light into my eye a minute later.

“Dammit,” I growl.

“Apologies, Mister Snow,” Doc Jacklan says.

He’s got a slow drawl, which I find irritating.

I’ve met him before. When Kez and I first showed up to take the reins, he gave us physicals.

Company policy, Myhre said. He tried to stick a tracker in my arm.

Said that was Company policy, too. I nearly shoved it up his ass before Kez stopped me.

I didn’t think much of him then and the intervening two weeks have not improved my opinion.

Doc Gray would have patched me up so my damn shoulder and damn hip and damn head weren’t still aching like a damn motherfucker.

“I advise you to rest, Mister Snow. Your body needs time to recover.”

I’ll rest when I’m somewhere safe. Not being poked and prodded by a Tyngaling who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow. I’ll rest when Kez is beside me, not out wandering the streets where some other greedy wannabe can take a shot at her. “Fuck your advice. Get me moving.”

Doc Jacklan’s left eye twitches, but he controls his expression and nods to a palm-top-toting underling standing behind him. “Prep Mister Snow to move.”

“Yes, sir.” She scuttles forward and begins messing with the cradle I’m lying in.

Doc Jacklan walks out of the cube, his steps shortened by irritation.

I don’t give a fuck. I don’t want him treating me.

If I’d had any choice about it, I’d have stayed in Tiv and let Doc Gray patch me up.

But it was too risky with Civil Patrol on the way.

There’s clicking and vibration beneath me, which I feel like mini jackhammers in my temples, despite the goo.

Then I feel lift. Like a rapid descent: that sinking feeling in my gut and pressure in my sinuses.

Goo slides under my back. The cradle rises under my back and shoulders, pushing me up into a sitting position.

I look down at my legs for the first time and realize that the medsuit I’m wearing ends at my waist. Below the waist, I’m submerged in the translucent goo.

But I can see through the goo pretty clearly, and so could Myhre when she was sitting beside me.

The idea of her sitting there and staring at my limp dick while I was unconscious pisses me off only slightly more than seeing the red, open flap of flesh down my right side from waist to thigh.

Then something moves, and I realize that what I thought were just flecks in the goo are tiny white ‘bots. Crawling around inside me.

“What the fuck?!” I growl at the medtech.

She pops her head around my shoulder. “What’s wrong, Mister Snow?”

“Why am I lookin’ at ... whatever the fuck I’m looking at?!” I’m not even sure what I’m looking at. Looks like a fucking autopsy.

“Doctor Jacklan will?—”

“Fuck Doctor Jacklan.”

“Oh, well, I’m not fully certified yet, I mean, I’m just a trainee, so I shouldn’t be telling you?—”

“Tell. Me. Now.”

“Oh, okay. Well, your hipbones were shattered. I mean, not just shattered. Crushed. Almost pulverized. The calbots are rebuilding them. They’re at eighty-five percent already.

Another forty minutes and we’ll be able to close you up.

You really shouldn’t move until then.” There’s a hint of reproach in her voice. But it’s just a hint.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Med-tech second class?—”

“That ain’t a name.”

“Oh, Sylvie.” She comes fully around the cradle and holds her hand out to me. “Pleased to meet you, Mister Snow. I mean, it really is an honor.”

I shake. “Pleasure’s mine. Can you close me up, Sylvie?”

“Oh sure, but, um, Doctor Jacklan?—”

“Can go fuck himself,” I say with finality. “Bring everything you need, Sylvie. We’re headin’ out. When’s your shift end?”

“Six. I just came on.”

Perfect. I’ve got myself a nurse for the day. By the time Sylvie’s off shift, either Doc Gray will have arrived, or I won’t need a fucking nurse anymore.

“Two things, Sylvie,” I say. “One, it’s just Snow. Forget the Mister. And two, if we’re goin’ anywhere, I’m gonna need somethin’ over my lap.”

She blushes all the way to her glossy, dark brown curls. “I am so sorry.”

“No problem.”

She rummages through a storage cupboard behind me.

Pulls out a folded, silvery cloth. She spreads it over the cradle, so I’m covered from waist to toes, and clips it in place.

“There you go.” She messes around in the cupboard for another moment, pulling out several white plaz boxes.

She stows them under the cradle. “Okay, we’re all set. Where are we going?”

I give her the address.

“Oh, that’s not very far away,” she says. Which means we’re not at HQ. Tyng Tower in Hemos is a good half-hour from Kez’s place. We must be somewhere in Nock City. “I was going to take a skimmer, but how do you feel about a walk? It’s such a nice day.”

Whoever’s gunning for me has already taken out one skimmer, so another one probably doesn’t afford any protection. And no one is going to expect me to take a jaunt through Nock in a float-bed. “Sure.”

Sylvie’s right. It’s not far to Kez’s place. And it is a nice day.