Under Dark Sky Law (12 page)

She wasn’t sure if the bitch was dead yet,
but she was no longer a threat, which was good enough for Xero. Out
in the hallway she heard more shouting. It wasn’t nearly over yet.
For all she knew, the whole hotel was under siege. Fine by her. She
was ready for a battle.

Taking the pause in the action as an
opportunity to make a field dressing, she collected her knives
again and used the extra absorbent hotel towels to clean off some
of the blood. Once the blades were free from most of the blood, she
used them to shred strips from one of the clean towels. Using her
left hand and her mouth she managed to make a sloppy but adequate
bandage around the gashes in her right arm. Some blood was still
dripping through, but she would live, and almost as importantly,
she could still use both hands. She collected the fallen skeleton’s
knife holster and used it to store the extra knife that she’d
knocked out of her hand.

“Anastasia!” someone called from the hallway,
and repeated the call when she didn’t answer the first time. She
recognized the voice on the second call.

“I’m in here,” she called. “Got three rogues
and one of your rookies down.”

“Are you injured?” Stone asked.

“Lacerated arm, but it’s not critical. Field
dressing has been applied. I’m armed with three combat knives
collected from assailants. What’s the status out there?” she
said.

“Hotel was hit by enemy combatants—they
infiltrated staff and used the penetration to allow fully armored
attackers into the building. We have the outside of the building on
lockdown so no further enemy soldiers can enter. We’re in the
process of sweeping the building for any remaining infiltrates.
Care to give us a hand?” he said.

She finished cleaning herself up and
cautiously approached the hallway. Stone and Avery were covering
both entrances, lasers drawn and ready.

“You bet your ass. You got a spare laser you
can toss me?” she asked.

Without taking his eyes off the doorway,
Avery smiled. “If anyone asks, you stole it off one of the
raiders,” he said and tossed an extra laser in her direction.

Remembering how easily the last one
shattered, she made sure to catch it carefully. It looked like a
much nicer model than the defective one that was probably still
busy zapping the dead skeleton in the bathtub, but it was
definitely a few rungs down in quality from the other laser she’d
gotten her hands on from Sanchez back out in the desert.

“You know how to use one of those things?
Stone asked. He turned briefly, just long enough to wink at
her.

“I’m pretty sure I can figure it out,” she
said. “I’ve been around the block a time or two.”

“We’ll start from this floor and clear our
way down to the ground level. You able to go the distance with that
arm? We could use another pro on our side, but we don’t need no one
dropping on us in the middle of a firefight,” he said, all
seriousness.

“You can count on me. It’ll take more than
this scratch to drop me,” she said.

Stone set his jaw and nodded. “Good. Let’s
get this party started.”

CHAPTER 10

“You motherfuckers!” Xero yelled. “You pig
sucking sons of fucking bitches!”

To say she was pissed would have been an
understatement. She wanted to scream and yell at them about how she
was the head of a major territory, that she was one of the biggest
crime bosses in he country, and if she felt like it, she could have
had an army of goons busting into their dome that would be so
nasty, it would make the skeleton attacks look like stupid child’s
play. However, that wouldn’t have really served her case.

The cell smelled like rotten piss and
lingering shit stains. It was the city’s most maximum security
prison, but it was so seldom used or cleaned that it smelled as bad
as some of the detention facilities in the pits. She supposed that
she should have been flattered that they had taken her to such a
place instead of underestimating how dangerous she was—she had to
give them credit for recognizing that. Although seeing as how she’d
probably killed in upwards of twenty people in the last few days,
all of them on the record, it wasn’t exactly a guess on anyone’s
part.

An overweight female security guard came and
banged on the bars. “Hey! Keep it down, or you’re getting sent to
the pit,” she said. She had short red hair that peeked out under
the bottom of her uniform hat. You could tell this wasn’t an oft
inspected facility just from looking at her sloppy uniform and
grooming standards. This never would have passed muster at one of
the uptown prisons.

“Bitch, did you even read my file, I AM the
pit,” she said and charged the bars, wedging her thin face far
enough through the narrow space that it ended up a few inches from
the security guard’s nose.

The woman stepped back suddenly and almost
lost her balance. She blushed and tried to recover, but Xero just
laughed at her, keeping her flustered. So much incompetence. It
felt damned good to let all her pent up frustration fly, but it was
also solving a purpose. Putting the guard on edge, scaring the shit
out of security would give Xero an advantage if it got to the point
where she needed to break out of the prison and get the hell out of
dodge. She couldn’t believe it. After clearly being marked as a hit
for whoever was running the rogue skeletons, they decided to toss
her in the slammer for the night. For her own protection and for
holding until the investigation over the incidents at The Niagara
were thoroughly inspected. It’s not like she’d had a lot of respect
for anyone running the dome anyway, but now she was just
infuriated.

Avery and Stone were also being held for
questioning, but at a military justice facility in another part of
town. It was partially her fault—she didn’t think they’d found any
connection between the tech equipment left in her room and her two
new buddies, but just by virtue that they’d been caught running
around firing lasers with an unauthorized pit dweller was enough to
throw them under the bus. Xero was allowed to carry firearms, but
only outside the dome while on official cargo runs. Of course no
one could stop long enough to pull their head out of their ass to
realize that it was an unconventional situation, but policy was
policy. Always policy with these fucks.

Not knowing what was happening to Avery and
Stone was probably for the best—it would only make her more pissed
off. None of this would have happened in the first place if they’d
actually taken the time to train their fucking personnel. It filled
her with rage to know that as a single person she could probably
run their system with her little group of Grease Weasels better
than the entire squadron of idiots they had fucking around there.
Sure she made mistakes, but by and large she kept her shit under
control. Meanwhile, the few good eggs like Avery and Stone got shat
on for violating stupid rules that made no sense. It was enough to
make her want to burn all the domes to the ground and be done with
them once and for all.

The guard had finally righted herself, and
she came forward to bend down in front of the cell to pick up a set
of keys that she’d dropped when Xero startled her. Dropping to her
knees, Xero made a ludicrous face and said, “Boo!” at top
volume.

The security guard fell on her ass and rocked
back and forth like humpty dumpty. Xero cackled, and she just let
loose the strain of the whole evening, allowing the cackle to turn
into giggles, and then uncontrollable laughter. It was a little
over the top even for her theatrics, but she couldn’t help it. When
she’d finally gotten control of her laughter again, she wiped tears
out of her eyes, stifled a few residual chuckles, and came back to
a standing pose. The guard had finally managed to get up again too,
and she stood a safe distance from the bar, red-faced and clenched
fisted.

The guard bit her lip, her face wrinkled and
pinched with restrained emotions. She brushed debris and dirt off
her already soiled uniform and walked another foot closer to the
cell, but still not close enough for Xero to snag her through the
bars.

“You’re going to regret this,” the guard said
through a tight mouth.

Xero crossed her arms. “Lady, there’s nothing
you can do that I’ve not already done to myself,” she said.

The guard smiled wryly. “We’ll see about
that,” she said and walked back to the guard station that was
almost as piss-scented and filthy as the cells themselves.

CHAPTER 11

She sat on a soft couch upholstered in rich
grey suede. It felt nice to run her hands over its cool surface,
but she realized that she was leaking blood from poorly tended
wounds, and it was leaving unsightly stains on the lush leather.
What a shame.

“Sorry about your couch,” Xero said, holding
up a hand to examine the blood seeping through her bandages. “I can
pay for it, if you like.”

The man behind the heavy mahogany desk leaned
on his elbows, folding his hands and resting his chin on them.
“That’s an interesting offer, don’t you think?” he said.

She ran a barefoot toe over the short
industrial carpet that matched the couch in color but not in price
point. “You haven’t been in this office long, have you? Haven’t had
a chance to replace the carpet?”

The man smiled and pushed square rimless
glasses farther up his nose with one hand and went back to resting
his head against his closed fists. “You’re right—I just moved into
this office a few weeks ago. Do you like it?” he said.

She looked around and nodded. “Yeah, I do,”
she said honestly. It was all dark wood, soft grey tones, suede,
and shelves of books. A large window looked out over the city
below.

“It reminds you of your own office, doesn’t
it, Xero?” he said.

She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head,
evaluating the situation, trying to decide how to play this. Her
pits name wasn’t a secret, but no one would know it if they hadn’t
been digging.

“We don’t really have offices in the pits,”
she said.

“I think we both know that’s not what I
mean,” he said. He leaned backwards in his suede office chair and
folded his hands behind his head, waiting.

Xero could play the waiting game too. It had
been a long night, and she wasn’t fired up to engage in another
round of political dancing. There’d been just about enough waltzing
for one weekend.

After a few minutes of silence, with nothing
but the clock ticking and Xero’s blood dripping slowly onto the
suede, he leaned forward again. He stroked his meticulously groomed
goatee, opened his mouth to speak, but paused again, reaching under
his desk instead.

“Would you like me to help you clean up your
wounds a bit better? I saw in your chart that they didn’t send you
back to medical after the incident at The Niagara or after being
assaulted in the jail last night,” he said and smiled wryly. “Not
that I needed a chart to see that.”

She crossed her arms, smearing blood across
the same black shirt she had been wearing from the day before. Good
thing she’d chosen a black shirt. If it had been white, it would
have been smeared with blood stains. “Yeah, funny how you can be
queen for a day and then you’re back to dog shit the next,” she
said.

“You’ve experienced that a lot, and it makes
you angry,” he said.

Xero threw her head back and laughed. “Don’t
try the psychobabble on me buddy,” she said and narrowed her eyes.
“I think we both know two can play at that game.”

She was developing black eyes that were
beginning to settle in for the long haul. Too bad, she’d just
gotten rid of the last one after the rapid healing sequence.
Nothing pissed her off more than getting tagged in the face, but
considering the snake pit she’d been tossed in, she got off pretty
easy. Ten guys in a maximum unit, all pretty satisfied with the
idea of gang raping her. She may have gotten a couple more knife
slices and a few shiners, but some of them were leaving without
their balls.

He smiled back at her. “Good to know we’re on
the same page, Dr. Pietrovich,” he said and motioned to the medical
kit that he’d spread out across his desk. “Between the two of us we
should be able to keep you from ruining anymore couches, don’t you
think?”

She cocked her head. “Yeah, I think we can
probably manage,” she said.

He leaned over the network of supplies and
made eye contact with her. “That is, unless you’d prefer that I
sent you back to a proper medical facility,” he said.

“No thank you,” she said. “At least not in
this city. You know, I have this nagging feeling that I shouldn’t
have even been released to this office.”

“You’re right. You stirred up some real
trouble back in the jail. It took a bit of convincing to have you
released for a psych eval so soon. I have a good track record of
working with violent offenders, though. It wasn’t hard to convince
someone to release you into my care. Is there a reason you felt
compelled to make your situation even harder?” he said.

“You mean why did I mess with the guards and
put myself in a situation where I had to assault several other
prisoners?” she said.

“Yes, that. Before you would have only needed
to pass a security investigation about the incidents at The
Niagara. Now you need a psych clearance from someone like me,” he
said.

“I think it was worth it. In the end, they
won’t be able to do anything about it, unless you decide to screw
me over. The military violated policy by sending me to jail without
making sure my wounds were tended to first, the guard violated
policy by tossing a female into a cell full of violent sex
offenders, and policy was violated again when I was denied medical
attention a second time after fighting them off,” she said. “I may
have injured and killed a lot of people in the last few days, but
it was all in self defense, and I saved the lives of dozens of
political figures and military personnel. They owe me.”