Sugar Skulls Read online

  I bolt for the side entrance, hearing glass shatter seconds before Sasha manages to cut the power to the building. Security system fucked six ways to Sunday, the side door swings open, and the only thing between me and Micah is a million miles of pitch-black corridor.

  “Lick the sparks,” I mutter as the nearest emergency light crackles on, green instead of the usual orange. “Eat the dark.”

  M

  I scream myself hoarse, and then I scream until I can taste blood, but it has no effect on Trav. He’s wild-eyed, practically foaming at the mouth, waiting for whatever sign he needs to activate the aerosolizer.

  “We’ll test every batch on you first! Perfect quality control!” Trav’s hands are shaking slightly, from adrenaline or excitement or rage or all three at once. “How fast did your love for Bryn fade? How soon after you woke up were you fucking whores like your little singer? Was Bryn’s body even cold yet, you piece of shit?” He’s ranting now, spewing every vile bit of misery and anger he’s bottled up over months and months. Each word lands like another vicious jab to the ribs.

  With the nanotech surging through me, I’m a raw nerve. I can’t resist, I can’t fight. I just feel. I’ve completely trashed my voice with my screaming, but I still manage to choke out a few words: “Trav, I’m sorry.”

  He drops the datapad, grabs my face hard, and stares into my eyes. “You’re sorry?! You ruined my life, you took her from me, and you’re sorry?” He lets go of me, and I can feel bruises already forming from his fingertips. “If you were really sorry for what you did, you’d be dead. You should have saved us all the trouble and just killed yourself—”

  The window suddenly crashes inward, bits of frosted glass tinkling to the floor, the subdued after-hours glow of a Cyrene high-rise now visible. We must be a few floors up.

  And slipping through the myriad cracks, there’s chanting, over and over.

  Fuck the thrum, screw the grid.

  Lick the sparks, eat the dark.

  Trav turns his attention from me to the window, glaring through the spiderwebbed glass at the street below.

  Fisher bursts through the double doors. “Sir, there’s a mob outside. Security will be here in a few—”

  “I’m fine! We’re almost there. Give me five more minutes. If I need anything, I have my panic button. Now go.”

  The assistant glances at me before leaving, obviously spooked by more than the noise outside.

  Fuck the thrum, screw the grid.

  Lick the sparks, eat the dark.

  That single note, that tone resonating inside me, is bolstered by one particular voice in the crowd. Her voice emerges from the frantic pitch and leads the sonorous charge.

  Vee is okay.

  She remembers me.

  And she raised an army with just her voice.

  Trav stares out the window, looking without seeing. “A rescue mission. How sweet. You did the same thing for her, didn’t you? At the Dome.”

  I try to nod, but my head is still locked down by the restraints. “Yeah.” Using some of the know-how you taught me.

  “Smart enough to save her but not us, right? Not Bryn?”

  He’s still there. In the alcove. He lives there every day. “I couldn’t move, Trav. I couldn’t do anything.”

  “I watched her, Micah. I watched her die, and as she died, she reached for you. For fucking you. And you just sat there. I reached for her, with everything I had. Just fingertips away.” Angry tears streak down his face.

  The nanotech races through me, dozens of doses. Hundreds. It’s hard to think. Hard to focus.

  I wonder if I can still reach him, the man who loves Bryn, even now. “She … she wouldn’t want this for you.”

  He rips the rebreather from his face and hurls it across the room. “You don’t know the first thing about what she wanted! She wanted me. She came to me with open arms. You had to chase her down to get her to notice you at all.” Taking a deep breath, he carefully puts down the aerosolizer. “You don’t know shit, Micah.”

  Keep pushing. “I know she was better than this. Better than stupid, petty revenge.”

  He punches me in the stomach, a hammerblow that knocks the wind out of me. “Stop talking!”

  Two voices battle in my head. Trav and Vee. Trav’s bitterness, his fury, versus Vee’s passion, her strength. I wrap myself in her words like ablative armor, whispering “Fuck the thrum, screw the grid. Lick the sparks, eat the dark.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Micah! No more hiding behind Bryn and your whore and your lies and your bullshit and—”

  “Fuck the thrum, screw the grid. Lick the sparks, eat the—”

  Everything goes dark. Displays and monitors, Trav’s datapad, the lights—all gone. The relentless nanotech assault stops. I plummet back to earth, exhausted, burnt out.

  Vee. Saving me again. It’s silent, except for my voice chanting the verse over and over as the emergency lights kick on.

  Trav stares at me in disbelief. “No. No! Not again. You are not getting that fucking lucky again.” He grabs the aerosolizer off the table, and for a long moment, I believe he’s really going to dose us both with it.

  But then he just stands there, clutching it tight in his hand. He cracks his neck, listening to the crowd outside.

  He always did love the noise of a crowd cheering him on.

  His shoulders fall slightly as the tension bleeds away. He puts the black pyramid down calmly. “There’s no sport in doing it that way.” Reaching into his lab coat’s pocket, he removes a circular object. The panic button. He places it next to the aerosolizer.

  “You know, I’ve got about two minutes before the magnetic charge on those restraints dissipates and you’re free. I could spend that time beating the unholy shit out of you, Micah. I’d like that. I’d love that.” He strips away the lab coat next, and the dress shirt underneath, leaving him in an undershirt and slacks. He’s not quite in the same shape I remember. Less lean, but obviously he’s kept active.

  And he’s still in much better shape than I am right now. However much he’s changed, he’s still a competitor. He’s still competing with me.

  Maybe I can use that to buy me some time until the restraints unlock. “But you won’t do it that way. No challenge, no glory. Right, Trav?”

  “I knew you’d get it.” He taps his nose as he walks around the operating slab, stretching, loosening up his joints. “I’ll tell you what, Micah. Your little fuckslut is gonna be in the building soon. You want to see her again? All you have to do is go through me.”

  A moment later there’s a series of clicks: five sets of magnetic restraints shutting down in a nanosecond. Sliding off the slab and onto the floor, I’m wobbly but standing. Free.

  Trav stands between me and the double doors, practically baring his teeth at me. “Come on, killer. What’s it gonna be?”

  V

  The trouble with the plan is that there isn’t one beyond get to Micah. Every time I’ve been in the medcenter, it’s been for a reboot. Spectacularly spaced-out and kept in a private room until I got transferred to a recovery spa, I wasn’t exactly drawing up blueprints and mapping out the air ducts and whatever else a spy or supersoldier would have done to prep for a situation like this.

  It’s only now that I realize the building is fucking huge, with hundreds of rooms and miles of corridors.

  And Micah could be anywhere.

  I try to stop myself from thinking that Damon had him wiped already. That all this could be for nothing. That I could get to him, and he’d say, “Who the hell are you, you crazy face-painted freak?”

  My stomach clenches up at the thought.

  Hang on, love.

  I check every room along the first hall, but they’re vacant. Nothing fucking creepier than a bunch of crypt-empty labs, metal tables glowing pale green, cabinets stocked with every sort of pill and powder and drug …

  And needles, Vee. Get your head out of your ass and start thinking on your feet!

  Detouring in
to the next room, I burn through precious time loading two injectors with high-caliber sedative. Before I can do more than that, my earpiece crackles.

  “There’s trouble coming at you,” Sasha whispers from back in the limo. “Three teams of Facilitators in the parking lot and two more blocking the car. Special ops are—”

  The side door slams open. Security pours in, tranq guns raised. I duck back into the lab and flatten myself against the wall. When their radios crackle and hiss, I hear Damon reaching for me again.

  “She’s somewhere in the goddamn building. This isn’t fucking rocket science! Just find her before she gets to Level Three.”

  Only one thing he doesn’t want me to find, so now I know which floor Micah is on. Thanks for the heads-up, jackass.

  My options now: let them take me or start running. And I know what Micah would do.

  “Sasha, get rid of the emergency lighting, if you can,” I whisper, sliding one injector into the waistband of my pants and hoping I don’t shoot myself in the leg. The other one stays in my left hand, while I tighten my grip on my Jax-hacked stun-knucks.

  Footfalls approach, but they’re pausing to clear every room along the way. Across the hall, a stairwell glows green. Listening to the boots getting closer and closer, I wait for my chance.

  Get it done.

  As if on cue, the emergency lights cut out. I launch myself up the stairs, taking them two at a time while the Facilitators reach for their flashlights. By the time the first narrow beams cut like scythes through the darkness, I’m past the first landing and almost to the second floor.

  “She’s headed up! Move! Move! Move!”

  Heeled boots against metal grating.

  They charge up the stairs behind me, but the bigger problem is that the door with the modest number three stenciled on it opens up before I can reach it. Twin greyfaces aren’t expecting me to leap against the heavy metal, slamming it shut in their faces and, judging by the howls, catching at least one of them by the fingers.

  Going to have to go up to get down.

  One more flight. The fourth level of the building looks clear for the moment; everyone’s probably down on three, swarming into Micah’s room, surrounding him like vultures. I bolt the door shut behind me and check everything—sedative injectors, Brights, my heart rate, my breathing—and try to look before I leap. The urge to keep moving almost swamps me.

  Then the lights kick back on, the same ghostly green as before.

  “Sasha!” I hiss into my earpiece. “What the fuck?”

  Jax answers instead. “She bailed out two seconds ago and joined the crowd. I think she’s going after Callie.”

  “The goddamn emergency power is back on!” At the far end of the hall, I can hear the elevator cables whirring. Shit. “Tag it off again.”

  “No dice, Princess, I already tried. Hang tight. I’m coming in.” Then Jax is gone, too.

  Fuck me.

  The indicator at the top of the elevator counts off the levels, passing the second and third floors, then pinging when it arrives at the fourth. The doors slide open, and three Facilitators step off. I don’t have any long-distance weaponry, so I have to wait in the doorway, biding my time. They’re ambling along, not exactly on high alert while they bitch amongst themselves.

  “I put in for the overtime, but the fucker denied it. God, that guy is a dick.”

  “Just a cleaned-up street punk. If he doesn’t get this whole situation under control soon, his ass is toast.”

  “Yeah, well maybe we should let Miss Hotpants find her boyfriend and take off into the blue yonder—”

  They pass where I’m standing, which gives me the chance to shove the first injector into the back of Overtime’s neck. He’s down before he can finish his thought, and I sweep the Brights over his buddy’s face as he whips around. Both of us hit the floor.

  Number three’s tranq gun goes up as she shouts, “Get the fuck down!”

  “I’m not sure,” I wheeze, “how much more ‘down’ I can get.”

  She shuffles forward, shoving the barrel under my chin and using it to tip my head back. When the beam from her flashlight passes over my face, she pops off with, “Shit, it’s you.” Then she’s reaching for her radio.

  “Yup, it’s me.” Right hand still recovering, I have to pull out the second sedative shot with the left.

  Summoning backup that will end our little rebellion here and now, she stops long enough to snarl, “Don’t fucking move.”

  “You first.” I fire the injector into her leg. Unable to reach any bare skin, I have to hope enough of it gets through her pants and into her system. Must have, because she staggers back, slams into the wall, and slides down.

  It takes a few minutes to find my feet again, but I liberate two of the tranq guns from my newfound friends and head straight into the elevator.

  I press the button for Level Three.

  Going fucking down.

  M

  Trav waits. He’s tensed, ready to pounce on my first step, my first swing, my first mistake. Patient and tactical. At least that hasn’t changed. He always let the challenges and the rewards come to him.

  Bryn included, I guess.

  Today’s no different. He knows my window of escape is closing, and he has all the time in the world. “You can’t hide, you can’t outrun this, Micah. Grow some balls and get over here.”

  When I step around the operating slab, his arms flex in response, like he’s champing at the bit to unleash them on my already battered body. The lights cut out, and I check the back of my freshly shaved head to make sure Fisher patched me up okay. It’s tender, but I won’t be leaking brain all over the place.

  Good. That’s the last thing I need.

  “I don’t want to fight you, Trav,” I plead into the darkness. “This isn’t a race, or a game, or a competition. This is fucking real. Please just … get out of my way and let me go find Vee.”

  The power kicks back on as he steps forward, anger showing for the first time since my restraints fell away. “No. You don’t get off that fucking easy.”

  One hard shove, harder than I expect, slams my lower back against the slab. My ribs twinge, and I grit my teeth. He’s stronger than I remember.

  “Fight me, you coward!” Trav grabs my shirt with one hand and punches me across the face with the other, reopening some of the wounds from Rete’s beatdown. “I didn’t get that satisfaction from the dealer. Couldn’t get my hands on you, so I went after him.” Another stiff punch, right to my swollen eye. “After I was all healed up, it took a week or two to find him. And then I couldn’t exactly beat the shit out of him and make it look like an overdose, could I?”

  No wonder I couldn’t track down that scumbag.

  I raise my hands up to ward off more blows, but Trav brushes them aside. He lays into me with two more thunderous shots before bunching up my shirt in both hands and shaking me.

  “Man the fuck up and fight me!”

  When I shake my head no, some of my blood spatters onto his tank top. Trav roars and swings at me again. I barely duck the punch, planting two hands on his chest and pushing him away for a moment. Rolling back over the slab, I put the table between us, and he slams his hands against it.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” I say. “Just stop!”

  He jumps up onto the slab, charging toward me.

  He won’t listen, won’t even consider it. I whip around the other side as he lands. He’s stronger, but not as agile as he used to be.

  And now there’s nothing between me and the exit. Making a break for it, I crash into the double doors full force, finding out the hard way that they’re locked. I ricochet off them and tumble to the floor.

  “Not that easy, killer. You need a security tag to get out.” Trav crouches over me, grabbing my head with both hands and slamming it against the floor. “You’re gonna fight me, Micah, or I’ll smash your skull in.”

  Even with one eye swollen shut and the other blurry from the impact,
I can see the truth etched in his face. I believe him. “Don’t make me do this, Trav. Please.”

  “Why not? I made you do everything else. I made you better. You trained harder, ran faster, and took bigger risks because of me. You wanted to be me. To have what I had. You didn’t love Bryn. You just wanted her because I had her. Good thing she died before she found that out.”

  Thoughts of Bryn flash through my mind: the mischievous smile after our first kiss, the soft moans she made when we snuck away from the group at Maggie’s or Solfetara’s.

  Trav bounces my head off the linoleum again, jarring me back to the present. “Come on, Micah. That little bitch is out there somewhere, looking for you. Don’t you love her? Don’t you even care?” Baiting me. Trying to make me angry.

  It’s working.

  I knee him hard in the back, and he arches in pain, just enough that I can throw him off me and roll onto my hands and knees. When I check the back of my head again, it throbs, but there’s no blood.

  As I stumble to my feet, Trav is waiting for me, grabbing my wrists and pulling me to him. He drives his knee into my gut, and I drop to a crouch, desperate to get my air back.

  But all I can think about is Vee.

  Out there, fighting, searching for me. Let Trav have his bitterness, his memories of Bryn. I have more than memories now. I have Vee.

  I spring up toward him, burying my shoulder in his stomach and hurling us both through trays of supplies and into the wall. As we fall to the ground together, he slams his elbow down between my shoulder blades, and I see stars.

  Rolling away from him, my hand bumps against something on the floor … One of the magnetic restraints. I grab it as I duck a wild swing from Trav and smash the metal loop into his skull.

  He falls to his knees, clutching the side of his head. I kick him in the chest, and he rolls to the ground. Once he’s down, I can see some blood welling up beneath his fingers.