Wrath of the Void Strider (24 page)

It was crowded, and she stood in the doorway with crossed arms as she studied the throng.

“Ma’am,” came a voice from off to her left.  It belonged to a tall man with copper chin stubble.  He was lean, dressed in a black suit, and had deep blue eyes.  “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to come in or move along.  You can’t block the door.”

She answered, “Of course not.”  Chewing on her lip for a moment, she turned sharp eyes to the doorman and asked, “What sorts of gin do you stock?”

“You should ask the barman.”

“Right.”  Courteously, she bowed at the waist and approached the counter.  She waved over an older fellow dressed in a white suit and a black apron.

“Excuse me, what sorts of gin do you stock?”

With an appreciative nod, the barman answered, “Every major label.  What are you looking for?”  His voice was deep and throaty.

Zerki pondered.  “I don’t really know.  I don’t drink much gin.  What can you recommend?”

After the barman listed the available brands, she thanked him and stalled. 
I don’t know a damn thing about gin
, she thought to herself and flushed slightly.  She reached into her purse for her tablet and jumped when she felt a cold hand upon her bare shoulder.

“Try the Costa Dorada,” said a liquid baritone, and Zerki turned to regard the man it belonged to.  His gray-blue eyes twinkled.  “Over ice.”  He wore a pale suit with a white mandarin-collar shirt and white fedora, the same color as his full, manicured beard.  Barrel-chested with noticeably broad shoulders, he smiled a perfect smile and nodded toward the barman without taking his eyes off Zerki.

She quietly asked, “Cavendish?”

“The stunning Captain Ibarra, I presume.”

“Don’t do that,” she answered.  “I’m here to talk business.”  Tucking her hair behind her ear, she quietly cleared her throat and asked, “Where can we talk?”

The barman set down two drinks, and Reynold took hers in hand, tracing the lip of the glass absently with his thumb.  “Certainly not here,” he intoned, and he handed her the snifter of gin.  “I was about to retire, but I have time for one more drink.”  He lifted his own glass and stepped back.  “This way, please.”

“Lead on,” she replied and followed Reynold to a door that opened out onto a balcony.  He waited for Zerki to step through and closed the door behind them.  Casually, he approached the rails of the balcony.  Zerki soon stood at his side, and she lost herself for a moment in the ocean of gleaming lights.  She sipped her gin.

“Breathtaking, isn’t it?”

She nodded.  “It is.  I spend so much time looking at the stars, I forget sometimes how beautiful… how beautiful…  Whoa, this stuff is strong,” she muttered.

Reynold set down his glass and steadied her.  “Easy now,” he said, his voice rich and soothing.  Zerki’s knees buckled, and he caught her as she fell.  She never saw the traces of powder embedded in the ridges of his thumb and index finger.

·· • ··

At the balcony overlooking the Sapphire Waterfall, Taryn and her companions decided to head back.  Gavin’s head had finally cleared, though in its place a mighty headache now roared.  Valerie had given him some painkillers, but they hadn’t yet kicked in.

An hour passed before they had returned to the VelAquant.  Jenn and Cajun bid them all a sleepy goodnight before heading up to their respective rooms.  Filan and Takeo decided to visit the famed Galaxy Tunnel before retiring.  Takeo promised to be as quiet as he could upon his return.

“It’s okay,” Gavin assured him.  “My headache’s finally gone.  You can be as noisy as you like.”

“I’m not sure Filan and I are that far along in our relationship.”

Filan jabbed him and playfully scowled.  Regarding Gavin, she asked, “Are you certain you don’t want to come with us?”

Gavin nodded and yawned.  “I’m sure.  Thanks, though.  Maybe if I get up early enough, I can check it out before we go.”

Takeo chuckled.  “We’ll tell you all about it during the shuttle ride back.”

Gavin was too tired to protest, and he waved his friends on with a smile.  “I can’t wait.”

“How about you, Valerie?” Filan asked.

She shook her head and covered her own yawn.  “I’ve seen it before.”

“It’s not worth seeing again?”  Filan’s voice was hopeful.

Valerie laughed quietly.  “It is, but not tonight.  I need some sleep.”

Pouting, Filan lamented, “And so the night ends with Takeo and me going off on our own.”  Her expression quickly brightened.  “Sweet dreams, both of you.  See you in the morning!”  She wrapped her arms around Takeo, and they disappeared beyond a grove of angular, holographic trees.

“Will you be okay on your own?” Valerie asked as she walked with Gavin to the elevators.

“I should be.”

She nudged his elbow.  “Just don’t fall asleep on your back.”

“I told you, I’m sober.”  He insisted, “I’ll be fine.”  The elevator arrived, and they stepped into the car.  It climbed several floors, and the doors opened.  She walked with him to his room, and he slotted his key, causing the lock indicator to turn green.  Pushing it open slightly, he looked to her with a faraway smile.  “Good night, Ms. Sawyer.  Thanks for everything.  Seriously, you were my lifeline.”

“It’s Valerie.”  With a kind smile, she added, “Ms. Sawyer was my mom.”

He chuckled warmly.  “Then good night, Valerie.  And thanks again.”

“Actually…  Can we talk?”

“Sure.  This is my verbal warning, right?”

She smirked.  “I was hoping for something off the books.”

He squinted, gauging her body language.

“What?”

“You’re not kidding.”

She crossed her arms.  “No, I’m not kidding.”

He pushed the door open completely and gestured inside.  “After you.”  Despite stepping back, he was on the wrong side of the door, and Valerie ended up squeezing past.

Once inside, she unzipped and shrugged out of her jacket, tossed it unceremoniously onto the holobox table, and she visited the bathroom sink.  Gavin tracked her as she hunched over, testing the water, and her pink bob fell across the side of her face.  She wore black jeans and a black, V-neck tank top with a laurel of silver skulls printed on the front.  It was seated under a vibrant red rose.

From just below her right shoulder to just past the elbow, a dozen thick-lined and evenly spaced five-point stars wrapped her arm.  In the mirror, he could see a colorful, highly detailed dragon coiled around her left shoulder, snaking down into her forearm.  Behind it, an ancient temple garden filled the rest of her upper arm’s fair canvas.

“Gavin, you’re staring,” she noted without looking at him, and she rubbed her hands together under the warming water.

“Sorry,” he said and glanced away.  “None of my friends have tattoos.”

“I’m not your friend?”  Tucking her hair behind her ear, she cast him a playful wink.  Before he could stammer out a response, she said, “It’s okay, you can look.  If I didn’t want anyone to see these, I’d have had the work done somewhere else on my body.”  She soaped up her hands, scrubbing them as she hummed “Happy Birthday” to herself, and her hair fell back into place.

Gavin nodded and stole another glance.  “What do they mean?”

As she rinsed her hands, she straightened somewhat, looking to the ceiling as she considered.  “It’s kind of personal, actually.”  She toweled dry her hands and regarded Gavin with a tentative smile.  “They all tell a story.  You sure you want to hear it?  It’s not a happy one.”

“I’d be honored,” he replied, and he stepped aside as she crossed back into the room.  Two twin beds had been set against the wall, and a spacious gap lay between the farther bed and a sloped window that was as wide as the room.  A lounge chair, an ottoman and an end table occupied the space between the beds and the window.  A nightstand with a chrome lamp hovering atop it stood between both beds.  Across from it was the holobox table and an empty closet.

Valerie eased down onto the edge of the nearer bed and slid over toward the pillows.  “Never mind, then.”

“I don’t understand.”  He sat down near the foot of the bed.

“I really want us to be friends, and right now you’re treating me like your boss.  If it’s an honor just to listen to me talk, then you’re already putting me on a pedestal, and I’d hate it up there.”

Gavin stared forward.  “I feel like I’m saying everything wrong.”

She leaned back on her arms.  “No, you’re speaking your mind, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  It’s what you’re thinking that isn’t going to work.  How you see me.”  She exhaled heavily.  “I’m not above you, Gavin.  I’m not.  As long as you see me that way, we’ll never be close.  You’ll never really know me, and that’s what I need most right now.”

His heart pounded in his chest, and he felt like he was crawling in the dark.  “I want to be that for you.”

“I know you do.”  She smiled playfully and regarded him sidelong.  “Oh my god, I’m beautiful, and I smell nice, remember?”  With an amused laugh, she added, “Of course, I think you’ve actually fallen in love with every good looking woman on the
Shadow
, but there’s something much deeper that you feel for me.”  She leaned forward and reached across to squeeze his knee.  “You’ve got a big heart, but you can’t see what makes you so special to someone else.  As soon as you realize it, whoever you fall in love with next will be a very lucky girl.”

His heart ached.  “That can’t be you?”

Valerie shrugged.  “Maybe.  I can’t see that far into the future.”

She scooted closer and took his hand into hers, guided his index finger to her upper right arm.  “Now, these stars represent my freedom.”  She moved his finger to trace the thick black lines.  When she released his hand, he continued on his own.

“The skin is rough.”

“It’s a tattoo,” she stated frankly, and for a moment, she simply enjoyed his gentle touch.  “I was still in high school when I realized I needed to get out of Montag.  I mean, I really needed to get out.”  His fingers slowly traveled down her arm.  “Stars
are
freedom—to me, anyway.  So I had one put on my arm as a permanent reminder of what I was fighting for.  And every month after, every month I was stuck down there, I paid someone at the parlor to add another star, just like the one before it.  But I promised myself… I promised myself that I’d get out before I reached the end of my arm, because if I didn’t…”  She gestured putting a gun under her chin and pulling the trigger.

He looked to her, his gaze pained.  “Was it that bad?”

Her ice blue eyes welled, unbidden.  With an awkward laugh, she turned away for a moment.  “Yeah, it was that bad.”  She puffed out her cheeks, and her warmth quickly returned.  “Anyway, it was a year later when I ran into the captain.  We got to talking, and she caught on pretty quick that I was gifted.  That night, she hired me on as her diplomatic consultant.”  She nodded subtly.  “That was four years ago.”

Gavin asked, “How old were you?”

“Eighteen,” she answered, and a sad smile crossed her lips.

“I’m sorry you were in so much pain.”

With a shrug, she asked, “Why?  You didn’t know me, and even if you did, you were fourteen at the time.  There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

He exhaled heavily.  “I’m still sorry.”

She held his hand awhile.  “You’re very sweet.”

Brightening again, she released his grip and said, “These.”  She hiked her shirt up halfway, leaning steeply to her left.  From somewhere under her shirt, over part of her stomach and down along her side to the waistline, danced a huddle of black cheetah spots.  “I got these done, because I will always be myself, no matter what happens.  Whenever I feel like I’m not good enough, I just remember that these are my spots.  I can’t change them.”

Gavin reached out to trace those too, but she shied away.  “Sorry,” he said, though he smiled.

“No, don’t be.  I’m really ticklish.”  She eased off the bed and let her shirt tumble back into place.  Walking to the other side of Gavin, she urged him over and sat down inches away.  Twisting to face him, she regarded her dragon tattoo.

“May I?” he asked.

Valerie tilted her head to one side and replied, “What do you think?”  He didn’t answer, but instead reached out and ran the back of his hand over her vibrantly colored shoulder and biceps.  She explained, “It represents strength and wisdom, two things I constantly strive for.  I got it a couple years ago, when Captain promoted me to first mate.”

“That’s incredible, making first mate in two years.”

With a nod, she said, “It was.”  She smiled distantly, drew a deep breath and corrected herself.  “It is.”  Looking into his adoring eyes, she said, “I have two more, but they’re on my boobs, so I don’t want you to get weird about it.  They’re my statements of personal beauty, the inner me that only those I completely trust will ever see.”  She was warm, her leg brushing against his now.  She rested her hand upon his knee and poked it with her fingertip.

“Sure,” he said as composedly as he could manage.

Valerie arched her back and unhooked her bra.  She pulled it out through the top of her shirt and set it on the bed behind her.  She hiked up her top, nearly all the way, and revealed the under-crescents of her breasts.  Along their lower edges, pink and lavender lotus blooms outlined her curves, set within leaves of jade, reaching up nearly to the base of her shirt.  “I got these done last year.”

“They’re very pretty.”

Gently, she pushed Gavin’s hand away as he nearly grazed her pastel ink.

His ears were bright read.  “Ah, sorry.  I wasn’t thinking.”

“Not clearly, no,” she chided.  Tracing her own skin’s artwork, she resumed, “I got these done last year, after the gene job.”

“Gene job?”

She poked her bosom.  “My boobs.”

“Why?”

“Well, if I did it the other way around, the flowers would’ve looked wrong.”

He laughed, and his mood lightened.  “I meant, why did you get your boobs done?”

She thought a moment.  “Because I wanted to.  Because I always wanted bigger boobs.”

With a mischievous squint, he asked, “What about the cheetah spots?”

“I meant that as a metaphor for who I am, not what I look like.”