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1
A GIRL NAMED RAVEN
The rain pounded on my head, making it harder than I would like to check my surroundings. Still, I made the effort. I’d come too far to be waylaid by a would-be assailant or some pickpocket with a hard-on for my coat. I was almost there—the weeks of travel to get to the small town on the edge of the galaxy couldn’t be for naught. I’d lived through broken- down vessels threatening to fall from space and sketchy cargo ship captains who spent too much time noticing my legs and somehow had managed to survive on the meager rations I brought with me when I escaped in the middle of the night to make the journey.
All because I promised Amias I would deliver his message. I intended to keep my word—I would find The Five and give them the note in my pocket. It was the last thing he ever asked of me, so I wouldn’t let him down. He’d saved me a million times, and that wasn’t an exaggeration. The least I could do was find my way to the bar in the small town where I would hand over the note he’d been so desperate to have delivered in the end.
So far, the coast was clear. No one tried to assault or stop me. Actually, out of the few people I passed on the street, none seemed to even care that I was there. Theirs was an enhanced planet, for the most part. That meant one of the places without authorities trying to catalog and watch their every move, lest they destroy the universe.
Of course, monitoring by the authorities wasn’t a terrible idea. I saw firsthand what happened when we let the former Super Soldiers take over planets.
The mark on my forehead was a forever reminder of just how badly things could go, but I couldn’t control any of that. I was one woman alone and likely to be that way forever. All I could do was put one wet foot in front of the other and deliver the note in my pocket.
Afterward, I would have to go back to do what I could for the others for as long as I could.
I stopped short, staring at the building in front of me. It was just as Amias had said it would be. The Frog and The Bull. Not that I could read the sign, but the picture of the frog seemed a good indicator, and it eerily resembled the picture he’d sketched for me. I’d spent hours memorizing it until I could see it in my dreams.
From where I stood, I could hear music playing inside the building—it was the pub where The Five hung out, their home base, so to speak. Amias had explained all of it to me over the years. He, Stone, and I had talked late into every evening, even when Stone and I should have been sleeping to prepare for the next day’s heavy burden. Amias never needed to sleep very much, because the enhanced people needed so much less rest than the rest of us. Despite my being the third wheel, they never made me feel that way, not even once.
And now they were both gone.
Tears threatened again, and I managed to shove them down. I wouldn’t successfully manage to hold them back forever, but for the moment, I would keep holding on. Everything I knew about the small town was because Amias had told me about it. I’d never been in a bar or anyplace like one before. The Five did business there, though, and it was the only place Amias could guarantee they would return. I hoped they’d be in residence, as I didn’t have the time or resources to stay and wait for them to arrive.
Not that hope ever really amassed much of a result for me in the past.
It seemed likely everyone in that bar knew I was outside already. They could hear, see, smell, taste, and react better than I ever could.
They’d been made to be that way. In labs. When those labs threw them all away, the rest of us had to learn to contend with the Super Humans who lived among us. Ruling us, hurting us, except in those few places that controlled them.
And I had no idea how they managed it in those places.
It didn’t matter. I’m one woman with no power.
But I would deliver the letter. I flung open the door and walked in with more confidence than I actually felt. There is no point in showing these men weakness.
I’d never experienced walking into a room and having everyone turn to look at me—realistically, I usually wasn’t even noticed. But a room full of what looked like enhanced people all turned to stare at me at the same time, practically in unison, and my heartbeat kicked in response to the weight of their combined stares. The music inside the dark pub blared louder in here than it did outside, jangling my already jagged nerves. How do these people, with their extra-sensitive hearing, stand this noise?
Or maybe that was the point? Maybe they chose to blast the music so they didn’t have to hear the other parts of the universe they’d really rather just tune out. Either way, it bugged me.
With my ears ringing from the noise, I stepped further into the room. I was wet, dripping, and on display, but not in the way that I usually was at home. Being dressed and stared at was somehow worse than what I was usually forced to do.
I swallowed and walked toward the bar. The interior wasn’t a surprise, as it also matched my best friend’s description—dark, rundown, yet clean. Someone had made the floors shine, and the bar was immaculate. What they didn’t care about was keeping up the burgundy walls, which were peeling, and the barstools were taped together. I would have to be careful where I sat.
A tall man worked behind the bar, and so far, all I’d seen were men. The planets that catered to enhanced men sometimes had women on them, like ours did, but no women had been invited to this particular meeting.
Then again, there hadn’t been any female Super Soldiers. The three that had been made had all been killed shortly after birth.
Or so the stories said.
The bartender’s chestnut brown hair and neatly trimmed beard caught my attention, but it was his ocean blue eyes that held my gaze the longest. The only positive of living where I did was seeing that color every day out my window. I hadn’t been in the ocean since I was a small girl, but I could smell the salt and see the views in my mind. They saved me, daily.
At least my sanity.
Water dripped off my clothes, hitting their neatly kept floor in a puddle under my feet. I abruptly became acutely aware of just how wet I was. I swallowed, not that I could do anything about the dripping. If I’d had the means to stay dry, I would have done so.
“Hi,” I said. The bartender ignored me. There was no way he couldn’t hear me. Hell, every man in the room probably could hear my heartbeat. Many found their senses intrusive, but I’d gotten used to it over time and it usually didn’t bug me anymore. Between Amias and the other enhanced that I dealt with daily, those sorts of things were commonplace for me.
However, that usually meant I had their full attention rather than them completely ignoring me. First they all stared, and now no one will look at me at all.
