I hooked a finger in Riley's collar and tugged him toward the door. Zo dropped onto a couch in the corner, her face blank, her eyes empty. "Leave her alone," I warned Sari. Then dragged Riley outside and slammed the door behind us. And slammed it again, for good measure.
"Well?"
Riley did his strong, silent thing, trying to stare me down. Not tonight.
"Say something." The apartment had only one real room. Small, flimsy partitions separated the living space from the kitchen from the bed. There was only one bed.
He risked a half smile. "Something?"
"What is that girl doing in your bed?" Half naked.
Did every relationship turn into a cliché? I resented the
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triteness of it almost as much as I resented the girl on the bed. Half-naked ex-girlfriend-- hot, org ex-girlfriend--on the bed. Lying, defensive boyfriend. It didn't take a genius to finish the equation. One plus one equaled girlfriend storming out in anger, boyfriend groveling for forgiveness. I'd played the scene plenty of times before. With Walker--given his Pavlovian flirting with anything of the double-X variety--I'd had it memorized, and could deliver my lines in thirty seconds flat.
But Riley wasn't Walker. And storming away wasn't so easy when you had nowhere else to go.
"She needed a place to crash." Riley gave me a pointed look. "You know how that is."
"Don't."
"What?"
"Pretend it's the same."
"You need something. She needed something. That's all I'm saying."
Sure, exactly the same. Except that Zo was my sister, and Sari ... the last time I'd seen Sari, she'd demonstrated her loyalty to Riley by double-crossing him, kidnapping me, and generally doing everything she could to help out the guy who wanted him dead.
She'd also made it painfully clear that "old friends"--Riley's words--wasn't exactly the most accurate description of their previous relationship. And that while she might not want
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him back, she had no tolerance for the prospect of someone taking her place.
"So she's staying here," I said.
"Nothing happened. It's not--"
"So she's staying here."
"Yeah."
"How long?"
"Until she can find a--"
"No. How long has she been here?" Sleeping in his bed. Wearing his T-shirts. Or not wearing them.
"A few days," he admitted.
"She just showed up on your doorstep."
He hesitated. "I brought her here."
"You brought her here." I hated how I sounded. Rigid with cold fury, like someone else I knew.
"I told you I went back to the city a few times," Riley said. "During the vidlife."
A few times. He'd told me once. But I let it pass.
"I found her in one of those abandoned houses, right on the edge. You remember?"
I remembered. Enough to know that if he'd found her there, it was because he'd been looking. "You told me no one lives there."
"They don't. Not if they have any other choice. But Gray kicked her out. Said he couldn't trust her anymore after what she did."
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"He must have pretty high standards." Gray had been her replacement for Riley--at least until it was no longer expedient. Then she'd screwed him over too. If she'd succeeded, I would be lying somewhere in a heap of spare parts; Gray would be dead.
"I found her half starved, hiding in a closet from some assholes who were trying to--" He stopped, shook his head. "She's a friend. I couldn't leave her there."
I remembered a windowless room, ropes digging into my wrists and ankles, chaining me to a chair. Sari's thug looming over me, his ass resting on my knees, his breath puffing against my cheek, his grubby fingers on my skin. "She's not my friend."
"You don't get it."
It was the unspoken assumption between us, that his life had been hard where mine was soft, and that made him strong where I was weak. It made me less than. I was tired of the whole thing. No, I'd passed tired a few miles back. I was done.
"I get it," I said. "Fine. She's your friend. You had to help her. So why not let me help you do it? Why not tell me? I could have found a place for her, found some credit--"
"Your father's credit?" he asked sourly. "I think I've taken enough of that."
The mention of my father brought the whole nightmare to life again. And Riley didn't even know, because we were wasting our time on this. But fighting was easier than saying it out loud.
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Fighting was the easiest thing of all.
"I'm not my father," I said. "I could have helped."
"So now you know. Help."
I didn't have an answer for that one.
He snorted. "Right."
"Okay, you win. You're awesome. I'm heartless. She's an angel. Does that cover it?"
"I'm not throwing her out."
"I didn't ask you to."
"There's nothing to be jealous about," he said.
"Got it."
"See, this is why I didn't tell you. I knew you'd be like this."
"Like this?"
"But I told you," he said. "It's nothing."
"And I told you, got it."
"She's just a--"
"Riley. Read my lips. Not. Jealous."
I wasn't. It was a surprise to me too. Yes, Riley was trustworthy, and no, I didn't really think anything was going on with Sari--certain as I was she would have preferred it otherwise--but when I was an org, that kind of cold reasoning had traditionally been beside the point. But relationships had been different when I was an org. Even when it was someone who'd barely mattered, there'd been a need, a charge beneath the surface when we were together, a vacuum when we were apart. Reasoning was beside the point. The point was the fever, needing the weight
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of his arms around you, needing flesh, needing to crawl inside him, to lose everything, even yourself--especially yourself--in the joining of body to body, skin to skin.
It was different now, because I was different now. The body was a body, and, for all practical purposes, it was a rental. It didn't come equipped with needs. I wanted, but that was different. That was in my head, and that was rational, which was why I could think coolly and calmly through the reality of who Riley was and what he would and wouldn't do. Sari fell into the latter category. I didn't need to worry about his intentions; I worried about hers.
"It didn't occur to you that Wynn sent her?"
"It did. He didn't."
"Because she said so."
"Yeah."
"And she's never lied about Wynn before."
Years ago, when Riley was a kid, he'd stolen something from Wynn, and Wynn's people had struck back, coming after the thief--and settling for the next best thing, Jude. Bashing him into the ground while Riley hid. Which meant, as far as Riley was concerned, it was his fault that Jude had spent most of his life in a wheelchair, dependent on Riley, begging for scraps. But it was also Wynn's, and Riley had held on to that until he couldn't hold on anymore. That's when he went after Wynn with a gun. And shot the wrong guy.
Wynn was never going to forgive the person who murdered
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his brother. Which made him a threat--and last time I saw him, Sari was his weapon of choice.
"I'm not letting him stay at my place," Riley pointed out.
"She might."
"Why, because you can't trust a city girl? But you can trust me?"
"You're not like her."
"I'm exactly like her."
I shook my head.
"You don't want to see it," he said.
"You come from the same place," I said. "But you're not the same. Not anymore, at least."
"Right, because now I've got you, and you've got your daddy's credit. Happily ever after."
He didn't know anything.
But whose fault was that? The fight went out of me. "I'm sorry," I said, because that's what you say, even when you're not. "Can w
e stop?"
He paused. "I should've told you."
I shrugged.
"She's safe," he added.
I hugged him. Stiffly, awkwardly, but it was better in his arms than out of them.
"I need you safe," I said.
"I am."
"I need you."
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He laughed and gave me a quick kiss. "You're Lia Kahn, remember? You don't need anyone."
It was a long time before we were ready to talk again. The night was cold, as usual. Riley held me, and waited for me to be ready to explain why I'd come, and why I'd towed my sister along. I could see her through the narrow window, curled up on the couch, head under a pillow. Sari was burrowed into a sleeping bag on the floor. I was tempted to stay outside with Riley, holding his hand in mine, staring up at the dim red glow of the midnight sky.
Riley stroked my hair. "You can tell me," he said. And finally, I did, all of it--everything I'd found on my father's ViM, everything my father had said, everything he hadn't.
"I'm sorry," Riley said.
"That's horrible," he said.
"Tell me what I can do," he said.
And he wrapped his arms around me, and I leaned my head on his chest and imagined he was breathing.
"At least now you know what kind of man he is," he said. Was I supposed to be grateful that he stopped himself from saying the actual words "I told you so?" "You don't have to defend him anymore, or listen to him. Now you know he's nothing to you."
He didn't get it. He was right that I would never know what it was like in the city. But it worked both ways. He didn't
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have a father. And so--I felt horrible for thinking it, spoiled and ungrateful and unfair, but it was true--he didn't know how it felt to lose one.
I stood up. "Let's go to bed."
Riley shut down, and I let him think I would too. But I stayed awake. Listened to the unfamiliar hiss of breathing, in and out, in and out. Held myself still beneath the weight of Riley's arm, as his body molded itself around mine. Tree branches scraped the window, and I watched their shadows play on the wall, seeking animals--monsters--in the flickering dark. A lizard, devouring a snake. A dancing bear with bloody jaws. A ghost.
Zo's eyes fluttered beneath her lids. I hoped she wasn't dreaming about our father. I missed dreaming. But I didn't miss nightmares.
I stayed awake, and I tried to think of what I should have said to my father. The accusations I should have lodged against him, the graphic descriptions of burning and crushing and breaking, the tears of betrayal that, thanks to him, I couldn't shed. But there was nothing. No words. In my head, in the dark, I faced him again and again, and every time there was only silence. There was only me turning away, walking out the door, closing it in his face. I didn't want to yell at him, or listen to more of his explanations, let him find the elusive, magic excuse that would change everything.
I didn't want to talk to him. I wanted to hurt him. And words wouldn't do it.
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Another lesson the great M. Kahn had taught us: Words were words, they meant nothing. Facts counted. Deeds counted. Objects counted. Like metal, like concrete. The laws of physics: an object in motion stays in motion until met by an external force. Like a truck.
Laws counted.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
So I lay awake in the dark, and I reacted. I planned.
And by the time the room lit with the red-orange glow of a rising sun, I knew what to do. Words wouldn't destroy him.
But I could.
The apartment got significantly more crowded when we were all awake. Zo barricaded herself in the bathroom for at least an hour, while Sari stood sentry duty outside it, her back to the living room and her glare locked on the door as if she were practicing her X-ray vision. Every few minutes she would rap loudly; the time in between was spent muttering new and innovative strings of curse words under her breath.
"Wait your turn!" Zo responded every once in a while, the you impatient bitch implied. I could only hope she was leaning against the door, scrolling through her zone or playing a quick round of Akira. Partly because it was Zo's style, and I liked watching Sari scowl. Mostly because I was afraid the other option was that my sister was curled up on the bathroom floor, crying.
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And if she stayed in there much longer, I was going to have to bust open the door and find out.
But the door swung open, and Zo emerged, dry-eyed. Silent and sullen, which was par for the course. And it's not like I could do anything about it here, in an apartment so small and so crowded that every time Sari crossed the room, she found a new excuse to rest her hands on Riley's waist or his shoulder or the curve of his lower back, gently guiding him in one direction or another, slipping past, her chest brushing his arm or her hair whipping across his face. Not that I was watching.
"Zo and I are going out," I said.
"Good," Sari said, at the same moment Riley said, "Where?"
"Somewhere else."
"Anarchy," Zo suggested.
I looked at her in surprise. There was no way she could know how often Riley and I went there--except, I reminded myself, Zo had always known that kind of thing, back when she'd cared enough to pay attention, listening at walls and peering around doorways like charting every peak and valley of my romantic interludes was mandatory preparation for her own. "Anarchy," I repeated.
"I can meet you there later, if you want," Riley said.
I looked at Zo, who shrugged, beyond caring.
"Just you," I told him.
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Sari rolled her eyes.
"Walk us out, Sari," I said. "Let's chat."
Riley looked alarmed. "Lia--"
"My pleasure," Sari said. She followed us out the door.
I stopped just on the other side of it. "I'll be watching you," I warned her, inwardly wincing at how cheesy, clichéd, and--more to the point--useless the words sounded. It was like I was still stuck in the vidlife, acting out the part of jealous girlfriend, reading from a script.
"Whatever."
"He may trust you, but I don't," I warned her.
"And I care?"
This was pointless.
"Come on, Zo," I said. "We're wasting time."
We were halfway to the car when Sari called after me. "Hey! Skinner!"
I turned back. She was playing her fingers with calculated idleness along her collarbone, the hollow of her neck, the bare skin disappearing beneath the low-cut V of her shirt. Reminding me of everything she had to offer. Warm flesh, a beating heart. "He should trust me," she said. "But you're right. You shouldn't."
"Huh." Zo raised her eyebrows as we got into the car. "So that's your boy-toy's ex? At least his taste is improving."
I waited for the punch line, but it never came.
* * *
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"This place is insane," Zo said, as we settled onto the bench that Riley and I usually claimed. A few feet a way a horde of kids in buffer gear were improvising a game of human bumper cars.
"You get used to it."
"I hope not." She grinned, as three nudists rolled by on retro skates, all of them tethered together by a flowered cord woven through their hair. "I like it."
"Me too."
"Yeah, I can see why. Hard to feel like a freak when you're surrounded by total--" She stopped. Maybe because she saw the look on my face. "Sorry."
"Don't worry about it."
"I meant--"
"I got it," I said. "I'm a freak. You've made that clear."
"I never said that."
"You might as well have."
"All I meant was that I get why you like it here," Zo said softly. "It's like you can disappear. Everyone's putting on a show ... but it feels like no one is watching."
She did get it.
"I never asked you," she went on. "What it was like."
I didn't have to ask her for an antecedent. "It" was everything. "It" w
as all the things that would have happened to her, if I hadn't gotten into the car.
Could have been her, could have been her, should have been her.
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If it was playing on a nonstop loop in my head, I could probably count on it playing in hers.
"Did it hurt?" she added.
"The accident did," I said. "But I don't really remember that." I lied so easily. "Afterward, after the download? No. Not much hurts. Not physically."
"But you can still ... things can hurt, right?"
I nodded, hoping she wouldn't push further, that I wouldn't have to explain how feeling pain was preferable to feeling nothing.
"And it feels like ... I mean, you think you're Lia--"
"I am Lia." It came out louder than I'd intended.
She didn't argue. She didn't agree, either, but it was a start.
Zo sagged on the bench. "So, what, am I supposed to hate you now? Or are you supposed to hate me?"
"I think we're supposed to hate him," I said. It wasn't an answer, but it was easier.
She cleared her throat and looked away. "That Sari's a total bitch, huh?"
Apparently, we were done talking about our father. "Seems that way," I said.
"So ... what are we going to do?"
"About Sari?" I asked, surprised that she considered it a joint problem. "I'm not sure there's anything to do except--"
"No. About him."
Tell her; don't tell her.
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I looked at her, trying to gauge possible reactions to the plan I'd put together. Figure out whether she could be trusted, and whether this--action, revenge--was what she needed rather than something else, something harder. Maybe I should force her to talk.
Or maybe I should just feed her another chiller.
How was I supposed to know?
It had been a long time since I'd known anything about Zo, at least anything that mattered. It wasn't the download--although the whole stealing my friends and sleeping with my boyfriend thing hadn't exactly brought us together. But when was the last time we'd talked, just the two of us, not fighting, not swapping stories about the latest indignity our mother had visited on us in public or sniping about whose turn it was to deal with the dishes, but talked about something that actually mattered?
I couldn't remember.
"We'll figure it out," I told her, and put a hand on her shoulder, feeling awkward. I wondered if this was how my father felt when he tried to comfort me, with those halting, calculated gestures of fatherhood. "You're not alone in this."