Wired (Skinned, Book 3) (21 page)

204

That was my job--had been my job--the peacemaker, the conciliator, the one who would stand between Riley and the wrong choice, and try to turn him the other way. Now there was nothing I could do but watch as he shrugged her off and finished what he'd started.

"He's the one that should go."

"Where do you get off?" Jude asked. "You should be on your
knees
, begging me for forgiveness."

"Yeah, that's how you like it, right? I crawl around after you, begging. When's it going to be enough?"

"I never blamed you."

"Not out loud." Riley threw his words back at him. "But I know how you think,
remember
? Nothing's ever enough." With every word he took a step closer to Jude, until they were only inches apart. Riley, his body built to its original specifications, was several inches taller, but it wasn't just that. He was
bigger
, his shoulders broad, his muscles straining against his shirt. Jude's lanky, angular form had always seemed like a reflection of his power, all sharp edges and stealthy grace. But next to Riley he suddenly looked small.

"What are they talking about?" Zo asked in a low voice. Not low enough.

"They're talking about the past," Riley said loudly. "They're
always
talking about the past." He poked Jude in the chest, hard enough that Jude stumbled backward. "Right?"

Jude shook his head.

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"Everyone else's past is irrelevant," Riley said. "But not mine." He turned to Zo. "Because I hid."

I couldn't believe he was about to say it out loud, here. "When they came for me, I hid, and I let them have Jude. Isn't that right?" He turned back to Jude now, face ugly with anger. "They broke you, while I watched. And you never let me forget it."

Jude shook his head again, harder this time. "We were kids," he said. "I got over it."

"Got over it?" Riley laughed. "Got over being stuck in that chair, letting me wheel you around, letting me feed you, clean up your shit?"

When Jude spoke, we could barely hear him. "Because we were friends."

"Because I felt
sorry
for you. I kept thinking, if I do this one more thing, we'll finally be even. I'll be free."

"You're lying."

"I did everything you said, didn't I? Followed every order. Wasn't for me, you'd have rolled into a gutter and died a long time ago, and it's
still not enough
."

"Don't do this." Jude said it in a strangled voice. That was the moment I understood what I think he'd understood the whole time. Riley was doing it on purpose. Digging his fingers into the wound. Anything to make Jude lash out.

Because he thinks he deserves it?
I wondered.
Or because he wants an excuse to hit back?

"He likes to pretend he's strong," Riley said, nearly

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shouting now, his voice rising as Jude's dropped. "He pretends he's tough, he's in control ... what a joke. You think a new body changes anything? You think just because you've got your pretty little legs and pretty little face that anything is different? Nothing is different. You're still that sad little boy, all twisted up and useless."

"Riley, please--"

"You're still
weak
."

Jude's fist landed squarely between Riley's cheek and jaw. Riley's head snapped back, but he didn't even sway on his feet.

Jude didn't swing again. Instead, he looked back and forth between his fist and Riley's unmarked face, as if he couldn't believe what he'd done--as if, because there would be no bruise and no blood, nothing to prove it had really happened, maybe it hadn't.

So he didn't see it coming: Riley's arm, Riley's fist, the full force of Riley's rage. Jude stumbled with the impact, and then with the next, and the next--until his own fists rose, as if of their own accord, and he finally began to fight back.

I'd been a target before, experienced sharp knuckles jabbing into my flesh and boots kicking my stomach, had my arms twisted back; I'd tucked into a ball, protected my soft places, soaked in the pain--I'd felt it all but had never
watched
it before, not for real. Never stood on the sidelines as two people tried to tear each other apart--and because in this case the people were mechs, they were having to work all the harder,

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clawing at flesh so slow to tear, bashing noses that refused to bleed, bones too hard to break. It was different from the fake fights intended to please a vidlife audience; it was wild.

There were no clean punches; there was no delicate dancing around each other like boxers in a ring. They were on each other, arms gripping necks and waists, and then they were rolling on the ground, a cloud of grunts and snarls and thuds--and sometimes a
crack
as a head slammed into the pavement.

All that in seconds, and even as I was watching, I was moving, my legs as autonomous as their fists, no longer in my control. I was moving toward them, I was shouting "Stop! Please! Stop!" and my hands were on someone's shoulders, someone's waist, tugging uselessly, and then someone's elbow caught my jaw and I was flying backward and I was on the ground.

They didn't stop. They didn't notice.

When the ringing stopped and my vision cleared, Zo was by my side. Saying something about sitting down, but I stood up, wondering whose elbow it had been.

Stood up, but stayed where I was. Not because I was afraid, but because I wasn't stupid. I couldn't stop them, and they couldn't hurt each other, not really. None of us could hurt each other anymore.

It lasted longer than it would have if they were orgs, but it couldn't have lasted as long as it felt. And then Jude was on his back, arms splayed, done. Riley knelt over him, fist drawn back.

"Go ahead," Jude urged him. Jagged gashes laced his skin,

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and his fingers jutted at angles fingers weren't supposed to. Strange to see so much damage and yet no blood. No repercussions. "Finish it."

And for a moment I thought he was going to. But then Riley dropped his fist. His shoulders slumped, and he stood up.

"Finish it!" Jude shouted. He raised himself a few inches off the concrete, then dropped back again.

Crack
.

"I am finished," Riley said. He held out a hand, but not to Jude. For a moment I wondered if he was holding it out for me--wondered if I would take it, if it was offered--but then Sari stepped in and wrapped her fingers in his, and they walked away together.

"Wait," I said.

"Don't go," I said.

Even though he was already gone. I was working on delayed reaction; I was frozen.

Zo was saying something to me, but I couldn't hear it, or didn't want to, not if it would distract me from staring at the space Riley had left behind. I wouldn't listen to Zo, but I let her take my hand and deposit me carefully on the curb. And then I watched her kneel beside Jude, her knees resting where Riley's had been. Her hand brushed the hair from his forehead, with a gentleness I didn't know she had. She spoke his name,

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once, twice, then--getting no response--bent her head to his chest. Listening.

"No heartbeat," Jude said. She flinched, and jerked backward. "But I appreciate the thought."

Zo helped him to his feet and led him, silent and dazed, to the curb. Then sat him down next to me and joined him on the other side.

"You okay?" I said.

He turned his head to look at me, then turned away. I didn't know if it was disgust for the question, or the closest he was willing to get to shaking his head.
No
.

I rested a hand on his shoulder, lightly, thinking,
This is wrong; he's not the one I should be comforting; this isn't my job.

But the one I should have been comforting was gone. Still, I took my hand away.

Jude didn't move. He mumbled something.

"What?"

"He said he shouldn't have started it," Zo said.

"You didn't start it."

"I start everything."

"What happened in there?" Zo nodded at BioMax. "Why was he so angry?"

There was a long pause, long enough that I thought Jude wasn't going to answer. "It wasn't about what happened in there."

"Was he right?" I asked. "Have you been holding it over his head all this time?"

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"It took about thirty seconds for you to start accusing me of things," Jude snapped. "That's a new record."

"I'm not--" But I was. "Maybe if you'd bothered to talk to him, rather than letting him feel guilty so that you could use him--"

"We talked," Jude said. "Yesterday."

"About what?"

"Things."

"What things?"

He raised his head and turned to me again, golden eyes blazing. "
You
, for one. Want to know what he had to say? What
I
had to say?"

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I didn't even know what I was afraid of.

Even his smile looked broken. "Didn't think so."

"I'd like to hear," Zo put in.

That got a more authentic smile, but not a response. "It doesn't matter," he told me. "This was going to happen eventually. It had to."

"You're pathetic," I said. "Both of you. This
had
to happen? Like this was some kind of manly rite you both had to go through? A
guy
thing?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Right. Because I'm
sane
, and I don't go around punching out my best friends."

"Maybe because you don't have any."

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"Screw you." I jerked my head at Zo. "Let's go. We're out of here."

Zo didn't move. "I don't think we should leave him like this... ."

She may have been right, but I didn't care. "He'll be fine; won't you?"

"I'm always fine," Jude said.

"See?"

Zo didn't respond. She wasn't even looking at me--she was looking past me with an exaggerated expression of horror.

"Nice try. What is it this time, monster behind my back?"

"Worse," Zo muttered.

Of course,
I thought. What else could make this perfect day complete? What else could make Zo tremble?

"Girls," our father said. "Is this a bad time?"

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GONE

He would be broken, like I was broken.

Can we go somewhere more private?" my father asked.

Zo and I spoke at the same time. "No."

He lasered a look at Jude. "Then perhaps your friend here would be willing to leave us?"

"No," we said again.

My father sighed. "I don't think it's appropriate to do this in front of strangers."

"Funny how I don't care," I said.

Jude shifted his weight, as if preparing to rise. "I can go."

"No." My hand clamped down on his arm, holding him in place. "You're not leaving. He is."

"Not until you hear what I have to say."

"So say," I told him. "Then go."

"I didn't know you were going to be here, Zoie," he said.

Zo let her hair fall across her face. "Don't talk to me," she said. "If she wants to let you talk to her, fine. But don't talk to me." She retreated to a spot on the curb several feet

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away, dragging Jude with her. They sat down together, close enough that they could still hear us, far enough to make very clear that she wouldn't be participating in any rituals of apology and forgiveness.

My father sighed again, theatrically, like we were supposed to feel sorry for him and his grand, exhausting efforts.
Why can't I just punch him?
I wondered. It would be so simple, curling my hand into a fist, forcing it into his jaw, wrestling him to the ground. In the end it was nothing but physics, controlling the electronic synapses that would set the limbs in motion, calculating the appropriate speed and angle of impact.
I could hurt him,
as Riley had hurt Jude. It had been easy enough for them to go from words to actions. So why couldn't I?

"Are you wondering how I knew you were here?" he asked.

"You're on the board," I said, glancing at the BioMax building. "You know what they know."

He got the implication. "I didn't know what they were doing," he said. "I never would have allowed it."

"Because you have
so
much power over them."

My father believed sarcasm was the refuge of the weak-minded, those incapable of meeting an argument head-on. He ignored it.

"Now that I do know, I'll--"

"Put up a fight? Careful, Dad. You're running out of daughters."