Sugar Skulls Read online

  Leaning over, he reaches into the small bin beside the bed, pulling out a photo, framed and everything. Paper, not digital. Old school. Micah holds it so I can see. They’re clustered together in an alcove. All smiles. He points to each in turn.

  “Zane. Our speedfreak. Rina loved speed, and Zane loved Rina, so pretty soon, Zane was all about moving fast.

  “Rina. Our ambassador. She knew everybody, she could get us into anywhere. She was elegant and everyday, you know? Everybody loved her.

  “Trav. Our science whiz. Most anything you needed, he could find it or jury-rig it. He would’ve loved what I pulled at the Dome … We used to run together, made this whole city our playground.” The longer Micah talks, the rougher his voice gets. And the only one left is the one I need to know about.

  “Bryn.” The silence drops like an anvil before he rallies and continues. “Our flame. She drew us like moths. She … she …” He finally falters, and oh my god, the crack in his voice about breaks me.

  “Everyone loved Rina. But you loved Bryn,” I say.

  I feel him nod his head, and he gasps for breath. “Trav, too. We both. Loved her.”

  He can’t say it. He can’t say, “I loved her.”

  I started this shitstorm of emotion for him, and I’m going to have to finish it. Like cauterizing a wound. “The applejack killed her, didn’t it?”

  “It killed all of us. I just didn’t know when to go.” He stares at the photo. Remembering. Suffering.

  “Is that why you know so much about how applejack works?”

  Micah nods. “I started researching it as soon as I was feeling better. Pharma isn’t really my strong suit, but I tried to learn everything about the drug. It’s how I knew about the Rivitocin.”

  Shit. He thinks he could have saved her. Should have saved her.

  I grab his face in both my hands. Force his eyes to meet mine. “You saved me.”

  A breath. A moment. “Because I couldn’t save them. Couldn’t save her. Never would’ve known any of it.” He gets up, and cold rushes in to fill the gap.

  It’s a shock, after hours and hours together. I pull up the blanket, wrapping myself in it. It’s a poor replacement for him. “Micah, come back to bed. Please …”

  I might as well have not said anything, because he steps toward the opposite wall, putting distance between us, distance between him and that photo.

  “They were waiting for me in an alcove at Solfetara’s, that little spot on Jaster? Nobody goes there anymore—bad vibes, I’ve heard—but it was a primo club back then. Anyway, I was the last one there. I’d promised everyone a big surprise. Something special. Something new.

  “You know how it is. Drugs don’t hit as hard after a while, even with the nanotech scrubbing you clean every night. Blasting up and down the city on Zane’s bike, high on riprap and adrenaline, it seemed like we’d tried everything. Then we started combining Cyrene-approved stuff for kicks. Trav was an amateur street chemist, always trying to improve whatever Rina got a hold of. That tided us over for a while …

  “But then we heard about a new designer street drug. An illegal drug in a city full of legal ones? We had to try that. It became a competition, a one-item scavenger hunt across the city. I managed to track it down first.”

  Oh, Micah. It was you.

  “Bryn and Trav were kissing when I walked into the alcove.” There’s no jealousy or possessiveness in his voice, just measured concentration as he stands there, arms closed around himself. “I think she loved both of us and never wanted to have to choose. Neither of us pushed her to, either. The thought of losing her, even to someone we knew, someone we loved just as much … It was too big.”

  Only a terrible person would sit here and hate a dead girl for what she put Micah through. Making him chase her. Making him share her.

  Which makes me a really terrible fucking person.

  It takes every bit of control I’ve got not to reach for him right now. Not to be the one wrapped around him.

  I can’t make him forget her. He has to find his way through this.

  “She bailed out of Trav’s lap when I came in. Got a running start and took a flying leap at me. I dropped my backpack to catch her. She was so excited to see what I’d found for everyone, she beamed like the sun at noon. That was worth every ounce of effort right there. I picked up my backpack … God, if I’d just left it on the floor …”

  He goes quiet for a moment. The story looms between us, a spell that could be broken with a single word, but I stay silent. “Everyone leaned in and grabbed a little green tab for themselves, Trav already rambling on about the new chemical delights he’d cook up with them. We counted down together, our usual ritual. ‘One … two … three …’ Zane and Rina fed each other their tabs.”

  Bile rises in the back of my throat, remembering Adonis doing the same to me.

  Micah shakes me free of my own memories, his voice hollow and defeated. “It didn’t take long.”

  It’s like riding a goddamn roller coaster up an incline and knowing the track ends just over the next rise. I’m strapped in. There’s no getting off this ride now. I can imagine the heat rising. A few blissed-out minutes. Everyone kissing and touching and groping everyone else … except Micah.

  He only had eyes for Bryn.

  “The mood shifted. It got so loud so fast. I felt the brush of her hand, and instead of moaning, I screamed. Everything hurt. I couldn’t even form words at that point. I can still hear Trav crying out, ‘It burns, it fucking burns!’ He was scratching at his arms as his muscles slowed, his skin almost lobster red.”

  I remember the applejack heat, the simmering sensation of napalm under my skin, but it was nothing like this.

  “I slumped to the ground against one of the alcove’s benches. I could barely breathe, barely move. Staring straight ahead, all I could see was Bryn, crying. I swear the tears evaporated as they hit her skin. She reached for me. Cried out for me with her last breaths. I couldn’t reach her, couldn’t lift my hand. I watched the light fade from her eyes. She died needing me, and I just sat there, broken and useless. Fucking useless.”

  It’s not your fault. I could say it, but he wouldn’t believe it, and he might even hate me for trying to argue. “What happened after? Did you, I mean …”

  “I don’t know the details. Next thing I knew, I woke up at home. Home. Guys from Cyrene Medical had dropped me off, told my parents I’d need serious long-term care. Got them to sign something promising to keep quiet about the circumstances in exchange for a chunk of cash for medical expenses.

  “Everyone was surprised I survived at all. A miracle, my mother called it.” Micah’s still looking somewhere far beyond where I’m sitting. “I was burned out inside, my nerves and nanotech fried. Mom took time off from work, nursed me back to health. Doing odd jobs with Dad got my motor skills back up to par. But I became exactly what I’d tried to avoid: a burden on the family. Found out later Cyrene had rejected applications from two of my sisters. Could’ve been they didn’t make the cut, but they blamed me for it, like I tainted the whole family.”

  He pauses, and I pounce on my chance to nudge him away from the worst of it. “But you got back inside. How?”

  “Maggie got the ball rolling. We’d been to her place a bunch of times. Guess she somehow heard I was out of the city, tapped me to provide her contacts with over-the-Wall music.”

  That sounded like the Hellcat all right: reducing everything—and everyone—to dollar signs and assets.

  “I convinced her to sneak me back into the city as a runner. I found someone else to keep feeding her thumb drives of the choicest tunes, so she could maintain supply. Plus Maggie didn’t need to supply me with Rivitocin. I did odd jobs and maintenance for the club, too, whatever I could to ingratiate myself with her more.”

  Looking up at him, I realize that Maggie’s motives were probably more than just business. What little I know of her, I doubt she’d overlooked the fact that Micah was young, fit, attractive, a
nd beholden to her in every way imaginable.

  “But why come back? You must’ve known it would be hard, damn near impossible to live here under the radar.”

  He runs his hand along the wall, stopping only to trace the lines of copper he’s woven around the room. A cell within a cell. “I owed it to them. Zane and Rina, Trav, Bryn. Running for Maggie was the perfect cover. Plenty of excuses to wander all over town, keep my eye on the darker corners of the city. Find the guy who sold me the applejack and make him pay for what he did. Then maybe work my way up the ladder, find every scumbag in the operation, and turn them over to the greyfaces. Worth getting caught inside to make that shit go away …”

  It’s punishment. Penance for what he thinks he’s done.

  But I keep that thought to myself as I close the space between us and wrap my arms around his neck. Standing on tiptoe, every inch of me pressed against him, I wonder if even that’s enough to pull him out of the past.

  Micah’s arms close around me, and he holds me tight to him. I can feel his tears trickle down, warm splashes against my cheek. He lets me drag him slowly back to bed, and we curl up together under the blanket. Two broken people with pieces to spare.

  M

  I’m losing all track of time, being in the warren with Vee. Every moment is ours, and we’re taking advantage, mind, body, and soul.

  You live a certain way long enough, under pressure, under stress, underfoot, and you forget that it’s not the status quo. I’d never talked about that night. Not with Maggie. Not with my family. Not with anyone. Just me and endless replays in my head. I realize I hadn’t even spoken their names aloud in months.

  I’m slowly relearning what it’s like to be with someone. All the gentle touches, the stolen looks and smiles. How to make conversation, how to share. Not just the physical closeness, but all of it.

  We left the world behind, but we can’t ignore it for much longer. Vee’s not used to this, deserves better than this. She makes the best of my cramped accommodations, but stir-craziness can’t be far off. Sponge baths with recycled water aren’t gonna get the job done forever.

  I try to give her space, but here, that amounts to leaning against the opposite wall.

  And I’m still working on the “making conversation” thing. It’s hard to concentrate. A girl, untamed hair and all, padding around your place, wearing your clothes? Super hot.

  I clear my throat. Nothing idle. I’m not going to ask about the weather or something. Taking the plunge, I ask something I’ve genuinely been wondering. “So, Vee. Is that short for anything? Or a stage name? I mean … What do I call you?”

  She’s sitting in the middle of my cot, pulling out long sections of clip-in hair that I’d never suspected weren’t hers. By the time she’s done, there’s enough sitting on the floor to mistake for a cat, and the girl in my bed looks even less like the girl in the poster. Running her fingers through the remaining black curls, she twists them around her fingers and over one shoulder before answering. Even then, it’s with visible reluctance. “I don’t remember.” She hesitates, then adds, “I’ve had something wrong with my nanotech from the get-go. Every time they reboot it at the medcenter, they have to do a mind-scrub, too. Just like clearing out a hard drive for a reinstall, I guess.”

  “Oh, Vee …” Tread lightly, Micah. You don’t know everything she’s been through. “How thorough are we talking about?”

  “As far as memories go, I have this last year.” Another pause. She looks down at her arms, tracing over the skin with her fingers, as if she’s looking for something there, some vestige of a previous life. “A few pieces from before that. Nothing good.”

  “I can appreciate that. Plenty of times I’ve wished I could forget what happened. Wished I could have a single night’s peace, a stroll without the weight of remembering.” I take a shot in the dark, wondering how bad it was, but knowing it was bad enough to push her here. “Rough childhood? Bad family stuff?”

  She looks up at me, eyes bleak. “I had some kind of tattoo. And scars. From a knife.”

  I cringe, thinking of her reaction when I freed her from her corset. And then I wonder if she was cutting herself for the release or being cut by someone else, tagged with ownership. Each is horrible in its own way. I think of her smooth skin beneath my fingertips, and all the hours of nanotech treatments and restorative surgery to remove the signs of physical abuse. Worse than I expected, worse than I would wish on anyone. So much worse than I’d ever wish for her. “What do you remember?”

  “Voices. People holding me down and cutting me up. Blood. Lots of it …” The last bit wavers, like she’s drowning in it. “Damon told me I volunteered for a mind-wipe when I signed up. Showed me the paperwork and everything.” I can actually see the moment she gets a lid on the feelings and forces them back into some dark place inside her. “So let’s just stick with Vee, all right?”

  “You got it.” No more tough questions for now. “So, Vee, what comes next?”

  “Food?” She looks down at the clothes she’s been wearing on and off since landing here. “A shower. I can use a fire hose, if you have one handy.”

  “Fresh out of those, though I’ve recently found a dip in the river to be quite refreshing.” I’m trying to keep things light, but we’ve been living off protein bars and electrolyte packs for days. She deserves something that doesn’t come shrink-wrapped or prepackaged. I need to make a supply run. “Um, can’t help you with a shower. Unless we rig something up. Water and a funnel or something. One of those burn-unit bags for debriding skin …” I look to her, mid-ramble, and her horrified expression says that’s a no-go. “Right, scratch that. Food, I can definitely do.” Still some money left on Maggie’s latest prepaid. “What would you like?”

  “I don’t … I don’t have anything with me. Credits-wise, I mean—” When she flushes, it’s up to the tops of her ears.

  “Vee, no. It’s okay. I’ve got this. I swear.” She’s still looking away, and I close the gap between us, stroking her cheek. “Hey, look at me.” She does, still pink, and I whisper, “We didn’t exactly give you time to pack. It’s okay. Improvising is what I do.”

  “It’s just … stupid.” She’s got her knees up now, chin on top of them, like she’s trying to make herself smaller, take up less space. “I mean, a week ago and we’d be at my place, in my bed, with fucking room service coming out of our ears, and now I’m here, and a burden … I don’t want you to feel trapped because of me.”

  I pull her close and kiss the top of her head. “I don’t feel trapped, sweetheart. I chose this. You’re not a burden, you’re a guest. Not even a guest, more like a roommate, or …” You’re rambling again. Stop rambling.

  Too late. Vee’s already pulling back far enough to narrow her eyes at me. “Then your roommate wants pancakes.”

  I spring up onto my feet, grateful for the free pass she just gave me, one that I in no way earned. “What roomie wants, roomie gets. I’ll be back before the syrup has time to cool.” I grab my sneakers, sitting down to lace them up. “Hey, do you mind taking a quick look, make sure the coast is clear? It’s about time I revealed to you the exact location of my secret lair.”

  Vee hesitates, looking at the tarp and back to me. “Sure. Not a problem.” Placing a hand on the safety railing and stepping up to one of the canvas flaps, she flips it upward, gazing through the netting and outside. She turns back toward me, wide-eyed. “How far up are we?”

  I look up as I finish knotting the laces. “Twenty-five, maybe thirty feet?”

  She turns back, one hand pressing against the tarp as she scans everything within view. “So, under a bridge, huh? What’s it like being a troll?”

  I smirk, standing up and crossing over to her. “Ha ha. It works for me. Good hours, no managers bossing you around. Toll fees could be better, though.”

  “Those I can pay, at least.” She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me in for a kiss, and I gladly oblige. One kiss becomes several, and I lift her off he
r feet, her legs instinctively wrapping around my waist. I turn and pin her against the wall, careful to avoid any of the metal pegs in the Faraday grid. She gasps as I press my body to hers, and just like that, pancakes are forgotten.

  Between kisses, she manages single words. “Your.” Kiss. “Bed.” Lip bite. “Now.”

  I spin us away from the wall, toward the bed, and a piece of copper wiring comes with us, clinging to Vee like I’ve been.

  Oh unholy fuck no. I drop Vee, thankfully onto my cot, and twist back around to the damaged wall, grabbing the bent wiring and desperately weaving it back into place. “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.” One break in the lattice, that’s all it takes …

  She knows this is bad. “How long do we have before they find us?”

  I keep at it, a stupid, futile gesture, knowing they’re already on their way. “Minutes, at most.”

  Vee pulls the tarp aside. Daylight floods the room. “Stay here.”

  And she’s gone.

  Racing to the flap, I see her scrambling barefoot down the frigid stone and ironwork. “Vee, no!” I start climbing down after her, the rocks slick from earlier rain. She could slip, she could fall, she could—

  “Get out of sight, Micah!” She’s a third of the way down when she misses a foothold, leg sliding out from under her, knee banging into the wall.

  A few more feet, and I’m at her side, reaching for her with one hand while anchoring myself with the other. A breeze kicks up, sending her hair into her face. One more distraction. “Vee, please, come back in. If you fell …” I’d never forgive myself.

  But she recovers, planting her foot and continuing down the sheer stone face. If I reach for her again, I’ll do more harm than good.

  I follow her down, feet hitting the ground just behind hers, and I barely dodge a rock she wings at me. “Stop following me, damn it!” She takes off toward the river, running along its bank, leaving footprints in the muddy sand.

  I chase her around the bridge’s foundation and into the shallow water. She stops, and I almost slam into her as she stands there, still as can be. I strain to hear the sound of whatever’s coming at us over the hum—