Chapter 23
JI was coming up after her. She’d glanced down again and spotted him. Since then, she’d checked his progress and he was ascending as if he was this giant mechanical insect – arms reaching, grabbing holds that fractured, trying another. Never stopping. She’d fixed him too well. His route was jagged, his climbing steady. His speed...he’d catch her before the top.
Why, though? What did he want? To talk? To thank her?
The problem wasn’t JI, really. It was that Sawyer followed. Whenever she looked, he was methodically climbing. Worming between levels, past obstacles, over projecting beams she’d never have dared to negotiate.
She could’ve shot him. Many times. One shot to get the range. Even though this was Keera’s weapon and wouldn’t behave well for her, there was no windage. Straight down shot and she could try many times. Second would knock him off, she figured. Even if it wasn’t a fatal one, the fall might kill him.
When she aimed, her hands fidgeted, shook. She couldn’t. Killing people was bad, she told herself. This was why she shook. She’d get to the top before him, if not before JI.
Then, she thought again.
She fired a warning shot. It ricocheted into space with a peeyooong noise after knocking out a chunk near his hand. He stopped climbing and looked up. She aimed again and he ducked out of sight. She imagined their eyes locking. So easy to kill him.
Glimpses of his limbs told her he was still coming.
Fate, or maybe her inner good person, or some strange part of her that hadn’t bothered telling her why, said no to trying harder to make him dead.
She should but couldn’t. Keep the bullets for game when she reached the surface. She’d have to find her own food for weeks.
A few times projectiles whined off the building nearby. Scavs at the bottom were aiming at her. She made herself a fast target, rarely exposing herself on the face of the building for long.
Get to the top, there should be forest up there.
Then run.
If cornered she would shoot him. The man didn’t know how good she was with a long gun.
When the sounds of something massive following her became too obvious, she sighed. Pieces snapped, being crushed under big hands, being ground under the weight of a mech. Stop and talk?
Not yet. Not quite.
She climbed another story, then stopped and took a few swigs of water from Keera’s canteen. The ceiling, the sky, the very top, could not be more than ten stories above her.
Freedom was up there, she could smell it, hear the rush of it breathing. So close.
But she sat on an edge shielded from below by a lip of the story beneath and dangled her legs, cradling the long gun. Wasn’t hers, but it was her one piece of power. JI wouldn’t be hurt by this, but Sawyer would. While she waited for JI to arrive, she sighted on Sawyer, who showed far below for a few seconds. Hours before he’d get to her.
A purple vican flew past, beak open, maybe eyeing future morsels. She stuck her tongue out at it.
What she said to JI might be important. Why was he following?
She was still staring down when JI heaved himself up and sat beside her. A few pieces of gray flooring snapped off and dropped.
Lucky the edge was thick – but then she’d checked, knowing what was coming.
“You found me.”
“Because I’m equipped to do so, Ari. I can seek, resolve, and neutralize targets far smaller than you. Ones far tougher than you.”
“Hmmm. What did you want?” She caressed the gun, feeling the dimples and knobs, the fine surface with the languid details brought out by years of use and meditation. It comforted her to have something so deadly.
“To talk.”
“I figured. You look very well. I’m happy for you, but I have to go. Sawyer will catch me otherwise, and I do not at all wish to be his slave. Besides, the other Scavs want to kill me.”
“Let me dismiss some concerns. Zarr has told Sawyer you will not be punished except as he, Sawyer, wishes to, if he brings you down.”
“They are shooting at me, JI! Are you trying to convince me to stay and wait? Hells! I had a notion you wanted to say thank you for what I did but not this.”
“This shooting will cease. I promise this.”
“Okay.” She frowned.
“I do want to thank you. These mechling brains are damaged and they too will fail, but you’ve given me more life. I will need to do this again to live past a year.”
“A year is a lot of time, JI. Maybe you can come with me then I can do more?”
“This would be an interesting possibility, if...”
“If?”
With several distinct clunks, he extended his legs outward, making grating noises that said not everything was healed. “You compel me to make new decisions.”
“How?”
“Touch me.” He held out his hand.
Ari laid her fingers on his palm. To her surprise, he turned his hand and slipped it away, to grasp at the chains where they were gathered into the sling. She batted at him and protested, sure this was not an innocent gesture. Ignoring her curses, he dragged her closer and unraveled the chains, lifted one mech haunch, and sat on a chain. He took away the gun and also Keera’s knife.
With the chain taut, her head was pinned, and she had to put her hand between the side of her face and JI’s body so as not to have her ear squashed painfully. “JI! Let me up.”
“First you will hear me.”
“I was already hearing you! But okay. Say it.” She curled her toes. He didn’t need to hold her down to speak.
He’d forced her hand again. She could make him let her go. She touched him and sent her awareness toward his brain, only to feel it pushed away and back to the surface.
“I’m a military mech, Ari. I analyzed and circumvented what you did. I learn quickly and can even extend my brain tendrils as you did. I’m grateful as it will help me heal myself, however, do not think to control me without my consent again. I see your habits have not changed. I am very disappointed in you. I promised Sawyer to keep you safe and with me, you used my somnolence, my healing time, to break that promise.”
“I never made that promise.”
“True, but you used my body without my consent to break it. You also used me to hurt another person – Keera.”
That... She winced. “That I am sorry for. I hurt her, but I couldn’t see another way.”
“I have learned a new thing. You betrayed me. I learned about betrayal. And so...” He tweaked at the second, longer chain, rattling it on his thigh and it slid off to hang over the edge, swinging, jerking lightly at her neck.
“JI, there is nothing I can do now. I see that yes, I was wrong. Let me go, please. None of this, holding me down, will make what I did go away. I’m sorry. Sorry a million, million times.”
“I agree that doing this doesn’t change what you did. This is true. But this is not to reverse your actions.” He looked down at her. “This is my betrayal. I’m going to leave you here to face Sawyer. Emery would say I’m your Judas.”
What was a Judas? She’d regarded him as a friend. Then the meaning of his words penetrated her despair.
He was leaving her here. There was hope then. Except that he stood and wrapped one chain about a metal pole that formed the middle of a partly destroyed column that ran up to the ceiling. He knotted it into place, and crushed the knot against the metal.
“If you can get free from this, you can leave. Good luck in your life, Ari. I wash my hands of you.”
Oh. Watching JI do a symbolic brushing together of his hands, as if dusting her off them, hurt deeply. He picked up the long gun and dropped it through a hole to the level beneath.
Losing him as a friend almost superseded being left here for Sawyer to find.
“JI...please don’t –”
“Do not fall over the edge. You would hang yourself. Goodbye.”
To her surprise, he climbed upward, not down. That goodbye echoed in her mind long after he was gone from sight. The rumbles and thumps as he ascended dwindled until all she could hear were the sounds of her breathing, her heart, the wind, and the distant caws and whistles of birds.
She wasn’t going to wait like some stupid victim. She should find something to loosen the chain, but there was nothing but pale gray stone within reach. Though she bruised her fingers, mashed the metal canteen onto the chain, and scratched bloody furrows into her palms while handling the rock, the chain barely did more than rotate around the pole.
The collar on her neck had metal reinforcing and the lock was unpickable.
“Fuck you, JI. Fuck you to the stars.” Head in hands, she cursed him for a while before lying back and staring at the pockmarked ceiling.
She’d taught a mech how to betray. That wouldn’t look good on her grave marker.
Sawyer would not be happy.
She couldn’t sleep when her nemesis was coming, but she daydreamed – of her freedom, which was perhaps a form of torture... She’d come so near to her goal only to be halted by a moralizing mech.
Hours later...
The noises of the maneuvers of Sawyer’s body, as he clawed his way to her level, betrayed his arrival. She sat up. A lump of rubble lay beside her hand. If she threw it as he levered himself over the edge...
The closer he came, the more her excitement rose. No denying that. Fear, excitement, all rolled into one. Her monster was coming. That bizarre link between them had awakened.
This was why she couldn’t kill him – because she wanted what he brought with him – those hands of his that could flip her over so he could fuck her, those hard eyes...that male, unyielding, six-feet of muscle-wrought self.
She put her hand between her legs and found what she thought was there. Her clit had risen. Covering herself with her palm, she summoned a familiar and delicious pressure, which made her sigh. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. He was going to hurt her, and she had no idea what he would do, except that, in the most roundabout and subconscious way, it enthralled her.
Maybe she’d wanted him to catch her all along.
No. No she hadn’t. She wanted to run, just, when brought to the brink of this – the precipice of who-knew-what – she was trembling thinking of what he might do to her.
His hand appeared, then his head, then his other hand.
Now. Throw now.
If she couldn’t shoot him, she couldn’t kill him with a rock. Wide-eyed, she waited.
Breathing fierce, harsh lungfuls, Sawyer dragged himself over the lip – an ogre from the catacombs. The chain that ran from the pole to her neck had never been as powerful a symbol of her captivity and submission as it was now. She ran her fingers down the length, feeling the cold metal swellings of the links. Despite the attraction he aroused, she found herself backing away. Grit dug at her knees, at her already stinging palms. Using what was left of a wall, he pulled himself upright then he strode to her. Wordlessly, he shoved her backward with his foot and stood on her neck, his foot pressing on her hard enough to make her cough.
The middle of his forehead was red and furrowed. “I am angry. Very angry.”
Mouth open, trying not to wriggle, she waited...
“What did you think would happen when I caught you?” From his back, he unslung a pack that he dropped to the floor. “JI told me of his intentions. I see he succeeded.”
Sweat darkened his pale brown shirt, sticking it to his torso. Warily, she put her hand up and touched the side of his boot, tracing along where it rode her skin.
Why did this darkness lure her?
Sawyer reached back and hauled off his shirt – revealing all the swells and ridges of his muscles.
Chest slick with sweat and heaving, he studied her and saw where she’d placed her hand. Then he lifted his boot and used the toe to scrape her skirt to her waist.
“I brought things with me to curb your rebelliousness. You’re supposed to be marked badly when I bring you down. Yet, I understand why you are here, why you run. This would be me, if I were you, except that I’d have been gone hours ago. You stopped to rest. I would not have stopped until I’d reached the top. I’d also have shot my pursuers.”
Well then, she was schooled. She said softly, “So, I should’ve killed you?”
His lips pressed in a straight line. “Spread your fucking legs.”
What price defiance. Immeasurable pain? She only wanted the measurable. After swallowing once, she opened her legs.
He shifted his boot to her neck again and pressed down with the toe. Gods. The boot on her and him standing over her. She had to clamp her jaw to stop herself moaning.
For several seconds he studied her opened legs. “Well. Your training has produced results.”
She knew what he meant, how wet and swollen she must be. That he was looking made this worse for her, more excruciatingly arousing. Her hips wanted to squirm.
That she’d switched from determined to escape from him to this, in such a short time, confounded her.
“I’ve brought a small whip,” he said idly. “To mark you. Not just for them. Not simply as punishment, though it will be that.” For the first time in a long while, he smiled at her, a menacing smile. Then he took away his boot and kneeled to put his finger in the middle of her lower lip and curl it outward. “You haven’t moved at all. The reason for this is that you want to be my slave.”
If she only said one thing to him, refuting that, saying no, should be it.
She thought that and thought it and said nothing, her mind screwing her agenda to a futile, silent death.
He pulled down the fragile material of her top, exposing her breasts, then encircled an areola as he spoke. Her nipple poked itself upright, as if to greet his caress. “You will stand with your hands clasped high on the pole, and you won’t move while I whip you. I won’t bind you there, and the reason I won’t is because we both know you want this.”
He stood.
“Now, my girl.”
Doing what he asked would seem to acknowledge his words were true – a petrifying thought. She stalled, licked her lip where his finger had been. She could taste him.
He was wrong. He had to be.
Unsure of anything she did or why she did it, Ari rolled to her side then rose, aware how naked she was and of the vileness of his assumptions. When she walked, her newly sensitized nipples seemed to lead the way to the pole.
If she spoke, he’d only whip her harder. As an excuse, it was valid.
She raised her hands to wrap them about the rusted pole.
“Stop. Show me those hands. Hold them out, palm upward.” He frowned at the sight. The scratches were a stark red. “Your legs are scratched to hell and back too. You damaged my property. Why?”
Explain? She closed her eyes. “I –”
“Look at me.”
The hardest thing of all but she looked, found his eyes. She’d never noticed the color before or how strong a brown were his irises.
“Just say the truth.”
For once he waited patiently. A few deeper breaths calmed her. “I hit the chain with the canteen. With a rock too.” She glanced to where the battered canteen lay. “To try to get loose.” He waited still. “The rest of it, the cuts on my legs, I got those climbing.”
“Do you still want to escape?”
“Yes.” The right answer had come out solid. Bang. Lying would’ve been wiser.
There was her mystery, wrapped in a few words.
The whip was in his hand. He tapped the handle on his thigh. The evil end of it writhed in the dust.
“Take off your shoes.”
She shucked them using her toes.
“Reach up and grab the pole.”