“You don’t know that, Cy.”
“Yes, I do. Now move.”
Maddox’s bulky frame moved toward her, and she walked backward into the crowd. People were actively avoiding her now, their faces lit with fear in the light of her Flux. Maddox kept on her, and I circled around until I was right behind her.
I moved to grab her, but she anticipated, dodging away. Maddox and I were a good team, though. We’d cornered her, and she had nowhere to go.
Electricity wreathed her arms, pooling into incandescent balls in her hands. Her eyes darted back and forth, reflecting the neon of the club around us. She was looking for any opening, somewhere she could discharge without harming others. But there was too much around us. Speakers, lights, holo projection units—the whole damn club was one giant piece of tech. There was nowhere for her to discharge and not arc to something, through someone else. She wouldn’t do it.
As I approached her, the air thrummed with her field, and it sang in my blood. My Flux rose up to meet hers, and I could feel discharges flashing along my skin. The electricity on her skin resonated with mine, almost like they were dancing in a gentle rhythm. But there was absolutely nothing gentle I wanted to do to her.
“Nowhere left to run, doll.” The sparks in her hands flared, a warning. I took a step closer, and she took a step back, flat against the wall. “Do it. Light me up and half this block with me. It’s the only choice you have.” She didn’t move, but I was close enough now I could see the hatred swirling in her illuminated eyes.
I took another step forward, and I was so close I could practically taste her. But instead, I propped my left arm over her head on the wall and leaned in to whisper in her ear. She tried to hide it, but I felt the shiver as my lips grazed her and static jumped between us. “Do it. I want to see what you’ve got. Show me all of it—show me everything.”
She turned her head to stare daggers into me. “I’m not like you.” I knew there was no greater insult she could have given me. I ran my hand up until I’d snagged her bottom lip with my thumb.
“That’s just the thing, doll—we are the same. Fuckin’ worthless. No one does what we do who has any value. So embrace it.”
“Fuck you.” She snarled it, her lip flexing under my thumb.
“All in good time, doll. For now, we’ve—” Suddenly her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her body went limp, her Flux sputtering out. I barely caught her as Maddox’s hand pulled away from her neck, where a neurodampener chip was now lodged.
“Sorry if I interrupted something, but we’ve got to clear the area, now.” Maddox pointed his thumb over his shoulder to the crowd. They were starting to panic. Even in Magenta, street fights with this much Flux involved weren’t common outside of gang activity—or POM Security. People were being shoved down and trampled as the crowd bottlenecked at the club door.
I knelt so Eon’s slack body fell over my shoulder.
“Safe house M56 isn’t far from here.”
Maddox’s Vysor flashed, and I knew he shot me an annoyed look. “We have to get her back to HQ.”
“You see a good way out, man? This whole segment is going to be like a fuckin’ stampede in minutes.” I wasn’t lying. The crowd was already out of control, and people died from being crushed in panics like these almost weekly here. Maddox knew it too.
“Fine.” He used his massive frame to clear me a path through the crowd, and my hand tightened on Eon’s thighs as I followed. It took everything I had not to focus on how her skin felt, how fucking good she smelled.
There would be time for that soon.
CHAPTER 23
EON
The back of my neck ached horribly. I tried to open my eyes, and my lids pulled against the dry surface like sand. A blurred face hovered above me, and I saw the flash of a metallic neurodampener chip in Cy’s hand as he pulled it from the back of my neck. He palmed it and his blurry form moved toward what must have been a desk behind him. It clinked dully as he tossed it on the surface and rifled through the drawers. Another deep voice was speaking to him, but the words were garbled in my mind.
My brain was hardly attached to my body, but I willed my limbs to move. They were met with solid resistance, and I lolled my head just enough to make out thick black bands wrapping my arms to the steel chair I was in.
Blue hair flashed, and I saw Cy’s shadowy form approach. A dull pain lanced through my jaw as he squeezed my face between his thumb and fingers.
“Wakey, wakey gorgeous.” He shook me, and it wasn’t gentle. “We have some questions for you.”
He released my face, and I groaned as the pressure abated. “Cy, alwaysss nicccce t-to see you.” My mouth wasn’t working, but I did my best to flash him a grin.
“Don’t get cute, doll.”
I filled my lungs and screamed as loud as I could.
“Hey, none of that.” I tasted leather as Cy stuck two of his fingers in my mouth, pressing down on my tongue until I gagged. I clamped my teeth down on them as hard as I could, and he chuckled. “The gloves are tetracarbon-reinforced. Nice try, though. Now, are you gonna stop screaming, or am I really going to have to gag you?” As he said that, he pressed the tips of his fingers down harder until I retched. I released my jaw, and he pulled them out, letting a trail of my saliva stretch between my lips and his fingers. I thought I saw disappointment flash in his eyes, then he wiped his gloves on my face.
I hissed, and he chuckled. “You’re pretty when you’re a mess.”
