The moment Mirai readied herself to kick butt, the two women separated and approached me from different angles.

Watching them glide smoothly over the carpet, I truly regretted blasting out that scream.

And yet was it enough to bring them running with guns in hand?

Mirai’s gut was telling something else was afoot, but I’d have to ponder it another time due a more pressing concern.

What the Hell do I do now?

In an overclocked state, my gaze darted about the apartment.

Despite being lavishly furnished, the living area was so spacious that there wasn’t much in the way of cover. But there was one thing I could try – the proverbial long shot in the dark – and its success depended on the type of ammo loaded into those guns.

“Princess, you have truly done it now.”

Ghost?

My eyes started to widen as I perceived time slowing down even more than usual.

Instead of one second stretching out to four or five, it was one second dilating out to twenty.

I didn’t know how Ghost made it happen, but it certainly came in handy at times like these. In a way, I was little envious of his ability to influence my mental clock speed to this extent. But I was grateful for the extra time it gave me to think of a way out of this mess.

“Princess, please listen carefully. Their weapons are operating in autistic mode. That means I cannot interfere with them. The same applies to the tactical lenses they are wearing.”

Wonderful, I scowled inwardly.

In short, Ghost was telling me he was cut off from the intelligent system controlling their guns, thus he had no way of jamming them for me. And if he couldn’t affect the glasses they were wearing, then he had no way of temporarily blinding them either. It was unfortunate because with his help I was confident Mirai’s brute strength was enough to overcome both women.

Ghost then delivered more bad news.

“Secondly, while I can access their comms, I cannot issue a stand-down order because I do not know their battle language. It will take me some time to determine the proper protocols they are using.”

That confused me, but I assumed it had something to do with coded military speak that prevented an enemy from issuing false commands.

“Thirdly, Princess, the reason they are here is because Doctor Pearson made a frantic call for help. She described you as crazed and dangerous.”

Even in accelerated time, I could feel my eyes sharply widen.

Pearson had been standing near Erina when the latter yelled out Straus’s name. But when I walked back into the apartment, she was nowhere in sight.

Damn that mousy bitch!

The urge to throttle her briefly trampled all other feelings underfoot.

Surprisingly, Ghost read me like an open book. “Princess, do not trouble yourself with Pearson. Going after her now is foolhardy at best. And remember, revenge is a dish best served cold.”

I inwardly frowned upon hearing that.

What is he suggesting—that I toss her into a freezer?

I did concede the macabre nature of that idea appealed to the demons lurking in my subconscious…or was that Mirai’s subconscious?

I frowned a little deeper, briefly wondering if the line between us was beginning to blur.

However, Ghost yanked my attention back to the immediate problem with another helping of bad news.

He was like a twisted version of the gift that kept on giving.

“Last but far from least, this situation may take some time to resolve. In the meantime, Princess, you have three options. One, overpower your opponents thereby proving you are indeed a lethal weapon. Two, run for your life. Or three, allow yourself to be subdued.”

You mean shot!

“The choice is yours to make. However, option one will be difficult to achieve, and option two may have dire consequences. That said, I will negotiate with the Powers-That-Be on your behalf, though it will be necessary to reveal that I am in contact with you.” He then murmured, “I may need to pull some strings….”

Yeah, whatever! Just do it!

Abruptly, I realized something odd.

Why isn’t he suggesting I take Option Three?

My attention drifted to the guns pointed at me.

Could it be the weapons are loaded with live ammo?

That possibility made my stomach sink in slow motion.

Considering my value to Erina, I doubted she would allow me to be shot with live bullets. However, she was aggrieved when she saw the young woman with the bluish ponytail, so I suspected that Erina wasn’t completely in charge of my circumstances. Maybe someone higher up the proverbial chain of command had sent those three women to watch over me…and now two of them were pointing their guns at me.

Ghost then concluded with a dire prognosis.

“Either way, Princess, it will take some time to settle things, and I sincerely doubt I can do this on my own. The outcome of this situation may very well rely on your sister’s involvement. Unfortunately, you have succeeded in royally angering her so do not count on her support for the time being.”

In short, I was backed into a corner, but the notion of having to depend on Erina to save my skin rankled me.

If Ghost said he needed time, then so be it. I’d find a way to give him that time. Defeating the two women wasn’t on the cards, and I didn’t know where the girl with the ponytail had run off to, leaving me with a very big unknown factor to contend with. Nonetheless, I wasn’t going to allow myself to be shot, thus, I was left with only one choice to make:

Run.

“I bet they’re curious to see what I can do.” The words I spoke sounded strung out as my mind outpaced my lips. “Then let’s show them.”

Ghost sighed wearily in my ears. “I knew you were going to say that. Very well. I can disrupt their comm systems for a few seconds. That should give you ample time to—Princess, wait! I am not ready yet!”

The living room had a sunken floor that was home to a U-shaped sofa and a tinted glass coffee table. As soon as I leapt from the upper floor down to the sunken level, the two Simulacra sisters opened fire.

Their reaction time alarmed me.

Mirai was lightning quick, but those girls were only a whisker slower.

Then again, perhaps they’d anticipated my decision to jump.

Either way, as I moved, I glimpsed tiny darts about an inch long cut the air behind me.

“I see. Electro-shock flechettes,” Ghost observed with a blend of relief and wonder. “That is good news.”

Is he serious?

Having landed on the sunken floor, I hurriedly flipped up the coffee table, then picked it up by its legs.

“A wise decision, Princess. The permaglass table has excellent insulating properties. It will make a very good shield.”

Tell me something I don’t know!

Honestly, I was inwardly relieved they weren’t firing AP rounds at me or the table would have been worthless to me.

With an iron grip on its legs, I used Mirai’s enormous strength to haul it into the air, then used it to block the next volley of flechettes that streaked toward me. Their sharp tips pitted and fractured the laminated permaglass, and the electrical discharges scorched the already tinted surface, turning the material an outright black. Yet despite suffering more than a dozen hits, the table remained intact.

If I ever made it big in the Gun Princess Royale, I planned to endorse the table’s manufacturer – for free!

However, while that was well and good, each flash was blinding so I had trouble keeping an eye on my opponents while I made my escape. Also, hiding behind the table made for awkward running as I fled up and out of the sunken floor, but it didn’t stop me from making tracks to the balcony. In response, the Simulacra sisters moved quickly to outflank me, forcing me to repeatedly swing the coffee table about to block the flechettes coming at me from two different directions.

Seriously? Can’t a girl catch a break!

With the table now mostly blackened, I stumbled out of the living room, then through the open entrance and onto the balcony.

“Princess make a sharp right,” Ghost advised. “Stay behind the permaglass windows.”

The window wall separating the balcony from the apartment was at least twenty meters wide. Like the table I carried, it offered protection against the hail of electro-shock flechettes chasing me.

As I rounded the entrance, I decided to ditch the table – it now resembled an obsidian slab – by throwing it at the nearest Simulacra sister charging toward me.

I have to admit, I wasn’t accustomed to Mirai’s strength. Heck, I’d only been inside her body for a little over a day, so what happened next shocked me down to my bones.

First, the blackened, pitted table flew with such speed and force that it slammed into the young woman before she could dive out of the way. Her reflexes were good, well beyond human, but it wasn’t enough to save her.

Secondly, I’d flung the table with all Mirai’s might and lost my balance. Landing on my hands and knees, I looked up in time to see the girl roll across the living room floor, crash against a wall…and then lie deathly still.

Oh gods! Did I—?

“Princess—move!”

A fresh volley of flechettes hit the balcony window while I sensed others narrowly miss my head.

I scrambled onto my feet, but my sneakers slipped on the ground as I applied ‘too much pedal to the metal’.

While in danger of pinwheeling, I heard a cry of rage from inside the living room.

Surprisingly, it was the first time I’d heard anything from either of the two young women, so that scream was definitely not a good sign.

“Congratulations, Princess. Now you have made her angry.”

Oh, you think so?

“You certainly have a way with people,” Ghost added dryly.

Oh, shut up!

“Clarisol, Straus, Erina—the list goes on,” he mused.

You are so not helping!

As I struggled for traction, the mention of Straus and Erina made me glance toward the middle of the balcony.

Erina was kneeling on the ground with a face that shouted ‘What the Hell?’, and Straus was looking shell shocked.

No help from that quarter!

My sneakers finally got some grip, and I ran for a corner of the balcony that was fenced by a twelve-foot high permaglass wall. Upon arrival, I executed a frantic running leap onto it.

Ghost abruptly sang, “She will be coming around the mountain—here she comes!”

Oh crap!

Boosted by desperation, Mirai jumped so high she almost cleared the top of the wall, but sensing she had come up short, I tucked my legs beneath me as the flechettes scorched the permaglass below my feet.

And then I was over the wall and falling down the other side.

Mirai’s momentum carried her quite far from it – several feet in fact – and I landed in crouch a little harder than expected, but hard enough to make Mirai’s bouncing bosom smack my chin.

Damn it!

Rising quickly, I looked around to see that I was standing on a corner of the building.

As I’ve mentioned before, the megascraper was octagonal. What I haven’t mentioned were the giant terraced steps located at each corner that descended all the way down to street level. Think of them like the immense slabs that make up the Egyptian pyramids on Earth because that’s how big they were.

Standing on a step facing southeast, I now had a choice to make – either continue circling around the building by jumping from balcony to balcony or descend to the street far below.

In the end, the choice was made for me.

“Princess, she is coming. Jump across to the next balcony. Hurry!”

I knew that Ghost perceived my surroundings by accessing Mirai’s senses, but I suspected he was keeping an eye on the Simulacrum sister by tapping into the surveillance systems in my vicinity.

Why did I think this?

Because Mirai did not have eyes on the back of her head.

Trusting in him, I didn’t waste time looking behind me. Instead, I ran full pelt across the short distance to the balcony ahead of me, and then took a running leap to the top of the permaglass wall encircling it. Again, my jump was slightly short, and I had to tuck my legs to clear it. I then dropped onto a balcony belonging to an apartment suite that was undoubtedly as large and luxurious as the one Isabel val Sanreal purportedly owned.

As my sneakered feet hit the balcony tiling, a flash of light in my peripheral vision accompanied the sharp crackle of an electro-shock discharge, and I knew that a flechette had struck the permaglass wall behind me.

Catching my balance, I sprinted past a pool with gentle waters tinted blue by underwater lights. Maybe it was the sheer avarice of the pool that made me glance at it. But a glance was all I spared because Mirai ran across the forty-meter wide balcony in seconds.

Even without her Princess Regalia, I was proud to say she was fast on her feet.

I jumped across to the next balcony, again tucking my legs under me as I sailed over the top of the wall, then stretched them downward to cushion my landing like a pair of springs.

On touchdown, I wondered how many balconies I could jump before Mirai started to grow weary.

On the heels of that thought, I peeked over a shoulder.

Behind me, the sole remaining Simulacrum sister was having trouble negotiating the high permaglass walls separating the balconies, even though she was using a parkour trick of kicking off against the adjacent apartment wall.

I decided to leave her in my dust, so for the next minute I continued fleeing clockwise around the building, crossing from balcony to balcony until I arrived at the southern face of the immense megascraper.

Standing on another colossal step best suited for Mighty Joe Young, I gave the girl chasing me a quick look, gauged I was out of her firing line, and then began descending the giant stairs to the street far below. The repetitive nature of jumping down each step required little thought, and soon induced a somewhat Zen-like state of mind. Thus, despite being chased by an angry gun totting girl, I felt oddly calm. Whether that was good or bad is up for debate, but the tranquility I experienced didn’t last for long because Mirai’s body began to complain in a most unexpected and frustrating manner.

What started as a dull ache in Mirai’s breasts gradually flourished into a sharp pang every time I landed on a massive, terraced step. By the time I’d descended fifteen or sixteen floors, I was in some serious discomfort. No doubt the Angel Fibers were working hard to contain the pain, but it was distracting me at a time when I couldn’t afford to be distracted.

This is what I get for not wearing a sports bra!

The regular lacy bra fell woefully short of supporting Mirai’s charms when she was in action.

I had to grit my teeth against the burning, stabbing sensation afflicting my chest, but only travelled down a few more floors before calling it quits. To be safe, I climbed over an adjacent permaglass wall into an apartment balcony to the west of me, and then hurried across the spacious area while using an arm to cradle Mirai’s breasts.

“Bloody Hell,” I hissed through clenched teeth as I jogged past another large pool with underwater lighting. This time the water was tinted pink.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before the Angel Fibers soothed Mirai’s bosom from the inside, and the pain was mostly gone by the time I arrived at the opposite end of the balcony.

Pausing before the transparent wall separating this balcony from its neighbor, I cast a furtive look behind me to the east.

However, the Simulacrum sister was nowhere to be found.

Whenever I’d peeked behind me, I’d used the pale orange glow surrounding the young woman to guide my eyes toward her. But the orange glow of her lifeforce had vanished against the side of the building, nor was there a hint of it against the night sky.

In other words, I’d lost sight of her.

For precious seconds, I floundered in shock before crying out, “Ghost—I can’t see her! Where is she?”

“Princess, I have no visual on her. She is not in the immediate vicinity.”

A whisper from Mirai’s subconscious was urging me to continue running, but I hesitated and instead continued sweeping my gaze over the side of the building, searching for the missing sister while my mind raced.

Where the Hell did she go?

Firing electro-shock flechettes out in the open was prone to attract the attention of the authorities. In fact, I was surprised there weren’t a dozen Enforcer drones hovering over me right now. This presented two possibilities. Either the chase had been called off, or the girl was still hunting me but going about it another way.

“Ghost, did she go back inside?”

“I do not know, Princess.”

Hearing that made me lose my cool. “What the Hell do you mean you don’t know? How did you lose track of her?”

“Apologies, Princess—”

“You’re supposed to be the eyes on the back of my head!”

“I wholeheartedly apologize, Princess—”

“Ghost, apologies don’t help me—not one bit!”

Despair and frustration were getting the better of me. I knew that getting angry was a big no-no – especially now – but staying calm and in control was growing harder by the heartbeat.

“Ghost, you better make up for it!”

“Princess, I suggest you continue moving. Head to the western face of the building. There is a maglev station about seventy floors below you. You can blend into the station crowd and catch the next passing train.”

The maglev service ran twenty-four seven though less frequently during the early hours of the morning. But if I could catch a train away from the building, it would help me gain some distance on the enraged girl.

Stifling a frustrated growl, I instead snorted loudly through my nose.

“Fine—let’s try it.”

I performed a standing leap onto the transparent balcony wall ahead of me. I had to boost myself up by grabbing a hold of it. Crouched atop its narrow edge, I gave the surrounding skyline a fleeting look – again surprised there were no Enforcer drones headed my way – then jumped down the other side of the wall. My sneakered feet landed with a dull thud, and I winced a little at a sharp twinge from Mirai’s breasts, but after pushing off into a fast jog, I crossed the open area quickly, then leapt over another permaglass wall and onto the next balcony.

As I continued travelling clockwise around the megascraper, I grew increasingly anxious. I felt like I was being watched, and it made my shoulders and nape tingle unpleasantly. Ignoring the discomfort in Mirai’s chest, I ran faster as I crossed from balcony to balcony with mounting unease.

Arriving at the southwest face of the building, I dropped down into a balcony with yet another large sunken pool with underwater lighting. I paid it scant attention as I was intent on finding a way down to the maglev station.

However, I couldn’t resist glancing behind me.

Surprisingly, I hadn’t done that in a while. I’d been running with my attention focused mostly dead ahead, but the relentless tingling along my neck and shoulders turned into an insisting prickling.

Overwhelmed by the urge to check my six o’clock, I peeked over a shoulder.

At that moment, something small and white leapt at me from the direction of the apartment off to my right. Startled, I turned to see two rows of small white teeth headed straight for my throat. Ducking on impulse caused my feet to slip, and I tumbled hard before coming up on my hands and knees. But the fall saved me, and the owner of those flat, white teeth sailed over my back just as a bright, blue flash lit up the balcony. Then a loud crackling filled the air followed by the sound of a heavy splash from the nearby pool.

Still on all fours, I gave the pool a curious yet frantic look to see something small and white – about the size of a small dog – floating in the water. Realizing that it was a dog, I leapt to my feet and ran to save it. In fact, I was a heartbeat away from diving into the pool when I noticed there was no lifeforce aura surrounding the tiny defender of its realm.

Is it dead?

Then I saw something unexpected.

Machine parts?

It took me a split second to realize the small white creature was a mechanical dog.

It took me another split second to realize I’d been sniped.

It was pure luck, or maybe someone ‘up there’ was watching out for me, but the little machine dog had saved me from being shot in the back.

“Princess, run!”

Yeah, I figured that much!

Turning on the balls of my feet, I sprinted hard for the next balcony and the transparent wall standing between us. Jumping up and then over it, I landed on the tiled ground, then hastily backed up against the permaglass fencing. Using it for cover, I threw my gaze about in a hurry, searching the floors above me for anything with or without a lifeforce aura.

“Ghost, where are they?”

“Princess, above you to the east.”

Using Mirai’s magnetic sense to guide me, I searched the sky in the suggested direction.

Despite moving quickly, Mirai’s body felt frustratingly slow while my consciousness operated at an accelerated state.

However, I soon caught sight of what Ghost had spotted.

High above me, a radiant golden aura was gliding down the side of the building. Distance made it look small, but it was clearly the lifeforce radiated by a human body.

Surprisingly, it was drifting downwards as though paragliding alongside the building.

“Princess, they are employing a glider pack. I suspect they are also using a thermoptic skinsuit.”

A skinsuit was the ultra lightweight equivalent of the modern military armor-skin – a biomechanical exoframe that amplified, strengthened, and protected a human body. It wouldn’t offer the same degree of power as a military grade suit, but it could easily double the strength and stamina of the wearer.

However, I doubted it would make them a match for Mirai.

Though she still surprised me with her strength, I knew it well enough to gauge she was several times stronger than a human girl her size, and thereby stronger than a few of men. Knowing this gave me a degree of confidence against the wearer of that skinsuit. But if they’d sniped me, then I was at a sharp disadvantage.

I watched the lifeforce aura gently descending toward me. It was some fifteen or sixteen floors above me, but for a sniper that was spitting distance.

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“Ghost, can you summon the Sarcophagus?”

“Princess, if I do that—”

“Can you summon it or not?”

Ghost was silent for what felt like a very long second. “Aye, Princess. I can.”

I understood his reluctance.

If he summoned the Sarcophagus, and if I outfitted myself with Mirai’s Princess Regalia, it would escalate the situation, so I had to deal with this new development while unarmed and unprotected.

For now, it didn’t matter who was chasing me.

That was something to be addressed at another time.

What did matter was that the chase was back on.

Yet, I was a little surprised it wasn’t the Cat Princess in pursuit but someone else.

Did Erina have something to do with that or had someone pulled rank on her?

In other words, had someone else made the decision to bench the Cat Princess?

Was it the girl with the bluish ponytail?

I wondered if the girl with the bluish ponytail was involved. She was an enigma, but I was certain she was someone in a position of authority.

“Princess…?”

Ghost was calling for my attention, so I decided Miss Ponytail was someone I would worry about later.

Nodding quickly, I came to a decision. “Don’t summon the Sarcophagus.”

The words left my lips sounding distended, and when I swallowed hastily, it felt slow in my mouth and throat. Experiencing both the world and my body while overclocked was an exercise in patience, but I needed the advantage it gave me, especially now that I was being hunted by an airborne sniper.

“Ghost, I need a fast route to the station.”

“Princess, there is no fast route.”

“Ghost!”

“Very well. Jump this balcony to the terrace steps beyond it. Then descend seventy floors to the maglev station. It will be to the north of you.”

Great—more of those giant steps!

The thought of giving Mirai’s breasts another workout made me cringe but jumping down the steps was probably the fastest way to descend the building’s exterior.

I pushed away from the balcony wall, however, instead of heading northwest, I ran toward the apartment’s window-wall to my right because the overhang from the floor above me offered some cover from the sniper in the air.

“Princess, what are you—?”

“Give me a sec!”

Pulling up the bottom of my blouse, I then rolled it up and tied it securely under Mirai’s breasts. I hoped the extra support would prevent them from bouncing painfully, but the downside was exposing Mirai’s toned midriff to the chilly, morning air. Fortunately, I was wearing my denim jacket and it kept some of the cold off my body. Then again, the cool air was the least of my worries because as I finished tying up the blouse, something long and narrow buried itself into the balcony floor a few feet away from me.

It discharged with an incandescent flash that scorched the air.

“Princess!”

Half blinded, I turned on instinct to my right, then ran unsteadily westward while keeping close to the apartment’s window-wall. For now, the overhang protected me from above but if the shooter chose to glide away from the building, they would have the angle to snipe at me again.

As I blinked quickly to clear my vision, I considered breaking into the apartment but doubted I could smash through the permaglass window-wall with just my hands and feet.

Damn, what I wouldn’t give for one Viper Vanquish right now!

Nonetheless, I resisted the burning temptation to summon the Sarcophagus.

Gotta do this on my own!

I sprinted out from under the overhang, and then made a jump for the permaglass wall encircling the apartment’s open-air balcony.

Through the transparent material, I could see the terraced steps on the other side.

Almost there!

However, as I leapt onto the wall, an electro-shock flechette seared the air below my feet.

Distracted by the burning discharge, I failed to tuck in my legs, and my feet clipped the top of the wall, flipping me over it.

I screamed in fear as I fell headfirst toward the ground four meters below me.

Fortunately, Mirai’s instincts came to the rescue. Reacting reflexively, she executed a somersault that had me landing unsteadily on my feet rather than on my face. But it was unexpected, and I was unable to catch my balance.

Pitching forward, I fell over the edge of the giant step.

This time there was nothing Mirai could do to save herself.

There were no fancy acrobatics to arrest my fall as I dropped past the five-foot riser and crashed hard on my back. I did remember to tuck my chin, and thus avoided hitting the back of my head on the permacrete. But the impact winded me, and I lay gasping for breath for precious seconds that I could ill afford to waste.

“Princess!”

I heard something strike the step I was lying on, followed by a blinding flash of lightning.

Searing heat scorched the left side of my body.

I screamed in pain – not in fear – as I rolled away from the electro-shock discharge.

My agony lasted only a few seconds and my vision returned quickly, but by then I had tumbled down another riser onto the next step. Again on my back, I spent precious seconds trying to recover my senses, before I succeeded in rolling over onto my hands and knees with a low, guttural grown.

“Princess—Princess!”

The impact had been painful, but it was the electro-shock that hurt the most. My left arm and flank felt burnt, however Mirai’s somewhat frightening ability to recover from falls that would otherwise break a human girl had me moving again seconds later.

Sucking in air through clenched teeth, I staggered up to my feet.

I didn’t know if the shot had missed me on purpose, but due warning had been served because if I was hit by an electro-shock flechette it was going to be sheer agony.

“Where is she?” I mumbled as I righted myself, then unsteadily jumped down to the tread of the step below me.

“She?”

Ghost sounded puzzled.

Realizing my slipup, I didn’t reply to him and continued descending in silence.

However, Ghost persisted. “Princess, did you say ‘she’?”

Something that I saw in my pursuer’s lifeforce aura gave me the strong impression that I was being chased by a woman, but I wasn’t going to reveal that to him. Besides, it was an impression that I didn’t understand myself.

“Princess, why makes you think—?”

“Ghost, just tell me where she is!”

There was a momentary pause before he replied, “She is approximately twelve floors above you.”

I leapt down a couple more steps. “You can see her?”

“No. I can see the glider pack she is wearing.”

I paused to ask, “How?” then jumped down another two steps in a single bound.

The landing was forceful, but I was learning to cushion it by relaxing my body and flexing my legs.

Ghost sounded sheepish. “I have gained access to a nearby police drone.”

“What?”

Shock almost made me mess up the next landing, and I had to drop to a crouch to catch my balance. “You’re accessing it or controlling it?”

“I am in control of it. I used your wetware as an ad hoc wireless point to gain access to the drone as it passed by.”

I sneered faintly.

That figures.

After descending another handful of steps, I paused to glance up the side of the building behind me.

Something whistled past my head just as I turned around.

Rather, it was more of a buzz than a whistle, as though a turbo-charged bee had shot past me.

Regardless, I ducked on instinct as a white-hot flash and sharp crackle filled the air close by for a couple of seconds. The heat from the electro-shock blast warmed my skin through the fabric of my denim jacket, and the fact that the flechette had discharged in the air was telling.

Shit—they’re proximity armed!

As soon as the blast of electricity faded, I was back on the move, leaping down two steps at a time.

“Ghost—I’ve got no cover! Do something!”

The steps were about three meters wide and two meters long. Flanked by the tall permaglass walls that fenced the apartment balconies, it was like travelling down a steep trench with me exposed to incoming fire from above. It wasn’t quite like shooting fish in a barrel. More like spearing fish in a narrow canal, and I was the fish.

I decided to alternate my jumps.

As randomly as possible, I dropped either one or two steps down the side of the enormous megascraper. Dropping three steps at a time was simply out of the question without the Princess Regalia. Lacking the support it offered me, my erratic pace soon had me cradling Mirai’s oversized bosom with an arm and that made for awkward landings. Yet desperate times called for desperate measures, and there was also a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

Some forty floors below me, I could see the maglev station and the elevated rail lines running past the megascraper, and that view sparked a glimmer of hope inside me.

“Princess, continue your descent. I will distract her.”

Focused on the station and on jumping, I was slow to ask, “How?”

My question was met by a loud boom from high overhead.

Startled, I landed in a crouch precariously close to the edge of a step. To prevent myself from tipping over the riser, I supported my body on outstretched hands, then hastily looked up to see glowing debris fluttering down the side of the building like burning leaves.

Was that the drone?

Searching the face of the towering megascraper, I spotted a lifeforce aura spiraling away to the south.

“Ghost, did you get her—?”

“Princess, do not stop!”

The burning debris was falling toward me.

Crap!

I hurriedly fled down the giant steps.

“Was that the drone? Did she shoot it?” I asked.

“Indeed.”

A hard landing made me wince at a sharp pang from Mirai’s breasts. I gasped before asking, “Isn’t that explosion going to attract attention?”

“That is precisely why I was reluctant to use it.”

I could argue that it made no difference since my pursuer had no qualms about firing flechettes that exploded with a bright flash and a loud bang. “Can you grab control of another drone?”

“Princess, concentrate on making the most of this opportunity.”

After executing another long jump that carried me down three steps, I angrily protested, “What the Hell do you think I’m doing?”

No matter how I supported Mirai’s breasts, or how much I crouched to absorb the impact, they were beginning to hurt more and more with each successive hard landing. You could say that Mirai’s self healing couldn’t keep up with my frantic pace. However, there was no stopping, and after catching my breath for a second, I resumed fleeing down the giant stairway.

Every so often I would pause to check above and behind me, but there was no sign of the unknown woman using the glider pack.

My gut instinct told me that she was circling counterclockwise around the building. She was probably gliding on the thermal air currents coursing between the megascrapers. That reminded me of the seagulls I used to watch from my classroom window, coasting in the air off the shores of Telos Island. The memory felt like a lifetime ago, yet it was only last Friday that I’d sat in class watching them.

Thinking of my how much I’d lost made me bitter.

I swallowed it down, then searched for the maglev station platform, quickly spotting it some ten or twelve floors below me.

The station’s transparent, permaglass roof resembled a slippery slide, like those found at amusement parks. However, because the station was constructed against the side of the megascraper, the roof also had the appearance of a chute coming out of the building. This was because the station had multiple entrances spanning several floors. The permaglass roof was quite wide at around a hundred feet, but the station platform was easily three times wider, and it was covered by a transparent canopy – a giant awning – that also stretched over the elevated track lines.

While it protected commuters from the gusting wind and weather elements, the broad canopy would make it difficult for me to enter the station from outside the building. I’d have to drop onto an elevated track and then sneak onto the platform. Even if Ghost blinded the security cameras, I was likely to be noticed by the people on the platforms waiting for the next maglev to arrive.

I stopped jumping down the steps upon arriving at a point adjacent to the top of the station’s slippery-slide roof. Peering through the transparent canopy, I saw numerous escalators leading down to the station’s concourse.

“Ghost, do you have a way in—?”

A flash of hot light to my one o’clock blinded me.

The smell of ozone and the crackle of electricity were hallmarks of an electro-shock discharge. When my vision somewhat cleared, I saw a blackened section of the permaglass wall in front of me. The transparent wall ran down the side of the building, separating the giant permacrete stairs from the station’s sloped roof. Because it was tall, it had stopped the flechette from detonating dangerously near my head. Adding to my good fortune, Mirai’s eyes quickly recovered, and I blinked away the last vestiges of my mottled vision.

With my mind overclocked, I had a few internal seconds to analyze the situation.

As I’d guessed, my pursuer had indeed circled counterclockwise around the building, and she was now effectively to the north-northeast of me.

So what was my next move?

I chose to err on the side of danger by jumping the wall keeping me from the station’s roof.

Why? Because I figured it was the fastest way down to the station’s platforms.

“Princess!”

“Trust me,” I yelled as I landed on the station’s giant slippery slide.

As I’d thought, the transparent surface was as slick as it looked, and I quickly ended up on my backside. Feeling like a kid again, I slid down the roof toward the maglev platform about fifty meters below me.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing…or should I say smooth sliding.

Chased by electro-shock flechettes, I yelped loudly as I jerked away from a near miss. The blast superheated the air for a mere second, but long enough to singe my denim jacket.

Worse still, I lost control of my descent.

As I tumbled and slid down the roof, I started to think I’d made the wrong call. However, my erratic course made me a hard target, helping me avoid the flechettes that followed.

I really couldn’t imagine how anybody inside the station would fail to notice the light show happening above them. Regardless, after coming to a messy stop where the roof flattened out above the station’s concourse, I hastily picked myself up then ran over onto the immense awning that covered the two platforms beside the track lines.

Shooting glances over a shoulder, I kept track of my pursuer by her lifeforce aura.

She was gliding toward me from the northeast, probably three hundred feet away and some fifty feet above me. Mindful of her approach, I looked down through the transparent awning at the platforms and saw dozens of people standing on them. The fact that nobody was looking up surprised me, but would they notice me if I jumped down from the roof onto a track line?

What I needed was a distraction or a passing train to glide into the station.

By a stroke of good luck, that’s exactly what happened next.

Below me, a sleek, gunmetal grey maglev glided to a stop between the two platforms, then opened its carriage doors.

I took this for another sign that the Goddess of Good Fortune was watching out for me. I had no idea what I’d done to deserve her blessing, but if I survived this night, I planned to build her a little shrine and thank her with daily offerings.

So why was this a turn for the better? Because with the maglev parked at the station, the commuters were too preoccupied to look up. It was the opportunity I needed to sneak aboard, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

Accelerating to a dead sprint, I did my best to ignore Mirai’s bouncing bosom as I headed for the southern end of the giant awning that overhung the platforms, until a flechette buried itself into the transparent roofing, and then vented its electrical fury just as I ran past it.

Tendrils of lightning caressed my legs causing their muscles to convulse.

I stumbled, then belly flopped onto the roof, landing hard on Mirai’s chest.

Momentum carried me forward and I slid on the smooth surface for a few feet. Coming to a stop, I gasped and groaned in pain as my legs spasmed uncontrollably for a handful of seconds before Mirai’s unnatural ability to recover from injury once again rescued me. Within seconds, I was crawling on my hands and knees, frantic to escape aboard the maglev before it departed. Desperation drove me back onto my feet, just as another flechette plunged into the roof and discharged.

My unsteady legs failed me, and I was unable to jump clear of the blast, but that didn’t stop me from trying. Electricity painfully raked me as I leapt away, burning my clothes and exposed skin. Once again, I landed on Mirai’s belly, then gasped in agony for a short while before pushing myself up onto my elbows.

I twisted my neck around to look behind me.

The lifeforce aura silhouetting my translucent pursuer was floating down to the station’s awning over the platforms. Above the golden light, I could see a shadowy shape resembling a hang-glider but much smaller. Since her thermoptic camouflage rendered her nearly invisible, I wondered why I could faintly see the glider.

As I watched her descend, a tiny flash of light appeared ahead of her body.

What the—?

Mirai’s body reacted instinctively, throwing herself aside with enough force to send me rolling away from a detonation that lit up the air and burned the permaglass roofing I’d been lying on.

She fired right at me!

Until now, I’d harbored a faint belief that she’d been purposely avoiding a direct hit, but now I knew better.

Goddamned, crazy bitch!

If not for Mirai’s preternatural reflexes, I would have been enveloped in an electrical storm. Yet though I’d been spared from the brunt of it, I was grazed again, and I cried out as the electrified air blistered my exposed belly. I breathed heavily for a few seconds as the burning sensation quickly faded away, and then I was back on the move. With a herculean effort, and a groan to match, I launched myself onto my feet. But lacking the traction of the Regalia’s boots, my sneakers slipped repeatedly on the permaglass underfoot.

Move, move—MOVE!

I persevered and was soon charging again toward the southern end of the roof where it hung over the parked maglev.

Whenever I overclocked, time moved quickly within my mind giving me the impression that I was running in slow motion.

However, this time something unexpected happened.

For one second, Mirai’s body caught up with my overclocked awareness and suddenly I rocketed forward over the edge of the awning. A split second later, I was flailing wildly as I fell a few meters onto the stationary maglev.

Landing with a hard whump onto the lead carriage, my vision swam.

I was winded, so only a strangled cry escaped my lips as pain shot through Mirai’s breasts. Feeling as though they’d been lanced by knitting needles, I tried to quickly get off my chest but only succeeded in sluggishly rolling over onto my back. Now looking skyward, I caught sight of my pursuer’s golden aura as it descended toward me. As I did so, I had the impression that I’d made eye contact with her. She was almost transparent so I couldn’t see her face, yet I was convinced our eyes had met. It made my heart stumble for a beat. However, my heart then jumped in fright when I sensed the maglev start to move.

Wait, wait, wait! I’m not aboard yet!

Yelling at it inside my head wasn’t going to make it stop, so I decided to be vocal about it. But no sooner had I opened my mouth when I was silenced by a single thought.

Why had the maglev started moving?

Its safety systems should have kept it stationary if someone was riding on top of it, so why the Hell was it now in motion?

I propped myself up using my elbows.

“Princess, stay down!”

Startled by Ghost’s shout, I fell back and lay flat. “What? Why—?”

“The aero-field that reduces drag around the maglev extends fourteen inches beyond the carriage. Breach the field and you will be swept away. You need to stay under it.”

I quickly understood what he meant.

There was an effect-field that acted like a frictionless glove around the maglev’s carriages. This reduced drag thereby allowing the train to move quickly without being impeded by the air around it. Effectively, it turned the maglev into a sharp knife rather than a blunt object, but it also meant that I had to remain within the field or I risked being blown off as the train moved swiftly through the city.

Lying supine on the maglev’s roof, I spread my arms wide to maintain some semblance of balance as the train swiftly accelerated. However, I was soon sliding down the length of the carriage.

No, no, no!

In desperation, I planted my sneakered feet flat on the roof, but this bent my legs and raised my knees above the aero-form field. Caught in the turbulent air flowing over the carriage, I was dragged faster down the roof. I had no choice but to lie flat again and pray that I would stop sliding when the maglev stopped accelerating.

As my body steadily inched toward the rear of the train, I peered above Mirai’s breasts at the woman chasing me. Up in the air, her lifeforce aura was slowly shrinking as the maglev raced away from her. Since departing the station, the gap between us had widened to a few hundred feet. Unfortunately, that was little consolation when I saw a pinprick of blue light flash in front of her.

In that instant, time slowed down even more for me.

At first, I thought it was Ghost’s handiwork, but I wasn’t hearing his voice in my ears, so I then wondered if it was Mirai’s doing. Regardless, it didn’t matter who or what was responsible. What mattered was that I had a little extra time to consider my options before the flechette hit me.

So what were my options?

I could choose to do nothing and get electro-shocked, or I could chance a risky maneuver and pray that the Goddess of Good Fortune had not abandoned me yet.

I went for the latter option – the risky move.

Bending my knees sharply, I threw my arms into the air.

Almost instantly the raging current of air around the train yanked me toward the foot of the carriage with frightening speed. Luckily, the maglev happened to be travelling in a straight line. Had it been turning a corner, I would have flown off the carriage. Nonetheless, my body began to spin as it slid along the roof.

This and the aero-field saved me.

The flechette released its lightning charge but it had been knocked off target by the aero-field that gloved the maglev. It missed the top of my head by a couple of feet, and the ensuing burst of electrical energy singed my hair and scalp. For a moment, I even feared my eyeballs would explode but they didn’t.

Thankfully, I’d avoided the worst of the blast. However, I was addled and blinded, my head hurt, and there was a faint ringing in my ears.

For a short while afterwards, I could barely see the city buildings zipping past me. If the woman fired at me now, I wouldn’t notice her taking the shot, but wasn’t all bad news.

I was alive and still on the maglev.

When my vision cleared up many seconds later, I peered around me and discovered that I’d been dragged to the tail end of the carriage where my sneakered feet had caught onto the ribbed tubing connecting the carriages.

With a sigh of relief, I then looked up and searched for my pursuer.

At sight of her aura dwindling into the distance, I weakly chuckled at my narrow escape, and some of the tension left my body. However, I refused to relax because I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

If the woman fired at me from a distance, the speeding maglev and its aero-form field would make it hard for her to hit me. Thus, I was safe while the train was moving, but since there weren’t stations at every building I didn’t know when it would stop again, and if the maglev stopped for too long, she could catch up to me.

On the other hand, I didn’t expect her to take another shot at me. All the shooting she had done was bound to draw attention to me, though once again, I was surprised there wasn’t a fleet of Enforcer drones in hot pursuit.

Had they been diverted?

Had someone hacked them to keep the night sky clear of prying eyes?

Was it the Sanreals doing?

Yet more questions to ponder later, but having said all that, the Sanreals were an unknown quantity to me. Not knowing how far they would go to protect me or bring me back – or how much they would risk in the process – I chose to be cautious. Thus, I kept a watchful eye on the woman’s aura as it shrank into the distance, but a short while later, I noticed it wasn’t shrinking anymore – it was growing larger and shining stronger as though she was gaining on the swift maglev.

What the FREK?

I cleared my throat, swallowing down some of the panic welling up in my chest.

“Hey, Ghost?”

“Princess, are you all right?”

I stopped short of nodding. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, but she’s catching up.”

There was a distressing amount of silence from Ghost.

“Hey, are you there?” I asked. “I said she’s catching up.”

“Princess, I believe I have erred.”

My heart felt like it had been squeezed by cold hands. “You what?”

“She is not using a glider pack.”

“Then what the frek is she—?”

“It is a flight pack.”

The proverbial penny dropped inside my head with the weight of an anvil. “Oh….”

That certainly explained how she was able to gain ground on a maglev moving at 200 klicks an hour.

“So now what?” I muttered while fighting down a sudden, cold despair. “It doesn’t look like she’s giving up.”

Ghost was again silent for a long moment before reporting, “I am afraid there are no drones in the vicinity that I can commandeer.”

I turned my head to look at the megascrapers zipping past me, towering like canyon walls around the track.

When my consciousness was overclocked, my surroundings usually moved slowly around me. But the maglev was racing between the city-state buildings so the scenery was flashing by at a dangerous speed. Perhaps I could jump off the maglev and onto a megascraper, but only if the train decelerated considerably. Even so, I’d still be risking life and limb, and I didn’t know if the Angel Fibers could save Mirai back from the brink of death if she went splat against a permacrete wall.

Maybe, I was taking Mirai and her Angel Fibers for granted.

The notion troubled me, and I resumed watching the woman’s growing lifeforce aura as she steadily chased down the maglev.

I need to find my own solution to this problem.

Yet, having thought that, I knew full well that I’d be relying on Mirai’s unnatural strength to pull off another daring escape.

I need to find a way off this maglev.

“Ghost, can you hack into this train and slow it down? Don’t bring it to a stop, just slow it down enough for me to jump off.”

“Princess, what are you planning?”

“Can you slow it down or not?”

I had a suspicion Ghost had earlier hacked into the maglev’s controls because it had pulled away from the station shortly after I fell onto its roof. It seemed like too much of a coincidence sprinkled with good fortune. However, I grew concerned when he didn’t reply to me right away.

“Ghost? Can you do it?” I waited for a couple of long seconds. “Hello? You there?”

After a short while, Ghost replied, “Very well. I can have the Assisting Intelligence execute an emergency—Princess, brace yourself!”

Hearing his warning, I began rolling over onto my belly, but the maglev abruptly decelerated and I started sliding helplessly toward the front of the carriage.

“Ghost, wait—wait! I wasn’t ready!”

Because I was lying atop the lead carriage, I was now in danger of falling off the front of the train onto the meter-wide track. And if I fell off, I was likely to be run over by the maglev despite the fact it was rapidly slowing down.

“Ghost—damn it! I said wait! WAIT!”

“Princess, this is not my doing!”

“What?”

As I doubted my ears, the maglev continued braking hard, and I frantically rolled over onto my belly just as I slipped helplessly down the front of the aerodynamic snout of the lead carriage. There was no stopping my fall, and I tumbled painfully hard onto the track. Mirai’s body then rolled precariously on the narrow rail as the train loomed over me.

There was no room to slip under the floating maglev, and no way to avoid the duckbilled snout that slammed into my right shoulder.

I felt it break and would have screamed in agony, but Mirai was trying to save herself even as she fell over the side of the track. Her hands and fingers scrabbled to hold onto the edge, but it was smoothly rounded, and a terrified heartbeat later, I lost my grip and fell from the elevated rail line.

To my surprise, I didn’t scream as I plummeted.

Instead, I looked down fully expecting to see a distant, city street rushing up to meet me. But to my disbelief, what I saw was a cluster of trees shooting up toward my feet.

What the Hell?

I crashed into a thick canopy of leaves and branches.

Like the ball in a pinball machine, I bounced off tree limbs and broke others before landing on packed soil riddled with hard roots. Rolling to a stop against a tree trunk, I lay supine in blinding agony that stole my breath.

It was a while before I could even gasp for air.

Mirai’s body hurt all over, and my right shoulder – broken by the maglev’s snout – burned so intensely that I saw white spots dancing in my eyes.

Yet I was alive and in one piece, and for that I was eternally grateful.

Taking shallow breaths, I prayed softly to the Angel Fibers while waiting for the pain in my shoulder to ease up. I don’t know how long I lay there – it could have been ten or twenty seconds – but it felt like a minute later before I was able to prop myself on my elbows. I gasped and groaned loudly as my shoulder complained with sharp, blinding pangs, but I persevered and eventually braced myself against the tree trunk behind me.

Sitting slouched, I bent my neck to look down at myself.

I was indeed in one piece but quite battered and bruised. There were cut and scrapes over my exposed midriff, my clothes were a mess with numerous rips and tears, and though my right shoulder was still aflame, I was able to move the arm again.

However, I had no idea where I was.

There was greenery in Ar Telica, but it was spotty at best. Most of the parks were located near the shoreline, so perhaps I was close to the harbor. Then again, there were some elevated plazas high over the streets that were big enough for a park, so perhaps I’d landed on one of them.

“Princess? Princess, you need to hurry.”

Ghost sounded loud in my head.

I winced, then swallowed to clear my throat. “What…? What is it?”

“You need to move, Princess.”

“Why—?”

Abruptly, I heard several different voices coming from nearby. They were faint but growing louder as they drew closer. Soon, Mirai’s sharp hearing caught fragments of conversations.

“…are you sure someone fell…?”

“…I saw someone too….”

“…a girl….”

“…yeah, I thought so too….”

“…she was hit by the train and fell in here….”

“…oh gods, do you think she’s still alive…?”

I saw indistinct silhouettes moving between the trees, and my heart jumped in panic.

Not knowing where I was didn’t seem important anymore. Instead, getting out of here became my immediate priority.

Struggling up to my feet, I relied on the tree behind me for support, but my right shoulder screamed at me in protest when I leaned on it. Too late, I bit down on a sharp gasp that escaped my lips.

“…hey, someone’s there….”

“…what…?”

“…I heard someone cry out….”

“…where…?”

“…over there….”

“…See? I told you someone fell….”

“…then she’s still alive….”

Shit! They heard me!

Pushing through the fading pain, I clambered unsteadily over the roots, and fled away from my would-be rescuers.

“Princess, turn to your right. Head south. Hurry.”

I could hear the men’s voices somewhere faint behind me, so I hurried along on rubbery legs while guided by Mirai’s magnetic sense.

“Keep going, Princess. You are almost there.”

“Almost where—?”

Quite suddenly, I emerged out from between the trees into a wide plaza that spanned the gap between two immense megascrapers. Think of it like a hammock strung flat between two giant trees. Despite the early morning hour, the place was teeming with people, and most of them were staring with shock and amusement at something overhead.

“What the Hell…?” I muttered, then looked up to see what they were staring at. “Oh, crap….”

The sleek maglev was parked on an elevated rail line high above me. The train was directly over a mini forest of trees located smack dab in the middle of the enormous plaza.

Shaking my head gently in disbelief, I softly murmured, “So that’s what happened.”

To think there was something like this in the middle of the city.

Ghost spoke with urgency. “Princess, you must keep moving. Head into the building to the east. You need to get off the plaza. Hurry.”

Aware of the men in the forest searching for me, I turned to my right, looking eastward to see the entrance to a towering megascraper some fifty meters away.

“Right…,” I muttered and started walking toward it.

However, a few steps later, the sounds of a commotion erupted behind me, and I looked back to see the crowd on the plaza staring at me.

While some of them pointed at me, others quickly aimed their phone cameras in my direction.

Oh, shit!

“Princess, hurry!”

In a blur of motion, I spun away from the crowd and then broke into a run. Thankfully, my legs no longer felt rubbery as I bolted for the entrance. There was no time to fix up my clothes as I rushed through the wide opening and into the megascraper. However, just before entering the building, I happened to glance upwards. It was only for a split second, but that was all it took for my blood to run cold. Then I was inside the megascraper, running fast down a wide corridor that was bordered by shops. It was around a hundred meters long and ended at an enormous atrium – an architectural design trait common to many of the giant buildings in Ar Telica.

Circling the atrium, I hurried through the building, weaving past a slow, moving stream of people that were either window shopping, or coming and going from the dozens of retail outlets on this floor.

“Princess, you can stop now. You are drawing attention to yourself.”

But I didn’t stop.

I kept running out of the building, onto a wide bridgeway, and then across toward another megascraper.

“Princess—!”

“She’s still out there,” I snapped at him as I barreled into the building.

Like before, I ran down a wide corridor that ended at a balcony surrounding the ubiquitous atrium found in so many of Ar Telica’s megascrapers.

“Princess, how do you know?”

Ghost didn’t sound like he was doubting me. Rather, he seemed to be genuinely asking for an explanation.

I swallowed as I ran. “Because I saw her.”

This time, there was doubt in his voice. “You saw her?”

“Yes, I saw her!”

I could have added a growl but that would have wasted energy. Instead, I circled the atrium, using it like a round-about in the middle of a street, and then sprinted down a corridor that led south out of the building. The exit/entrance opened onto another interconnecting bridgeway high above the city streets.

“Princess, stop. This is fruitless.”

Ignoring him, I covered the hundred meter distance to the next building in a handful of seconds, and well under Olympic record time.

“Princess, she can track you!”

I was deep into the megascraper when Ghost’s words hit home. Their impact was like crashing through a wall, and I staggered and stumbled, before slowing down to a jog.

“…what did you…what did you say…?”

Like the other buildings I’d fled through, this one also had a giant atrium running through the middle, ringed by a balcony at each floor, and home to a dozen elevators that ran up and down the height of the building from within transparent tubes made of tinted permaglass.

Changing direction toward that atrium, my jog slowed to a harried walk. Seconds later, I arrived at the balcony guardrail and I grabbed onto the cold metal, using it to support myself lest I collapse onto my knees. While leaning on the railing, I swallowed with some difficulty, feeling as though icy hands had clamped around my throat, strangling me.

“…Ghost, what did you say? Tell me….”

Mirai had been sprinting for a minute now, and yet her heart beat to a calm, steady rhythm, in stark contrast to the severe anxiety I was experiencing that was causing her body to tremble and shake while I anxiously waited for an answer from Ghost.

“…tell me what you said…tell me, please….”

He must have understood what I was feeling because he sounded cautious. “Princess, I believe she can track you.”

“How…?” I whispered.

“I suspect there are tracking filaments embedded in your clothes.”

Understanding what he said, I inhaled a sharp, ragged breath, then squeezed my eyes shut.

I clung to the guardrail for such a long while, that eventually the cold metal warmed to my touch. It creaked when I clenched my fingers around it, while my body shivered as I rode out the storm inside me. With time and effort, I slowly brought my emotions under control, and then I slowly opened my eyes to look down at my clothes in contempt.

“Tracking filaments?” I murmured.

“I believe so, Princess.”

Resisting the urge to tear off my clothes off, I chose to straighten them instead.

I brushed away the soil and leaves that clung to them.

I untied my blouse so that it fell back down over my torso.

Then, I raked my fingers through Mirai’s long black hair, and briefly mulled tying it up into a ponytail, but for some reason that made me feel annoyed, so I left it flowing loosely down my back.

When I felt calmer, I took a couple of deep breaths, and then looked out into building’s open interior. The grandeur of the atrium that rose from the ground floor to the distant ceiling was lost on me as I continued to struggle against dark, lingering emotions that I recognized as frustration and despair.

“Princess….?”

Exhaling slowly, I had to swallow twice before I could trust my voice wouldn’t break when I used it again.

“Ghost, I’m only going to say this once so pay attention.”

“Aye, Princess.”

I nodded at his reply then endured a sudden, cold shiver that washed through my body, leaving me in a state of icy calm.

“Ghost, start talking and don’t you dare leave anything out.”