The Color of Rain (22 page)

What may be hours later, I try to shift toward the wall but only succeed in knocking into something that jolts my back. I jerk forward, smashing full-bodied into Ben.

“Stop moving!”

“Something stung me.”

“A bared electrical pulse. There are dozens in here. Just try to stand still.”

“Easy for you to say. You're the one leaning on me.” I twist until my hips are off-center to his. “If you wanted to be in the dark with me, you could have just asked.”

Crew members return through the hall. Ben and I fall into a dead silence, and my idiotic words linger as being entirely too slutty or flirty. Or both.
If you wanted to be in the dark with me?
Good lord.

The voices move further down the corridor.

“What are you complaining about?” he whispers. “You're the one who kissed me.”

“I was joking. Just kidding!”

“If you were kidding, why are you blushing?”

“You can see me?” I back up into the pulse and receive another electrifying jolt in the shoulder. “You can see in the dark?”

“I can see a scale of temperature signatures when there's low light.” There's a smile in his voice. I clear my throat and try to think about something other than how very close we are and the fact that he can freakin'
see
my body heat.

“You Mecs really are evolved.”

He breathes an annoyed sigh and leans back, causing me to tilt into him in the narrow space. “You've really got to stop thinking that I'm super human. If I was . . . well, we wouldn't be in here, would we?”

I prop my arms on the wall beside his waist and lock my elbows for maximum distance. “I don't get why you're so embarrassed about being Mec. You could have been born on Earth City, losing your friends and family one after another like a string of old lights.”

My throat gets tight, but I can't seem to stop. It's been too long of a night—too long of a run through the Void. “You could have been walking across the square one day only to look up into the eyes of someone committing suicide. Someone falling over you like human rain.”

Ben doesn't say anything, and I stare into a corner of the wall space that I can't even see. “Just ignore me,” I manage. “Being shut in here is making me say stupid things.”

He's quiet for a moment. “I won't ignore you. You're not the kind of person that anyone could ignore. No wonder Johnny is in love with you.”

“He isn't—”

“He is, Rain. It may only be Johnny's brand of lusting love, but seriously, he's hooked.”

My cheeks blaze with embarrassment as I remember how I mauled Johnny's lips before that line of passengers. “Yeah, well, I'd rather not talk about him.”

“All right.” He's quiet for another long stretch of minutes. “I've been doing some more research on the whole Touched
phenomenon. I think it's genetic, and that's a sort of specialty with Mecs. It may just be a weakness in the DNA of Earth Cityites.”

I've never heard it put so simply. “So maybe your people do know a cure.”

“They should know more on the Edge, but don't delude yourself, Rain. Mecs aren't perfect.” His chest heaves and bumps into mine. “For example, I was born blind.”

“What?”

“Every Mec is born blind. Our scientists messed with genetics to boost intelligence, and somehow they wiped the code for eyesight. They haven't figured out how to fix it without losing the enhanced intellect, but they figured we're wicked smart now, so who needs natural eyesight.” He takes a long breath. “I'm not evolved, Rain. I've been engineered this way.”

“So how do you see?” I touch his face, finding his hair and twisting it behind his ear.

“Optical cameras were implanted in my brain after birth,” he says as though the words taste foul.

“So
that
's the silver? You've got machinery in your head? Is that what you meant when you said you had ‘hardware'?”

“How's that for enforcing the Mec stereotype? We've got technology on the brain. Literally.” He forces a laugh. “So don't go so hard on the Earth City. Mecs are just another brand of freaks.”

“You seem pretty human to me. Particularly all your flaws. And you'll be a doctor one day. Once we get out of here. I know it.”

“Right. When we get out of here.” He swallows a laugh, and I think that he's going to make fun of my rather naïve scratching
around for hope. But he doesn't. He clears his throat. “So, what will you be once we're out of here?”

The immediate answer is
anything else than what I am
, but I manage to keep that to myself. “I don't know. I guess, more than anything, I'd like time to think about it. On Earth City, I was always scraping to stay alive. To protect Walker. I used to dream about running the Void, but beyond that . . . maybe I just wish I had time to try a bunch of things. I'd like to use the smarts my dad gave me.” The idea fills me with a real warmth. “Does that sound crazy?”

“Not at all. There are universities on the Edge that could help you do just that.”

“University,” I repeat, loving even the sound of the word. My elbows are stiff from supporting myself, and I bend them, nudging into him.

“You can lean on me,” he says in a husky voice. “We could be in here for another few hours. I don't know how long they'll look for the cause of the alarm.” I loosen my elbows until I'm resting against his chest. His heart thumps beneath my ear—a little too loud and fast.

Of all the men that I've let inside me since I boarded this claustrophobic metal, his closeness feels the most risky. Of course Johnny would lose his head if he knew how much I think about Ben—how often we've had . . . moments.

“Ben, you really think the K-Force won't save us? We're doing
their
job, aren't we?”

“It's difficult to say. I just don't want to make promises to you that I can't keep. They have greater priorities than rescue.
Large-scale missions. Their brand of justice is really eye for an eye. They'll blow
Imreas
to hell if they get a chance, and it won't matter who's onboard.” His arm tucks around my waist, and his voice lowers. “And they certainly didn't do anything when I let them know about Bron. ‘A necessary casualty,' my uncle called her through the transmission.
A necessary casualty
.”

“She was your girlfriend?” He'd called her that before and the word lodged someplace deep. To think that they were together,
really
together despite Johnny and the girl trade . . . I can't help but feel an itch of jealousy.

His fingers tug at my belt, and I relax against him a little more. “Not exactly. I wanted her to be, but nothing is simple on this ship. And Johnny had his hooks in her almost as deeply as he has them in . . .”

Me
.

I know that's what he wants to say, but he continues in another direction. “He was enraged by the idea that she could like anyone other than him. I bet he beat her before . . .”

His hand turns into a knot—an unyielding fist pressed against my hip. “Hell, Rain. I'm going to get you killed.”

“Not if I get you killed first,” I point out.

He hiccups a surprised laugh. “True.” The muscles of his shoulder are the best balance of firm, both warm and inviting. I rub my cheek against his shirt just as the red lines around the edge of the panel stop flashing and are replaced by the yellowed brightness of the overheads.

The lockdown is over. Ben shimmies around my body and pops the panel free, spilling unnecessary light into our secret space.

G
hostly bodies fall through the Void.

They scream my name.

And Walker's pod is among them, flipping and spinning until it's gone beyond the blue engine lights of the ship. I try to jump after him, but I'm held back by gripping, stroking, stealing fingers. I'm prodded and stripped. I'm taken apart by faceless men—skin from muscle, muscle from bones.

Soul from body.

Someone touches me, and I snatch the hand, bending back the thumb that I've caught. I open my eyes and look straight into Johnny's hair-ruffled halo.

“Let go.”

I drop his thumb. “You startled me.”

He shakes out his thumb joint but wears a smile. “You were nightmaring.” I try to push up on my elbows on the satiny bed, but he moves closer. He's naked, but then so am I. I stripped both of us when I returned from being with Ben. And I destroyed the room. The plush chair is on its side, clothes are strewn about, and a bottle has been emptied on the bar.

“We did all that?” I fake.

“Apparently. Must have been a wild night. Wish I could remember some of it.” He squeezes his temples for a moment. The drug I slipped him last night has left him groggy but not dead. The sheet glides between us like a film of lotion as he presses his length against my side and draws circles on the lowest part of my belly.

“Tell me what you dreamt about.” A smile is fitted to Johnny's face, but for once it isn't cold or malicious. If anything, I would call it searching. “I don't remember my dreams,” he adds.

“I saw my brother,” I say, leaving out the rest.

Johnny groans. “Boring. And here I was hoping you dreamt of me. Crysta used to have nightmares where she'd call out for me.” His eyes reveal their deepest brown as his gaze falls out of focus. “I loved watching her twist and cry. Watching her ache and sniffle. Sometimes I would wait for her to hit that breaking point—right before she might wake herself—and then I'd kiss her.”

His lips seal mine, reeking of the alcohol that I smeared over his unconscious mouth, and his body arches as he moves his kiss from my mouth to my neck to my chest. I begin to slip into it—to run my hands through his hair and massage his back.

But Johnny sags, and he presses his forehead into my neck. Strange emotions seem to freeze him where he lies, and for just a moment he is nothing like the cold commander of this ship. His whole weight sinks against me as he sighs, and if I didn't know better, I might call him heartsick. Ben said that Johnny has a sort of love for me, but it feels more like he has an overwhelming need for another's love. A craving.

A deficiency.

His com buzzes next to my ear, and he grumbles out of his
trance and slides off. He presses something on the wristband, and the door opens.

Ben enters.

Johnny has taken the sheet with him, and I grapple to cover my nakedness, tipping off the bed and landing with an unladylike
oof
on the floor. Johnny chuckles. “That Mec stare is a bit much, Ben. Do try to blink once in a while. Then maybe my girls wouldn't be so terrified of you.”

“Your girls are scared of me because you make me punish them,” Ben says while I tug myself into the first bit of clothing I can find, Johnny's black dress shirt, and get to my feet.

“True,” Johnny admits. “But what order would we have if I was always the one knocking them around?”

Ben doesn't respond, and my fingers struggle with the shirt buttons. I can't help but remember last night—that small space between the walls—and the way Ben and I leaned, breathing each other in.

“We'll be arriving at Entra tomorrow,” Ben says to Johnny.

“And all is in place?” Johnny gets out of the bed, naked and apparently not the least bit shy about it. He picks up the bottle on the bar and drinks from it before tugging on his pants. “No surprises like last time?”

Ben shakes his head. “No sign of her—”

Johnny's look kills Ben's words. Then he beckons me with a come-hither finger, and I step over and into the curl of his arm. “There was an alarm tripped last night. What happened?”

Ben's good. His face is blank and sound. “We didn't find anything. It could have been nothing.”

“Nothing.” Johnny's arm gets a little tighter around me. “Why don't I believe you? Oh, that's right, it's because you still think you're smarter than me, but I know that Mecs are only as capable as their toys. Empty your pockets.”

Ben pulls all sorts of interesting things out of the deep pockets in his cargo pants, dumping them on the edge of the bed. In the meantime, Johnny slides his shirt off my shoulder and kisses the nape of my neck. A sort of moaning sigh slips out of me that's entirely too loud, and Johnny chuckles, nuzzling my neck some more.

I glance at Ben, feeling the rush of my embarrassment. But his eyes are held up on the place where Johnny kisses me. He chucks the blue medical disc onto the bed last.

“That's everything,” Ben says, and when Johnny doesn't look up from caressing me, he cuts in, “Johnny. That's it.”

Johnny doesn't look up. “Rain,” he says. “Pat him down for me.”

A torn feeling swells in my chest as I step between them. I manage to kneel before Ben, feeling his pockets—and the tensed muscles of his legs beneath. All the while, my heart slams around in my chest. I should not be between them. This is more than a little dangerous. This is what happened to that Bron girl.