Their Fractured Light: A Starbound Novel (21 page)

“This has nothing to do with trust,” she replies, curling over her bowl. “If you never give someone a weapon, they can never use it against you.” The hint of heat abruptly goes out of her voice, and she swallows. “It’s enough to say that he made my life a living hell, and I don’t know why. I don’t want to know why.”

I feel like I’m choking on her words. I spent
years
building the Knave’s name, making my reputation as the best on Corinth—the best anywhere. On my own private time, I do the things that’ll keep me out of heaven. I chase down Antje Towers and hunt for a way to drag LaRoux’s crimes on Avon and Verona into the light. But the rest of the time, the Knave’s the best hacker money can buy, and yet he does much of his work for free. I’m practically Robin Hood. I left my first, angry years behind, when I realized my brother would be horrified by what I’d become. I changed, for the most part.

And now someone, somewhere, has been hijacking that rep I worked so hard to build, using it while they hurt the girl beside me. This girl I care about far, far more than I should. Far more than is safe for either of us. “He’s not going to use me as a weapon,” I say quietly. “Nobody could make me do that.”

She shakes her head. “I know he works for the LaRoux family, or he did at one point. And the friend of my enemy is my enemy too. He could use you against me, if he wanted to.”

“He’s not—” I force myself to sound calm, shoving down the frustration that wants to surface in my tone. This is impossible, having an argument about myself in the third person. “I’ve never seen any evidence he’s involved in LaRoux Industries. I don’t think he likes them any more than we do.”

“You’re wrong,” she says, soft but certain. “I tried to track him down once. Waste of money, of course. He’s too smart to let himself be tracked very far. But I got as far as a newer planet in the Sulafat system, and a bit of property with two names on the deed: Tarver Merendsen and Lilac LaRoux.”

You what?
She must have found someone
good
to do that work. Now’s probably not the time to work out who this person is and take him or her out of the business, but I add it to the list of things to do after we stop LaRoux. “That doesn’t mean he was working for LaRoux Industries, does it? Perhaps he was spying on them.”

“That wasn’t what it looked like.” She looks tired, closing her eyes. “What does it matter?”

“It matters because you’re not just my ally, and I know you’re good enough at reading me to know that.” That’s enough to open her eyes again, and I press on. “Tell me why he was hurting you, and I can keep you safe.”

She reaches for her beer, gulping down a long swallow and setting it down too hard on the floor. “I don’t
know
why. Just promise me you won’t tell him where I am. Promise me, Gideon.” She’s still gripping the bottle, knuckles white. Whatever’s going on has her terrified.

How can I possibly answer that?
If I admit who I am, she’ll run. If I promise, I’m lying. But there’s nothing to do but nod. And something in her releases when I do.

“He’s hunting me,” she whispers. “For almost a year now he’s been following me. I’ve had to learn how to tell when he’s getting close. Alarms, digital trip wires, that sort of thing. He has flags on my accounts, records of my transport travel. Every time I think I’m safe, every time I think I’ve lost him this time, there he is. I only get a few weeks—a month or two at most—before he finds me. This, on Corinth, is the longest I’ve been able to stay in one place. But he’ll find me eventually. I’ve just never been this close to LaRoux, and if the Knave finds me before I can—” Her lips press hard together, and she doesn’t finish her sentence.

I feel like I’ve fallen ten stories. I know these tricks—hell, I invented most of the ways hackers like me track down individuals these days—but I would
never
use them to hurt someone like Sofia, an innocent. But someone out there’s been using my arsenal, the one I keep for people like LaRoux and Towers and everyone else who condones their crimes—and using it to terrorize people. All I can do is repeat her words like an idiot. “He’s hunting you?”

She nods.

I reach across to cover her hand with mine. “I promise you, whoever’s after you, you’re safe now. I know this game.”

“Whoever?” she echoes, brows drawing inward. “It’s the Knave, Gideon. I’m positive. Three different hackers have confirmed that, separately. He signs his work, the narcissist. Like an artist.” Then there’s a flicker of a wry, humorless smile. “Or a serial killer.”

I’m going to find out who’s been copycatting me, and make an afternoon with a serial killer look like a kid’s birthday party.

“We’ll keep you safe,” I say quietly. “I promise. Trust me with this.” I just need her to stick with me, and I can work this out. Maybe, when all of this is over, I won’t need the Knave anymore. But before I let him fade away, I’ll find whoever hurt her, and I’ll hurt them more.

Sofia steadies herself with a slow breath, turning her hand under mine until it’s palm-up, and she can twine our fingers together. A little more controlled, now. “It’s been a really, really long time since I wasn’t alone,” she whispers, and when I look across, our eyes meet. “I’ve missed that feeling.”

Her gaze goes straight to my heart.
I’ve missed it too.
And there’s something about this girl—so utterly strong, so vulnerable, so implacable in her purpose, but so alone—she brings all my best intentions undone.

She keeps her gaze on me as I set aside my meal, then take hers and her bottle, setting them aside as well. She swallows as I lean in to press my forehead to hers, curving my hand around the back of her neck, fingertips finding bare skin.

Everything between us—the ones we love who died, the way our hands linked together as we ran from Mae’s betrayal, the mad flight from LaRoux Headquarters, the taxi driver shouting after us, the tortured climb up the elevator shaft, that one perfect waltz—all those moments whirl through my head and coalesce into one instant of pure instinct.

All the things I should say—
I’m the Knave, you don’t know who my allies are, I’m falling for you
—are swept aside.

Her breath catches, and mine sticks in my throat, and then we’re surging together, rising to our knees so she can reach up to twine her arms around my neck, and I can duck my head to find her mouth, and I lose myself in her.

It’s hours later when Sofia stirs and murmurs in her sleep—that’s what wakes me. Our nest is lit only by the dim glow of my screen nearby, and I carefully ease up onto one elbow to check the time. Still a few hours until dawn.

When I look back, she’s curled up in a ball, her forehead lined, some dream causing her to push out a hand as though to defend herself. I’ve seen it over and over the last few days, but it strikes me anew.
Even in her sleep, she doesn’t feel safe.

Carefully I lift the blanket, pulling it up over her where she’s pushed it off. It’s enough to settle her most times, and it works this time, too. “You’re going to wake up looking like a question mark,” I murmur, and she tucks herself up into a smaller ball, breath slowing. “A small, surprisingly beautiful que—I sound like an idiot. And I’m talking to myself.”

I’m smiling, too—also like an idiot. I have to get it together before she wakes up and sees me like this.

I’m easing down to lie beside her once more, and let her skin warm mine, when I see it.

Her outflung arm is bare, and where there’s always been perfect skin before, now there’s smudged makeup concealing a hint of some design below showing through. Is it a tattoo? Or—wait. It’s a
genetag
. I looked for one of these on her arm that first night in Kristina’s apartment, when I realized Sofia must be from Avon. I didn’t see it then, and now I can tell why. She’s done a good job hiding it. I haven’t seen one on an actual person before—they’re used by colonies that don’t have planetary status yet, taking the place of a proper government ID. And most people from those planets never have the money to travel anywhere I’d meet them. Or anywhere at all. There’s a booming black market for selling the genetag sequences to fully fledged citizens who want to operate under the radar—I’ve got half a dozen of them myself. They’re the kinds of IDs people like Towers use when trying to disappear. But this one’s actually hers—actually tattooed into her skin.

I pull in the screen so I can see better by its dim glow, and reach out without thinking, gently brushing at the smudge with my thumb. A prickling up and down the back of my neck tells me I shouldn’t be doing this, but I can’t resist the chance to find out something about this girl who’s taken over my life. The chance, perhaps, to know who she is—to know why someone might be running her down, using my name. The digital world is mine, not hers.

If I understand who I’m defending her from, I know it’s a fight I can win.

I repeat it to myself, as if that’ll help me believe it’s the only reason I’m doing this.

The tattoo’s in a spiral design, the concealer blocking out the twist of the black lines. The number running along their curve slowly becomes visible as I drag the pad of my thumb along it. My breath stops, chest squeezed tight as the numbers register.

I’ve seen these numbers before.

Oh, no.

I roll onto my front to prop up on my elbows, bringing my lapscreen properly to life. I pull up my Towers subprogram, and there it is. My mystery ID. The war orphan who left Avon—the person whose ID Commander Towers used to make her escape. The one who can’t possibly exist, who was too unlikely. The one I…

Sofia’s voice comes back to me.
He’s hunting me. For almost a year now he’s been following me.…Every time I think I’m safe, every time I think I’ve lost him this time, there he is.

There
I
am.

My hands are shaking. A few keystrokes bring her story to life, files and pictures filling my screen. I could have seen this all along. I could have looked and found her there, a real girl. But I was so damn arrogant, so sure Towers deserved to suffer, so sure that I was smart enough to track down LaRoux’s dirty secrets—so determined to do it at any price.

At
any
price. As though no price could be too high.

Every time I imagined Towers running, scrambling for safety, every time I smirked in the dark at tipping her out of another hiding place, sending her heart racing…it was this girl sleeping beside me with her lips still curved to a faint smile. It was this girl I’m crazy about. Running scared, her life destroyed by the shadow of the Knave coming after her, for reasons she couldn’t understand. Towers was probably on her quiet farm all this time, never the LaRoux conspirator I imagined, and Sofia was sacrificed in her place. I was her monster all along, and she’s run straight into my arms.

I can’t pinpoint the moment when I became this thing, and I don’t know how I managed to blind myself so completely. LaRoux killed my brother, and he set me on a path I told myself was noble. That it was all right to hurt the ones that deserved it, as long as I was a good guy the rest of the time. That it was okay to be the hound, as long as I only chased deserving quarry.

How can I convince Sofia I was never hunting
her
, never meant to hurt her? Will she believe me, when I say all her fear was for nothing?

Will she forgive me?

How can I even tell her?

I push the screen away, easing down beside her once more as a sliver of fear shoots up my spine. I can’t wake her up yet. Not until I know what to say. Not until I know how to say it. I’ll find the words to make her understand I never meant to hurt her, never meant to scare her. I’ll show her I only ever chased her because I was looking for something that might hurt LaRoux Industries, not
her
. I was chasing down a woman I believed
did
deserve it, who held secrets—except if Antje Towers never used Sofia’s ID to run, then she did what she promised all along. She waited for her discharge and went to live out her life in quiet, in peace, away from technology. Away from the kind of world that holds LaRoux…and people like me.

I lie there beside Sofia in the dark, turning over explanations in my head, planning speeches, honing my words so the first few will stop her long enough to hear me out. She has to hear me—even if she never forgives me, she has to believe that the Knave isn’t coming for her anymore. She has to know that she’s safe from me, if nothing else. My thoughts run in tighter and tighter circles, until I fall into a restless sleep.

When I wake, the blankets beside me are cold, and Sofia’s gone. I scramble upright, my heart rate accelerating as I swing around to look for her, clambering to my knees.

She stands nearby, and she’s dressed, and she’s holding my lapscreen.

I forgot to close it down before I fell asleep.

Lit ghostly pale by its light, she’s letting it dangle from one hand, so I can see the dossier I pulled up using her genetag number. I see her ID picture, her real ID picture. I see the folder of files on her father; criminal records, medical reports, employment records. Autopsy.

My heart clenches, mind shutting down. I have to find an excuse, tell her the truth, say
something.
But I just freeze.

Then her gaze drops, and I see what lies at her feet. My book. My ancient, priceless copy of
Alice in Wonderland.
My lucky charm, my token from the life I used to live. It lies open, and there, sitting on top of it, is the final nail in my coffin. A single playing card, from the old-fashioned deck my brother and I used to use.

My heart’s hammering. My mouth is dry.

It’s the jack of hearts.

The knave.

“Was all this just a game?” I expected coldness, emptiness—instead Sofia’s voice is bright and hot with fear, with betrayal. In this moment she can’t put up a front. “Was any of it real?”

My thoughts are still stuck, the torrent of everything I should say building up like water behind a dam. “Sofia—” I stammer.

With that, she’s moving, dropping the lapscreen, backing away from me toward the door.