Masked (3 page)

R
ain hung in the air
, storm clouds blotted out the stars on the horizon. But Wánměi lit up the night sky like a beacon. The glow of all that illumination reflected in Lena’s eyes, off her pale face. She’d removed her hood and let her hair fall down again. No longer striped like a zebra - she’d given that up when the fickle fashion trends had changed, making her stand out more easily than ever - it was now shorter and pure white.

Lena was all about blending in nowadays.

It suited her, but then I’d probably think Lena looked good no matter what style she chose to wear her hair in. No matter what she chose to wear at all.

I glanced down at her fitted black pants and body hugging black t-shirt. Moisture glistened tantalisingly on her upper chest, above the low lying neckline. My fingers itched to reach out and touch her, right there, above her breasts. But I forced myself to be a gentleman as I sat down on the oversized pillows Lena had thrown around our small slice of heaven. I leaned back against the palm’s pot next to her, and stared off into the distance.

Somewhere out there was a nation with fighter jets, their leaders perusing reconnaissance photos of our city-state.

“It might not mean anything,” I said, aware the words were lies as soon as I spoke them. “Curiosity,” I added, because we all know when I open my mouth I tend to put my foot in it.

“Six weeks,” she said softly. A different kind of “softly” than the tone she’d used with Alan. This one went straight to my heart and tore it apart. “After one week, I thought perhaps no other nations had noticed. After two,” she added quietly, “I was sure no one was close enough to care.”

Oh, babe. When did you become so naive? So trusting?

“After four,” she said, her voice cracking. “I stopped thinking about it so much. I stopped looking over my shoulder or searching the Net.”

She didn’t look at me, just pulled her legs up close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, and resting her chin on her knees. Her eyes stared blindly at the horizon. A horizon we knew without a shadow of doubt led to somewhere else.

“I hadn’t thought about it once this week,” she whispered, hands fisting at her sides, nails cutting into skin, at a guess.

Lena was angry all right. Angry at herself.

I wasn’t sure what to say. Lena never came across as anything other than well put-together. Contained. Controlled. In charge of her world, even when it was falling apart around her. This was new territory. For both of us. Not just her emotions, but the fact that she was letting someone see them.

Lena only ever opened up to me.

“It would have been nice,” I said, matching the pitch of my words to her low volume, “if we’d had a little longer.”

Silence, and then a small sound that could have been a chuckle.

“I mean,” I pressed on, because hearing Lena laugh has always been a siren call to my soul, “there’s still so much more I want to do to you in bed.”

Yes, definitely a snort. At least, the type of noise an Elite makes when amused and trying not to show it.

“And you promised me one month in bed,” I added, sounding incredulous - not a hard ask - as I really fell into the swing of things. “And we only managed three days before you bought this fucking penthouse floor and had me build rooftop gardens with rain covers and raised decks and fuck knows what else. It’s all quite a blur.”

She shifted her head, resting her cheek on her knees so she could look at me.

“And we haven’t even christened it yet!” I added for good measure. “The least they could have done was wait another six weeks.”

Silence.

Fuck. Stuffed it up, yet again.

“It’s really happening, isn’t it?” Lena asked, and she sounded like a little girl. Like the young daughter her father had left behind in the monster’s lair.

“Baby,” I said, reaching for her, wrapping an arm around her body and pulling her face into the curve of my neck.

She came without resistance, as if she’d been waiting for me to wrap her up in my embrace. As if she needed me as much as I needed her.

Her lips met the sensitive skin on the side of my neck, hot breath over heated flesh. My cock shot rock hard in an instant.

I struggled to be what she needed me to be.

I fought with my body.

I made myself cradle her head gently, fingers massaging her scalp, all the while the urge to wrap the white strands up in my hand and fist them made my heart thud painfully and a rush of noise to invade my ears.

She smelled of sunshine and some exotic, expensive shampoo. She tasted of sweat and body wash and Lena; the sudden burst of familiar flavours on my tongue making me realise I was kissing her back, lips to skin.

I was losing.

She arched encouragingly, hands fisted in my t-shirt, neck bared for my taking, breasts pressed firmly against my chest. Heartbeats beating too swiftly but in tandem.

I was lost.

I rested a flat palm over the top of her breast just to feel it. To reassure myself that I was not the only one in this relationship who surrendered all sense of here and now when wrapped up in the other.

Lost.

Lost to the woman before me. Craving her touch. Her body. Her.

My body won.

I moved us down onto the cushions, realising belatedly why Lena had chosen such behemoths; they made a fucking brilliant bed. Rain started to pitter-patter against the rooftop, but our little haven was sheltered by the deck cover above. Another Lena directive which I thought now was ingenious.

She moaned when my hand found her skin, her back curving, her stomach quivering as fingers swept across flesh. I wasn’t sure where to taste next. The options were limitless. Lena had always been such a fucking fantastic feast to the senses.

Her t-shirt came off over her head. My hands shook as they followed the contour of her breasts. A lacy bra held the rounded orbs up for my inspection. Pretty, but they had to go. They too got added to the small pile of clothing off to the side. A brief flick of my eyes let me know they were getting soaked. The storm had arrived and the rain was coming down in heavy sheets.

But we were cocooned in paradise.

My eyes moved back to Lena in the next heartbeat. Sweat glistened on her skin. I couldn’t resist running my palm over it, up between her breasts until my hand wrapped carefully around her throat. My eyes met hers. Lightning flashed in the night sky, making her pupils spark a little unnaturally. Fuck, she was beautiful. Like an ethereal being. If I didn’t hold on tight enough she might just disappear.

I shook my head, leaned forward and let my lips brush against hers. Lena moaned. It sounded like heaven. Her fingers ran up my back, under my shirt, leaving a hot trail of need in their wake. One long leg wrapped around my hip, forcing my body to fall into exactly the right spot to make me shudder.

“Trent,” she murmured as thunder shook the rooftop.

I’ve got you, baby.

Our hair stuck to our skin, despite staying dry under the sunshade. Heavy air coated us in a welcoming heat. My shirt - thank fuck! - came off. Then Lena’s pants and underwear. A naked goddess lay beneath me, illuminated by the heavens.

“Fuck,” I breathed, my fingers fumbling with my belt buckle.

Sure, soft hands took over the task, a mischievous look accompanying them.

I sprang free, revelling in the sensation. Only to swallow a groan and a gasp as soon as Lena’s delicate hand wrapped around my straining length. I wasn’t going to last long unless I slowed this down pretty quickly.

“Don’t you dare!” Lena warned, knowing me all too well. She rolled me on to my back and immediately followed with her hot lips and mouth and tongue.

Oh, sweet fucking hell.

“Lena,” I pleaded, as she took me deeper down her throat.

Oh, God. Too close.

Too good to stop.

Oh, God.

She made a humming sound right when lightning struck, followed a few heart palpitating seconds later by another round of thunder. My body thrummed as though electrified. My eyes struggled to focus. The world exploded around us. Rain lashing against the rooftop, splashing up from the small puddles forming, and coating us with warm, wet, fat drops. They glided down Lena’s curved back. They slid over her rounded arse.

And I was done.

I pulled her up off my very happy - until that second - cock, spread her legs either side of my thighs, and slammed her back down again.

Fuck!

“Trent!” she screamed, promptly shifting her hips in an undulating rhythm. Lena was born to ride me.

I moved my hands to her hips, but there was no need to guide her. Lena knew how hard and fast I liked it. Her tits bounced in front of my eyes. My hands moved themselves there instead. She threw her head back, lost to the moment, the sensations. This beautiful woman taking what she wanted, giving me so much more in return.

Hair plastered to her cheeks and neck. Her body shone in the harsh flash of lightning. Breaths gasped when thunder struck, or as I’d like to believe, as my cock rocked up to meet her. She moaned, one hand slipping down between her thighs, fingers finding her swollen centre and frantically rubbing.

She looked unbelievably sexy. She felt like nothing I had ever felt before. Making love to Lena always surprised me. Each time was better than the last.
This
was the best sex I’d ever had. But I knew that tomorrow - or later tonight - when I took her again,
that
time would be the best fucking time of my life, as well.

She came. It crept up on her; I could tell. The shock, followed by bliss, that washed over her features stole my breath away.

Then thunder roared and lights flashed behind closed eyelids, and her name, shouted from my stunned lips, joined the cacophony of the storm.

Fuck. Bliss.

Lena’s body came down on top of mine; a hot, wet, shuddering blanket. My cock twitched inside her as another spasm rolled through me. My heart raced, trying to keep up with my breaths. My hand found her head, and fingers stroked through damp hair, my other arm wrapping around her body, holding her tight; never letting her disappear.

Her lips rested softly against the curve of my neck as she kissed me.

Wánměi may no longer be perfect, but being with Lena always would.

We didn’t say anything. Words weren’t needed. And then I realised, she’d fallen asleep.

I smiled up at the fronds of the palm, the lightning farther away, the thunder not so loud now. My hands gently stroked soft flesh and white blonde hair.

I loved this woman.
She’d stolen my heart with stealth and grace. I could face
anything
with her by my side. I would
do
anything to keep her safe.

I rolled us over, reached out for a lightweight blanket to cover us with, and settled down to sleep too. Just a few minutes, and then I’d face the fighter jets and President Tan and imperfect, perfect Wánměi...

A roar and boom woke us. The rain long gone, the thunder no longer there.

But smoke was billowing up, on the horizon, into the fresh dawn air.

W
e could hear
the screams long before we got there. Bone chilling cries of help and dismay. Smoke billowed up into the brightening sky; mushroom clouds, dark and deadly. Cardinals were running. Their red cloaks streaming out behind them like bloody waves.

Chaos. Madness. So much mayhem.

Two cars had collided at an intersection near the Pherres. The drivers were either dead or unconscious, steam rising from the crumpled hoods. The traffic lights were out.

This
was Free Wánměi.

Shiloh used to control everything. Street-cams. Power grids. Road traffic control. Post the revolution, we’d been a blank slate. For a while there, it had looked like we’d fall completely. Rap-Trans was offline. The roads a deadly mix of celebration and disorder. Power cuts leaving whole suburbs in the dark.

This felt just the same.

Fear and uncertainty swelled on the footpaths around us. As though a living thing. Shock and terror-filled emotions clawed at my psyche. Too many memories. Too many similarities. Each beat of my heart caused another slice through my chest.

The city was bleeding.

The last time such unchecked emotions ran riot we’d had no way of handling it. Of preventing our city-state’s backward slide.

Save for one thing. One solitary thing. The last standing Shiloh unit. Cut off from the mainframe, separated from the rest. The solution, which was also part of the problem; Calvin Carstairs’ Shiloh device that he’d given to his daughter Selena before his death.

We’d flicked the switch then. We’d got it back online. Took control of the nation’s utility and transport services, then shut it down for good. It now sat on our kitchen wall; answering telephone calls, maintaining the air-con, looking after the security for the penthouse floor. Keeping our tech-room and armoury and safe-room hidden from prying eyes.

But there’d be no quick fix for this.

Whatever had happened here today, had thrown us back into post revolution disarray.

The Pherres came into better view a few seconds later. The enormity of the crisis front and centre. Flames licked up into the dawn of a new day sky. Ten feet high. Twenty. The smoke blotted out the rising sun, turning light into darkness. The magnitude of devastation was all around us. Apparent in the chunks of crumbling concrete, warped metal, and scorch marks on the road. Blood had been spilled here and there. Little drops of humanity in a sea of savage misery. A shoe lay between shattered glass and twisted rebar. It was small. More horrific things flashed before my eyes, better left unsaid.

“No,” Paul whispered, but his was the only voice I heard above the roar of the flames. The crowd was stunned silent. Unable to voice their fears.

And then they saw the body. Arms flailing, legs akimbo, jumping out of the window of a capsule and plummeting to the ground. A desperate escape doomed to fail. I’m ashamed to admit I closed my eyes before it hit.

What the fuck
had
happened here?

“How many people do you think are still on board?” Alan asked, the wheel itself no longer moving. Perhaps the explosion had originated in the main power control room at its base.

“Can’t be that many,” Si replied over the earpieces. “It’s too early for any sightseeing.”

“Where’s the Civil Defence Force?” I demanded, taking in the carnage but not really comprehending it. Three capsules nearest the base of the Pherres were well ablaze. The rest lost to the smoke they created.

“Responding, according to the chatter,” Si supplied, then abruptly added, “But they can’t get their station doors open.”

Stranger things had happened in post revolution Wánměi. But the thought left me icy.

A scream suddenly sounded out, an escalation of those heard earlier. Frantic, panicked, bereft. A wailing joined it, from within the smoke clouds themselves; high pitched, weak, speaking to a primordial part of our psyche, the part that wants to protect.

“Oh, fuck no,” Si said, as Lena immediately started running. “Kids on a school trip watching dawn rise over Free Wánměi.”

Fuck.

“Where are those fucking fire engines?” I shouted, breathing hard as I pumped my arms and legs, my eyes target locked on Lena’s white hair up ahead. So beautiful. No fear. If I wasn't already crazy about the woman, I’d be inescapably drawn to her. “Can you help them?” I demanded.

“No way to hack their systems,” came Si’s harried reply. “There’s nothing
to
hack anymore,” he added, sounding just as frustrated as me. Everyone had isolated their servers, it seemed, making something like Shiloh difficult to ever achieve again.

But not impossible.

We all knew the answer. We all thought it as we ran towards a rescue that seemed impossible to undertake. But no one said it. No one gave the order. Not Lena. And certainly not me.

Too many ghosts lay down that path.

Too much risk. Too great a price.

It wasn’t just what we’d fought for. It wasn’t just how much control we’d lost at Shiloh’s hands. And it had nothing to do with how I’d been raised. Lena’s Shiloh unit simply wasn’t meant to be used again. Tan had given the directive personally to her. Grim faced, well aware of what he was asking. But she hadn’t baulked. She’d done her duty. Isolated the device, turned it into a local server, and stuck it in our wall.

Occasionally, I’d hear her talking to it. The voice emanating from the speakers now the deep, comforting tones of her father’s and not the High Anglisc of Shiloh we’d grown to hate. I’d hang back at those times, out of sight when he replied, and listen. My heart aching for the little girl she no longer was.

Sometimes, I wondered whether Lena believed it was real. But it wasn’t. It was like any other mechanical device, subject to code and programming. Nothing more. Nothing less.

It was not her father.

It broke my heart. For her. For little Lena.

But we couldn’t use it again.

We ran over rubble, we avoided shards of glass and lethal blades of metal and wood. We turned our eyes away from the broken flesh. Our shoes slipped in pools of red. Sweat beaded our brows. Our lungs began to scream for fresher air. Soot clung to our skin like an insidious disease, sinking into pores, running into our eyes when mixed with the sweat.

But people
were
trying. Just like us, they’d run
to
the disaster and not away.
This
was my Wánměi. They’d started a human chain; buckets and bottles and even a fucking vase of water was being passed from one person to the other and then thrown on the base of the flames. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. I knew this. They probably knew this, too. We needed high powered water hoses and fire retardant safety gear. Ladders and cherry pickers. We needed a fucking miracle.

We needed to get those kids.

Paul peeled off and joined the inadequate fire fighting attempts, as Lena’s body was lost to the smoke and debris at the base. I sucked in my last clean breath of air and dived into the blackness after her.

Sounds were distorted all around us. Clanging. Screeching. The chilling noise of metal twisting under pressure. The whimper of a child. The roar of the blaze.

Heat made it difficult to see, sweat dripping in torrents now, into our eyes and making vision blur and the world around us shimmer and sway. The smoke made it almost impossible to breathe; I fought the need to cough. Lena climbed over sharp edges and deep crevices ahead of me, her hands already bloody from the effort. Her mouth pinched. Her chest heaving. A grimace on her face.

And then a child wailed. Heart-wrenching, pained. The trauma and horror cloying at its throat.

Lena turned to look at me; soot marring the paleness of her face. Red-rimmed eyes held mine and I knew. I just fucking knew. She was going up there. Nothing would stop her. Not me. Not self-preservation. Not the knowledge that the action would no doubt prove futile in the end.
She was going up there.

She was going to risk her life for those children, with barely a plan or a way to get them out. With a fire raging out of control at the base. With death all around us and a promise of more on the thick air.

Well, fuck this. Not alone. Not without me.

Not without a back-up plan.

“Flick the switch, Si,” I said, my voice strangely calm despite our surroundings.

“Are you sure?” he asked back over the earpiece, making my heart beat a staccato rhythm and my teeth grind themselves to dust.

I wasn’t sure, but Lena was not doing this alone. And I never did anything without a plan.

I’d wear the consequences later. I’d face Lee Fucking Tan and his interim government with their wide ideals and delicately wrapped rules. But right now, the woman I loved was attempting a rescue mission, in conditions that were well below fucking par.

“Just do it!” The words not only for Simon. Both Alan and Lena nodded their heads in reply; determination on their faces as they turned to the structure preparing to ascend.

The metal was superheated to touch, but Lena didn’t hesitate. She started climbing, gripping hold of whatever she could find, and hauling herself up. Higher and higher in the dark, smoky clouds; at times out of my sight and tearing me apart. Skin blistered. Blood ran. Chests ached. Eyes stung. The crackle and roar felt deafening from below, but we could still hear the occasional muffled cry of a child.

It seemed like they were all around us.

My head pounded with the dry air. My body ached with every metre we climbed. My heart clenched when Lena lost her footing, grappling blindly for another handhold in the dark. It felt like forever, but was no more than a few minutes at a guess, before the first intact capsule came into view.

The paintwork was blistered, streaks of soot covered its sides. The windows were frosted; either from smoke or condensation from those breathing within, I couldn’t tell. But there was no way of seeing into the capsule. We could only pray that they were still alive.

With one hair-raising leap of faith, Lena jumped across to the maintenance platform beneath it, and started working on the safety hatch.

“How are those engines going?” I asked Si, as my heart pounded right out of my fucking chest with fright.

Lena didn’t even look down, her concentration remarkable. The space between her and open air whisper-thin.

“Almost there,” came Si’s much needed reply. He’d worked wonders, I knew. Would have made his fingers fly. Nothing was impossible if you had a doctored Shiloh unit and Simon Richards on your side.

I rocked back on my heels and then jumped, reaching out instinctively to grab Lena before we both toppled off the platform.

“Let me!” I yelled above the furore. The lock was stuck and Lena’s knuckles were already stripped raw.

She shook her head, bit her bottom lip, and narrowed her eyes. Then the door suddenly swung upwards and Lena tumbled inside.

I climbed up behind her immediately - breathless, parched, aching throughout - then reached down and helped Alan once he’d made it across to the platform underneath. Standing upright we both spun around.

And were met with nothing. No one. Not a fucking thing. The capsule was thoroughly empty.

Relief was soon washed away with utter incredulity.

The double wide doors on the outward side of the pod were open to the smoke-filled air. Hanging from a hook in the ceiling of the capsule was a high quality, thick climbing rope. Similar to those Lena used when she somersaulted off a fucking sky-rise. Lena casually walked up to it and tested its strength with a hard tug. I barely resisted the urge to hold onto the back of her shirt as she stood spotlit against nothing but smoky sky.

Swallowing my own - quite fucking natural - fear of heights down, I moved with Alan to her side.

In between the flashing strobe lights of fire engines - thank you, Si - and the high powered sprays of water from their hoses, a masked figure abseiled down the rope with a child in their arms. Huh. I twisted my neck and looked up, seeing more ropes, more masked figures, more children being rescued from several other capsules, in a seamless display of choreographed acrobatics that boggled the mind.

We’d been too late. Too fucking inefficient. Someone else had saved the day instead of us.

And didn’t that thought leave an uncomfortably foul taste in my mouth?

I looked back down at the masked figure, fists clenched, jaw tight.

It was her, I realised with a blast of something close to shock. I was sure of it. Same curly black hair. Same bejewelled mask. Same Cardinal buff body.

And strapped to her leg was the very same illicit laser gun, as well.

Motherfucker! Who the hell
were
these masked people?