{Gait}

Matt descended into his least favorite place in the Emporium. His boss’s suite below the vault. It wasn’t the blacked-out everything. Not the harem of Lyriks that saw to Razor’s every whim. No. It was the scant lack of furniture. Bed, desk, and two chairs. That’s it. The alien never slept or watched TV. All business. That level of focus was dangerous.

“No, Triss. She’ll share our bed until she conceives, and then it’s just you and me again. I’ll never have her without you present.”

Oh, and Matt always seemed to interrupt something down here despite the summons. Razor pressed Triss against one of the metal pillars. At the human’s throat-clearing, the boss held up one finger.

The red-feathered Lyrik never acknowledged the interruption. Her gaze never left Razor’s. “Do you know how long we have together before…?” She looked down at her abdomen with tears in her eyes.

This was the most affection—genuine affection—Matt ever witnessed from Razor. He pressed his forehead to hers with his eyes closed. His voice even croaked as he said, “I wish you’d reconsider. I’ll miss you terribly.”

“Well, maybe you should take your time with her then.” Triss glared at him as she spat the words like an accusation and moved to get away from him. “Keep her around for after I’m gone since you seem keen to replace me—”

The boss gripped the side of her face and slammed her back against the column. He swallowed her gratified sounds with a kiss. The two smacked so long Matt headed back upstairs.

“It’s fine, Matt. We’re done.” The boss turned back to Triss and promised, “I’ll see you soon.”

What the fuck was this soap opera? The old alien shocked the younger man with the genuine emotion warming his gray eyes. Interesting.

Triss slunk into the shadows, and Razor waved Matt down the remaining stairs. “We have some business, today, that will guarantee to test your loyalties. If any of the engagements disturb or anger you, let me know, and I’ll accept your resignation in exchange for a memory debriefing. Are we clear?”

“As long as I don’t have to watch you make out with anyone else, I should be fine.”

The two men shared their odd smile of sociopathic familiarity until Puk came down the stairs with a surprise. The oldest of Kyle’s sisters stepped onto the board, another piece for Matt to ponder Razor’s intended use in the game.

The black formal suit looked cute on her and terribly out of place in Hell. All that wavy brown hair draped passed her shoulders. No sign of tears from those hazel eyes. Only weariness weighed her down, as if she came a long way without any sleep. Still, he gave her credit for those straight shoulders and that lifted chin.

When Ross faced Razor, recognition flickered, but when she laid eyes on Matt, it flared. Shit. He hoped to keep their connection a secret for an advantage.

“Oh, I’m not surprised you two know each other,” the Pain Curator offered in a congenial tone. “It’s perfectly reasonable. Hello, Ms. Roberts. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Do you know who I am?”

Ross looked between the men across the desk from her. Uncomfortably, she guessed, “I think so. Is your name Razor? I saw you dancing with Sagan at the Reipon gala.” That frown made sense. Why would a member of the Shadow dance with a man of such a notorious reputation?

“Ah, yes. The Seamswalker and I are business partners. Please.” He gestured for her to take the seat across from them as Razor claimed his own. At Matt’s reassuring nod, she sat while the boss continued, “It must surprise you with everything you’ve no doubt heard about me that Sagan would entertain my presence. And you were warned about me, weren’t you?”

She nodded, sitting straight in the chair but looking less and less certain the longer she sat in the blacked-out pit.

“And you didn’t listen, did you?”

Ross sighed as if she found this bothersome. Making herself more comfortable, she stripped out of the jacket. Matt worried her tan skin exposed by the black silk camisole might prove more enticing than she intended. Irritated, she explained, “The Eminents arrested me. I wasn’t looking for you. They said you have the honor of interrogating me.”

How could Matt miss Razor’s assessment of the barely legal girl across from him? With those gray eyes filled with purpose, the boss assured, “We know who assassinated Eminent Wiw. Your brother and the rest of the Progeny already met with the Tribunal. Quite messy business. But that’s not why you were there.”

Once again, Ross glanced at Matt, the familiar face in the room, for guidance. But the energy vibrating off his boss left him nervous as to the direction of this conversation. Matt nodded to reassure her.

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She leaned forward with her hands clasped on the desktop. “I’m looking for my sister. She was taken from Earth during the Icarean Invasion. I’ve since learned she was brought to Reipon as a slave and sold to the textile mills on Lukemore. But she’s no longer there. She hasn’t been for almost two years.”

Razor let her tell the story with encouraging nods for her to continue. When she finished, he sat forward excitedly. “Was she working in the cotton dyes? Like for sheets and shirts?”

With hazel eyes sparkling, Ross stood and cried, “Yes!”

Matt witnessed a transformation taking place in his boss that unnerved him. An electricity hummed from Razor, winding up the voltage with every question he asked. “Young thing? Brown hair like yours, but straighter? And honey brown eyes?”

She stopped breathing. Within a heartbeat, she rushed around one end of the desk and fell to her knees at the Pain Curator’s feet. Taking his hands, Ross lost all her composure. “Please. Please. Mr. Razor, sir. Do you have my sister? Please, let me see her. I need to hold her. I—” The young woman’s voice shattered as sobs wracked her body, so fragile and small next to the alien.

Razor took one hand and placed two fingers on that wrist. With that out of the way, he pushed Ross’ tousled hair from her face. So pretty and innocent, like many girls Matt forcibly recruited to the Cult of Night. With her here, he could count another soldier in his army to bring down the Emporium—

“Matt, please bring me 324.”

No.

Small and slight of frame.

Oh god, no.

At the young man’s hesitation, Razor pushed. “Come now, Matt. Don’t let this beautiful young woman wait to reunite with her sister any longer.”

The blood in Matt’s veins went icy, and he considered decapitating his employer for the first time. Stiffly, he went upstairs and through the Emporium to the basement. He ignored the hood and suit. It no longer mattered. This was always Razor’s intention. This climax. Matt’s body never felt so repulsed by its own actions as it did in this moment. When he opened 324’s cell, the person reduced to little more than a tortured animal beneath the hood flinched.

Next to her ear, he whispered, “We’re going for a walk.”

She relaxed at the sound of his voice.

God damn him.

Matt gripped the Numbered—no, not the Numbered—the fifteen-year-old girl by the arm. He considered taking the hood off now, but it was dark down here and bright in the Emporium. Better to walk her all the way to the vault. There he led what he really hoped wasn’t Kyle’s youngest sister into the suite.

Both Razor and Ross stood from the desk. But the hopeful smile on the older sister’s face faded as Matt presented the hooded person, shrunken and sulking. Ross looked back at the Pain Curator, who nodded for her to proceed. The boss watched on so fascinated that some of his mania leaked onto the outside. He looked hungry, like when he asked Matt to kill that assassin a week ago.

Ross reached for the hood, and the wild animal inside flinched from her touch. A broken sob fell out of the older sister before she choked out, “Bethany?”

The shrunken human howled. So much worse than the whips and scalding water. This was the siren of a tornado of emotions clashing at once. Matt glared at Razor across the room as Ross removed the hood and fell to her knees. “No.”

Bad bleach job.

All this time, the young girl begging for Razor to “make it stop.” The suicidal Three Two Four. All along it was Bethany. Two years of daily torture. Left on the brink of insanity.

Ross didn’t know that. And she wasn’t on her knees crying at her sister’s feet over the bad bleach job, either. No, the look in Bethany’s eyes… Those beautiful honey brown eyes…

She was long gone. Feral. Unreachable. Every touch made her screech like an animal. Shrink and hide. Even the pitiful light in the suite made her squint and blink excessively.

Razor broke her.

“Matt. Puk. Lock them in separate bunks on separate floors. Assign Ross a number and start her on daily rotation tomorrow. She’s eighteen, so don’t exempt her from the sexual experiences—”

Unbidden, Matt remembered being born. The face of the doctor as he cut the umbilical cord. His mother’s ecstatic smile as she held him for the first time. His dad’s scowl. A few birthdays. The first frog he mushed and opened to see inside. Snakes. Rabbits. The first girl he kissed. When he hit his first home run in little league. His mother’s funeral. It rained, and all the flowers were white. Meeting Lucy in the middle school library. Cutting open that Icarus at Fair.

His consciousness slammed back into his body hard enough to leave him—everyone—on the floor. Fuck, that hurt. He couldn’t even move. Breathe. Focus on breathing. His lungs throbbed with each painful gulp of air.

Imbued with her brother’s ability, Ross shrieked, “Bethany, come on. Let’s get out of here!”

The younger girl howled.

Ross screamed, and Matt shifted in agony on the floor to see. Razor twisted her arm behind her back and pulled her against him. He muttered something in her ear. Something awful, if her increasingly frightened eyes were any sign. Tears poured, and she closed them as if to ward him out. But the devil made himself damned clear because she cried out, “Stop! I’ll do whatever you want. Please, just leave my sister alone.”

“No one will touch her as long as you hold up your end of our bargain. Do not fight my people. Your nacre will heal you. And when I call on you, you behave. If not…” He whispered the rest, and Ross sagged hopelessly in his grip.

As if desperate to make him stop, she breathlessly agreed, “I understand.”

Matt finally rolled onto his hands and knees. He glared at his boss as the new orders came in.

“Remove 324—”

“Bethany,” Matt corrected.

After a considering pause, Razor grinned. “Bethany from rotation. I’ll leave designing our new asset’s daily routine to you. You can call her whatever you want.”

Ross cried pitifully in his arms and gazed at Matt beseechingly.

God damn it.

“Yes, boss.”

The hope drained out of her and left her too heavy to carry herself. Puk took Bethany, who never once reacted to her sister’s face. Matt carried an unconscious Ross up the stairs.

Razor called out as they ascended to the vault, “You did excellent, Matt. I can’t wait for tonight.”

How could tonight possibly show up this catastrophe? Matt found himself reluctant to find out. Good news: Ross could aid him from the inside. Bad news: the damage to her sister—damage he helped cause—was irreparable. At the first opportunity, he’d inform Sagan and Pehton.

Tonight.