“Wait,” I sputtered. “This wasn’t my fault.”
“I know.”
“He could have starved if I didn’t bring him back. I did the right thing!”
He looked down at my fistful of his suit, and I took my hand away.
“Failure to complete an imprint disqualifies you from further surrogate service.”
“But—”
“Thank you for your time. Good-bye.”
“Wait,” I said, squirming past to block him. I held my hands up between us, and he stopped. “Just wait a minute, please.”
It hadn’t occurred to me until right then, not really, just how much I’d come to depend on being a surrogate. Not just because of the extra money or rations, and not just to earn my keep with Dragan. Taking care of the little ones was one of the few bright spots I had, one of the few things that really, truly made me feel good. Now, just like that, not only had I lost Dragan but I was going to lose that too.
“This has to be a special case,” I said. “I’m a good surrogate.”
“I don’t—”
“Just ask her.”
“Just say you’ll ask her!”
He paused, his body tense, before relenting.
“Your assigned foster has already been sent back,” he said.
“Where did you send him?”
“Back.”
“Back wh—”
“Your transaction is complete.”
“Wait,” I said, almost grabbing his sleeve again. An awful feeling was sinking into my stomach. “Back where? What does that mean?”
I knew, though. On some level, I knew. I remembered waving to him as Ava closed the hopper door, and the low vibration that went through the floor afterward. It had reminded me of a garbage disposal.
“All haan young must be imprinted,” he said. “No exceptions. I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
I couldn’t say anything. A lump grew in my throat, and I felt tears in my eyes, but I couldn’t speak.
I killed him. It was all I could think. I’d talked those guards into letting me inside. I trekked all the way across town in the middle of a security sweep, just so I could send him to his death when I could have just gotten a new kit in the morning.
“Are you okay?” Nix asked.
“Go,” I said, my voice thick and hoarse.
“If I—”
“Go!” I snapped, a fleck of spit landing on the shoulder of his coat. It was all catching up with me finally. I clamped my hands down over my head like it was an eggshell I was trying to hold together. My stomach was full of bile, and the pressure building up behind my eyes was horrible. The shine had been a mistake. I put one hand on the wall to steady myself, using the back of the other to wipe my eyes.
“These are your government’s rules,” I heard Nix say.
“You guys are so cute when you’re little,” I said. “What happens?”
Nix just stared at me, unblinking. “We grow up.”
I pressed my palms to my eyes and watched spastic, electric spots swim in the darkness behind my eyelids.
“I suggest you do the same.” He stepped through the gate and it closed, leaving me alone.
Chapter Six
23:22:02 BC
I stormed back to the bed and grabbed my pack so violently that stuff came spilling out of it. A tube of lipstick and an empty glass perfume bottle bounced onto the floor while the stun gun clattered across the end table and almost broke the lamp.
“Damn it….”
I grabbed the stun gun and tossed it back into the pack, then snatched the stuff back up from off the floor. When I stuffed the tube of lipstick in my pants pocket, a piece of paper crunched and I pulled out a black slip of paper covered in several haan stamps. It was the receipt they’d given me for Tānchi.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I crumpled it and threw it in the trash. I went to drop the bottle in the pack too when something rattled inside. I held it up where I could see, and found a stray tetraz tablet stashed inside that I’d forgotten about.
“Oh, thank Gonzo.”
I shook it into my palm and popped it in my mouth, crushing the bitter pill piece between my back teeth, then using a swallow of shine to wash it down.
Tears welled up again, and I forced them back. I couldn’t think about Tānchi right now. On top of everything else, it would push me over the edge. I had to focus on what I could fix.
I’m downstairs. The message appeared in the chat window. It was Vamp.
Sam?
I’m on my way. Meet me out back.
I tossed the gun in the pack, zipped it up, then headed out and took the elevator back down to the ground floor. I signed out at the desk, then crossed the lobby and made my way down through the first-floor hallway to the exit that went out into the rear lot. It was already hot outside, and the humidity hit me like a wave when I pushed open the warm metal door. Vehicles streamed by in a line past the mouth of the alley, where colorful graffiti covered the sweaty brick face. A miasma hung over the little pocket of blacktop and metal outside the door that smelled like chemical fumes and smoke. I didn’t see any blues flashing out on the street anymore. The way was clear, for now.
Vamp leaned against the wall by the stairs, his white tank top plastered to his wiry but chiseled brown body. His thumbs danced over the screen of his phone, the muscles in his forearms causing his ornate jiangshi tattoo to ripple. Most of Vamp was tattooed, all of it expensive, detailed work I never got tired of looking at. Braided lanyards, one black, one white, dangled from the wet drives embedded behind each ear, swaying in the gentle breeze. When he saw me, his eyes widened.
Something clunked behind me and I spun around to see a chunk of rust fall from the fire escape above. It pinged off the wall and skittered off into a drift of city grit that had collected in a shallow pavement sink. I shielded my face against the glare from the hotel’s mirrored face, but I didn’t see anything. High above, the sleek shadow of an airship cruised past.
“Sam, are you okay?”
“Huh?” I turned back toward him. “Yeah.”
A scowl formed on his face, and anger flashed in his eyes. “No, you’re not. What the hell did they do to you?”
“I’m okay.”
He put his phone away and reached out, angling my face so he could see the other side. I squirmed away.
“The soldiers did this?” His voice had turned serious. I nodded, leaving it at that for now. He’d gone into protective mode, which sometimes felt like an inconvenience, but not now. Right now it made me feel a little better, but I needed him to focus.
“Vamp, I need help. I need to find out where they took Dragan, and how I’m going to get him back.”
“Sam…” He looked uncomfortable.
“First thing is we need to find out what detention center they took him to so we can—”
“Sam,” he said again, squeezing my arm gently.
“What?”
“I have bad news,” he said.
“What?”
He shook his head. “It’s about Dragan.”
My heart began to drop before he managed to get the words out. I’d never seen a look like that on Vamp’s face before, and as he struggled with how he was going to say what he had to say next, I realized what that was going to be.
“Don’t,” I said. My legs went shaky.
“Because of the weapons trafficking charge—”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“I know, I’m just saying… when you get flagged a dissident, they can treat you a lot different. He resisted, and during the fight—”
“No,” I said, holding up one hand. “It’s a mistake.”