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Kage sat there still and silent, waiting, until minutes later when she swivelled to face him. ‘You met her. That’s why you’re dressed as if you’ve been out.’
‘Naam, kara.’
‘Where is she?’
‘At the central sec office.’
‘Take me there.’
Kage’s eyes narrowed as he studied Harlow and willed his voice to stay soft. ‘Can’t take you there,kara, not until I understand the dynamics. Are you going to tell me who she is to you? Because I think you know exactly who she is.’
Harlow’s eyes lit up with defiance, and her nostrils flared. ‘Fine. She’s the woman who gave birth to me. She is not my mother. I already told you I emancipated myself at 15 when I disowned her and the man who sired me many years ago.’
Kage signed. ‘I remember. But did you know she was here? On Eden II?’
‘No!’ Harlow shot back. ‘Not until she showed up, after stalking me, to rob me of my only connection to my grandmama.’
‘And you didn’t try to find her again?’
‘How could I? The encounter left me stressed - plus, she disappeared into a dangerous area of the rock. Did you expect me to run into the wilds of Pikani to hunt her down? Besides, I didn’t want to relive the pain of another betrayal - how can you not see that?’
She glared at him for a long moment until he nodded, conceding her point. ‘I hear you. I’ve no right to question your reasoning, given you’ve shared your pain with me.’
‘Too right!’ she shot back, then shook her head in regret. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so sharp with you.’
Kage shifted, uncomfortable with the ratcheting emotion in the room. ‘Ah,kara, tis me who should apologise. Granted, it’s hard to understand how you could walk away from your blood. But I also need to consider the trauma they put you through.’
Harlow buried her face on her knees, looking away from him.
Then her still, small voice broke the silence. ‘The necklace?’
‘I found it. Whose is it?’
‘Mine. Rightfully. I have a signed and dated will from my grandmama to that effect. The jewellery - there’s also a ring in safe keeping in Axuma - is all I have of her now, the only memory left of the one person who’d believed in me and encouraged me to follow my dreams. She passed it to me instead of that woman because she believed I’d better care for them. She also engraved it with the new name she wished for me - Harlow, her mother’s name - my great-grandmama. And warned me not to let my progenitor find them.
She gave a dry, scornful laugh. ‘She predicted that if that woman found them, she’d rip them from me. How fokkin’ true that turned out to be.’
Kage’s heart broke, and he surged forward to wrap Harlow in his arms, but she pushed him back gently. ‘Not now. What I need you to do is take me to her. Now that she’s in custody, I need to see her, and make sure she knows to leave me alone, for the rest of my life.’
His arms fell back to his side, and his silver eyes clouded. He took another deep breath, his broad chest rising heavily with the effort of weighted emotion. ‘Naam, love. As you wish.’
Harlow
She was a quantum conundrum. What other scientific explanation could there be for her strange life and for the mass of conflicting emotions that raged through her simultaneously?
In the flyer beside her, Kage’s body heat emanated in waves, yet it hardly penetrated her frozen limbs. She took a surreptitious glance at his face. His face had closed over, his eyes taking a hard edge. Clearly, the revelation of her long-held secrets had shaken him. Yet, she still couldn’t get her head around why he cared so much. No one had ever given a damn about her past like this before.
She felt a rush of fear at the unknown that she tamped with a deep breath. Unable to deal with the heaviness, she turned her gaze outside Void X’s thick plex windows. At the dizzying heights of what was truly a future-oriented metropolis. At a skyline littered with stylish skyscrapers, columns, and arcades that paid homage to a rising age of hope in Pegasi that united its millions of residents. At the glory of a new dawn she didn’t quite feel herself.
Minutes later, Void X whispered to a stop outside a vaulted entrance that was a sculptural statement of swirling structures and organic forms made up of three distinct wings.
Harlow jumped out of the flyer before Kage, eager to get the ordeal she imagined over with. He rounded the front of his machine and sent it on its way.
They silently fell in step, and he laid a hand on the small of her back in typical Kage style, leading her through the glass atrium of the impressive Edenite Civil Justice Centre. They walked swiftly past the large, open glass spaces of an amphitheatre, exhibition halls and courtrooms, and finally, the security command and central booking centre. Where the crims of Eden II were held until justice determined their final destination. Either to the planetoid prison of Gineliv III or otherwise, the council operated halfway houses dotted all over the rock.
Kage stalked past the front desk area, where groups of people were hunched beside wide desks, speaking with the phalanx of security officers and clerks in the throes of reporting a crime or requesting assistance.
He paused them at a security checkpoint and nodded to the burly officer on call.
