Читать книгу Scarred - Erica Hayes - Страница 12

"Watch where you're going, can't you?" Harriet bounced moussed locks over one shoulder. She wore an ass-hugging skirt, a stretchy top and bra that made her boobs defy gravity, and enough make-up to blind a badger.

The opposite of me when I was her age. I'd been the angry tough girl in jeans and Doc Martens, and I'd spent most of my time sporting black eyes, getting kicked out of class for swearing, and beating up on a succession of Adonis's snotty queen-bee girlfriends. Yeah, them was the days.

I glanced at Glimmer's cell. Door closed. I sidled closer to Harriet, surreptitious. Heh. I should mysteriously flick my coat open and whisper behind my hand: Psst! Wanna buy a 'W'? "Listen, can we have a word?"

Harriet looked at me like I'd suggested we get married. "Right. Because we have so much to talk about."

I endured my usual itch to punch Harriet in the face. Skinny, bad-tempered, always ready to fling me an unnecessary put-down, she reminded me of my dead sister, Equity, whom I'd also wanted to deck on a regular basis. Aside from the tragic fashion sense, that is. My sister and I both inherited our late mother's coloring, and Equity had too closely resembled me to ever be beautiful, but at least she'd known how not to look like a cut-rate hooker.

To be fair, Harriet wasn't awash in role models. She'd had no mother since she was a toddler, and like most fathers—fathers who weren't mine, that is—Uncle Mike was a total pushover when it came to his baby girl.

I sighed. "It's about Glimmer."

Harriet scowled, harpy-like. "That's none of your business."

"Is too. He's my friend, and he's not interested in you." I winced. Wow, that came out all gentle and caring. "Look, I don't mean that you're—"

"You know nothing about me, Verity. Where do you get off telling me what to do?" Harriet stared me down, furious, but she kept her voice low. She knew what happened if she got a bit too loud. Warping metal, shattering glass, people screeching and bleeding from the earholes. Not a pretty picture.

"It's not about you, okay?" I whispered fiercely. I couldn't voice-whip glass; I just didn't want Glimmer to hear. "There's a time and a place, that's all. He's trying to work and the way you flirt with him all the time makes him uncomfortable. One, he's too old for you—"

"I'm seventeen, Mom." She widened sardonic eyes at me. "I can do what I want."

My mom was dead, too. I sympathized. That didn't mean Harriet could give me lip. "And two," I persisted, "he's got stuff in his past that means he's not interested in hooking up." With a horny, smart-mouthed infant like you, I added silently. Zingg! Take that.

"Yeah? Like what?" A defiant chin-tilt.

I could've invented something. His last girlfriend was a serial killer, or dude, he's gay, can't you tell? or even just sorry, but he asked me not to tell anyone. But my indignation on his behalf was as gratifying as it was maddening, and my temper flashed like a flintlock. "That's none of yours. Just let him be."

"Right. Just because you're too pig ugly for him."

My powermuscle flexed with rage, and I had to bite my tongue. What the fuck did you say, you vicious little brat? But the scar on my face stung. I knew how I looked. Everyone knew. Didn't mean we had to trade insults about it.

I gritted my teeth, a salty tang of blood. "Come again?"

"I knew it. You're jealous. And you're, like, old. It's so pathetic." Harriet laughed, and it sliced a shrill edge on my nerves like a paper cut.

Oh, honey. Was that a threat? "That's bullshit," I said tightly.

"Everyone knows you want him for yourself. Too bad he likes me better. So sad. I win." She pouted, and raised her chin, triumphant. She didn't even know she was doing it. Just one of those teenage-girl things.

But it flared my belligerence afresh, a hot breeze over coals. Keep it down, Verity, don't do something you'll regret…

I clenched a fist behind my back and stepped closer, trapping her in my shadow. I was taller, and I made sure she knew it. I hulked. I menaced. I loomed. "Grow the fuck up, Harriet."

She edged backwards. "You're not my mother, Verity. I don't have to do what you—"

"Shut your trap for once, and listen. Real life isn't a TV bitch drama, okay? Guys aren't prizes you can play for. And real people? They don't have these little contests where they lie and cheat and screw each other over for kicks." Not strictly true in the augmented world, I guess, but my point stood. "So back the fuck off from him, or I'll make you."

"Whatever." She fixed a sneer on her face, but her chin trembled.

She was afraid of me. I liked that.

And I grinned, so she'd know. "Think before you mess with me, girlfriend," I murmured, silk over thorns. "I went bonkers for a while, remember? Madder than a cut snake. Utterly off my rocker. Maybe I still am. If I hear you've been bothering him again… well, who knows what I might do?"

Harriet's jaw tightened, mutinous. "Bitch," she muttered—back to boring insults, were we? I had more respect for “goatfucker”—and flounced away.

I popped my neck, satisfied. Hmm. Perhaps I'd handled that poorly?

Whatever. Harriet could have the last word if it made her feel good. So long as she left Glimmer alone.

But her taunt—everyone knows you want him for yourself—coated my skin like the guilty stink of a sewer.

I scratched my forearms, irritated. It wasn't true. He was my best friend. I was just looking out for him. Anything else was bullshit. Besides, we all needed to get back to fighting villains—which meant we wanted Glimmer to get on with rewriting his algorithms and fixing his hardware config and praying to the geekboy gods of the dark net. Not wasting time avoiding the advances of an oversexed teenage drama queen.

And even if what she'd said were true—which it wasn't—even if in some twisted mirror universe, I might occasionally wonder what it'd be like to bathe in that delicious vanilla-spice scent, wrap my hands in his glossy hair and pull his mouth to mine—which I didn't—it was still bullshit.

Because he was Glimmer, the white knight. Gallant, courageous, everyone's idea of a hero. I, on the other hand, had murdered innocents. Used my power selfishly. Tried to poison the city to impress a power-crazed maniac.

Glimmer was… well, he was Glimmer. And I was me.

What the fuck ever.

But my bones shivered with delightful dread, and I swallowed warm brine. It wasn't embarrassment that Harriet had caught me looking. It wasn't even that Glimmer was so far above me that the idea of us together like that was so ridiculous, it bruised some hidden soft spot deep in my heart.

It was what Vincent might say if he got even a whiff that I might be looking sideways at another man. The things he might do to me. Oh, my. All those breathless, exquisite, excruciating punishments…

I cursed, sweating. Jeez. And if that didn't just prove my point. There was my Vincent, and then there was normality, the world where he was our archenemy and deserved to die. For my sanity's sake, I had to keep the two sides separated.

I rapped two knuckles on Glimmer's door and walked in without waiting for permission. The lights were on—make that light, a single bluish bulb on a cord. My gaze glued itself to that swinging bulb, back-forth, back-forth…

Memories swamped me, that horrid metal chair cutting into the backs of my thighs, that piss-stinking hospital gown, that weighty augmentium helmet bolted around my skull. Electroshock, muscles jerking, fingers clenching and unclenching, the brown stench of singed hair…

I shook myself, dizzy. Was this even my old cell? No clue. No need to freak out.

The museum's fuzzy security footage played on the largest of four computer screens. And my boys: Glimmer, munching on an apple, a long lean shadow in his chair, one foot on the desk; and Adonis, slouching on the cluttered bed, back against the peeling brick wall.

My brother beckoned me in. "About time."

"Shit, did I miss the trailers? Shove over. Where's the popcorn?" I squeezed my butt in beside Ad and peeled my banana, waving it in his direction. Glimmer snickered.

"Gross." Ad made a face. "You really gonna eat that?"

"Bananas are a superfood. It said so on the internet." On the screen, my ex-boyfriend Sparkly—Espectro—was doing his glass-smashing thing, the stolen rock in his bleeding fist.

"Red wine is a superfood," Adonis said. "Smoked oysters in barbecue sauce are a superfood. Bananas are fucking fungus in disguise… Oh, nice trick," he added, nodding at the screen. "Okay, who the hell are these two…? Holy shit. Where'd they go? What's that, a lightbend?"

"Mwash 'gain," I suggested, stuffing my mouth with overripe banana.

"Jesus, Vee, how old are you?"

I swallowed, and burped. "Watch again," I repeated. "Look at the glass splinters on the floor, from the broken display case."

Glimmer skipped the footage back to the instant before the two teen villains vanished. Paused. Played it again in frame-by-frame slow-mo.

One frame, there they were. The next, an elongated blur across the screen, from left to right. Then, gone… and where they'd been standing, the glass debris scattered and swirled into a tiny spiral, as if caught in a little two-teen tornado.

"The air moved inwards." Adonis spoke slowly, trying to take it in. "It's a forcebend… are you telling me they teleported?"

I mimed pulling a pistol trigger. "Watch 'em and weep."

"Both of them?" Adonis clicked his tongue. "I'm impressed."

Glimmer teetered his chair on two legs. "The blue-haired one is Sophron. The boy is Flash. Pretty much all we know so far." He didn't mention where he'd learned that little tidbit, God love him. Didn't prompt Adonis to ask how I knew.

"Gallery?"

Glimmer shrugged. "Seems reasonable."

"Or not," I argued. "Doesn't seem right to me. Why sabotage Espectro's heist, if they're all working for the same outfit?"

"Rivals?" Glimmer suggested. "Fighting over the loot to impress the big man. Who knows what the hell Gallery clowns do for kicks these days? Maybe whoever menaces the most rent-a-cops each month wins a set of steak knives."

Adonis snorted. "Or they're just crazy assholes. These people don't need reasons. And if they're not Gallery, who are they?"

"Well, I think they're something new." I flipped my banana peel at the bin, and missed.

Glimmer binned it for me. "You are so lame. If I were telekinetic, I'd at least make sure I could hit the side of a barn."

"Gee, thanks, Mom." But Vincent's words tickled my memory, persuasive. That girl's no child of mine.

In my stomach, the blind worms of my foolishness writhed and stretched their little mouths. I knew it was stupid. God knows, I'd fallen for Vincent's line of bullshit before. I should forget it. Move on.

But I couldn't silence this muttering itch at the back of my brain. The suspicion that while Vincent might lie to beat the devil when he chose? He hadn't lied about this.

And that wasn't just my dark fascination talking. No, what clinched it was the snark about the clothes and the bad hair. Razorfire wouldn't stand for that, not in his house. An issue of style. Even saber-toothed Iceclaw in his greasy leather duds, or snickering Weasel with his scraggly moustaches and rodent incisors: they owned a kind of sicko villain's panache. Sophron and Flash were just… scruffy. Unwashed.

Vulgar.

Not his type at all.

From the way they work together, I'd say they're old friends… It's no fun if I give you all the answers… Wasting tricks like those, just to re-home an overpriced rock…

Adonis shoved me, and I nearly fell off the bed. "Whah?"

"There's no audio," Ad repeated, impatient. "What did Sophron say to you, a few frames back?"

"Right after she whipped my ass?" I mocked her whining tones. "'Too slow, hero'. Just getting her gloat on. Listen, what is that rock, anyway?"

"Was wondering that." Glimmer flicked up a fresh browser window showing an art auctioneer's website. "Lot seven-two-nine, 'trans-state granite artifact', whatever that means. Purchased by the museum in an auction… let's see. Nine months ago, for a six-figure sum."

"From who?" Adonis and I spoke together.

Glimmer zoomed in on the text.

"Fortune Corporation?" I snorted. "Dad owned a six-figure rock? Please."

Adonis looked as mystified as I. "So whatever it is, we sold it while Equity was in charge. What the hell does 'trans-state' mean? You sure it's just a rock?"

"Looked like one to me. Jeez, did I miss the part where Dad collected crappy art?" But my nerves crawled. Our big sister had sold off Dad's stuff? What for? Wasn't like she'd needed the money. Overpriced, Vincent had called it. Like he knew what the museum had paid, and why…

Ad shrugged. "Smells fishy to me. But all our corporate records are cactus, at least until Glimmer can get them back. If he can."

"With your alleged 'encryption'?" Glimmer scoffed. "Spare me. But I gotta scrape the goo off the blacktop first. Someone really did a job on your servers."

Vincent, he meant. Or some slobbering IT savant whom Vincent kept chained to his dungeon wall. These days, he was probably too busy to wreak all the destruction by himself. Outsourced the boring bits.

"Michael might know something about this rock, too." Ad was thinking aloud. "He and Dad were inseparable back in the day."

"Or Espectro," Glimmer added. "He tried to steal it. Maybe he knows what it really is."

"Could be just the six figures Espectro wanted. Still, it's a thought."

"Either way, he's shit outa luck. And so are we." I glared at the video screen, where the spaces that used to be Sophron and Flash cackled at me, triumphant. "Scumbags stole my rock," I muttered. "Not happy."

"So what do we do?" Glimmer grounded his chair and flicked the screen blank. "Write these kids off as Gallery nitwits? Or are we facing a new threat?"

"What, another one?" I echoed glumly, but secretly part of me was delighted at the prospect of fresh asses to kick. "That's a relief. I was afraid we might actually have to stop panicking for a few hours."

Adonis tugged his hair, considering. "Glimmer, can you trawl for more info? Priors, alliances, ideology, anything you can find. Even 'they're just crazy kids' would be useful. I want to know what we're dealing with."

Glimmer flipped him a salute. "Sure thing, boss."

Ad shot him an ironic eye-cross and heaved himself off the bed. "I'll talk to Michael, see what he knows. I don't care what that damn rock is, it's mine, and I want it back."

"That's the spirit." I jumped up, wiping banana-whiffy hands on my coat. I felt good, considering. Rested. Ready for action. "What about me?"

A hard blue-eyed challenge. "You can take it easy."

"What? C'mon, aren't we past this?" But sickness had washed back into my stomach, with added warm seawater, and I knew it was hopeless.

"This, as in, the way you've been acting these last few weeks? Breaking things, shouting at people? Not eating properly, drinking yourself blind and playing pick up the loser?" Adonis laughed, hollow. "No, Vee. We are very far from 'past this'. You're lucky I don't lock you in your fucking room."

My rage-muscle clenched. It filled me with that slick, tense heat, the kind that groaned and demanded to be satisfied. Oh, God. I held on, tried to breathe slowly, searched desperately for a fiber of calm. I wouldn't lose my temper this time. No, I would not.

"Look," I protested, sweating, "the only reason we know anything about these grunge-metal idiots is because of me. Let me be useful. I can help."

"You're right, you can. Go help Peg with the dishes." Adonis walked out, not looking back.

I opened my mouth. Shut it again. Gritted my teeth, and slammed a rage-stuffed fist of power into the brick wall.

Crunch! Mortar crumbled. I'd pulled my punch at the last second, instead of smashing the fucking wall to smithereens. I'd done the right thing. It didn't make me feel better.

My eyes swelled with unshed tears. I wanted to run after him and beg him to forgive me. But I feared he never would.

"Goddamn it," I hissed into the silence.

"Hey." Glimmer's voice draped a cool blanket on my skin. "Let him be. He doesn't mean anything…"

"He does mean something." Even Glimmer was taking Ad's side, now? "Can't you see? He's determined never to trust me again. How am I ever supposed to prove myself if—"

BOOM! Something above us exploded, and flung me flat on my face.