Our Lady of the Ice (36 page)

“Do you know why they designed me the way they did?” she whispered. “Designed me to look like your kind?”

Cabrera tried to speak, but she didn’t care what he had to say.

“Humans have never liked machines that look like machines. Sixty years ago you made us look and act like you so we’d blend in. But then that made you nervous, too, so now you tuck my kind away in the rafters, where we can’t be seen.”

Sofia squeezed harder. His windpipe crushed under her fingers. Cabrera thrashed beneath her, his face red and his eyes bulging, but she was designed to stay put.

“That will be your downfall,” she said.

And with one more strangled cry, Cabrera died.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

ELIANA

Eliana walked down to the sculpture garden. It was colder out than usual, even for the amusement park. Still, she had promised she would meet Luciano for a morning walk, and she was looking forward to it, despite the strange experience of sharing a memory with him. That memory was still inside her head. It belonged to her now, like a gift.

Luciano sat on his usual bench, reading a book, something for children, with pictures. Eliana didn’t recognize it. She sat down beside him, and he looked up at her and smiled.

“Good morning.” All prim and proper like always.

“Morning.” Eliana reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the scone she’d wrapped up in a cloth napkin for her breakfast. She’d slept late this morning, because of the cold and because she didn’t have anything else to do. Her stomach rumbled. She nibbled at the scone. Too dry. Araceli wasn’t much of a baker.

“Did you sleep well?” Luciano asked.

“As well as ever.”

Luciano smiled at her. Eliana took another bite of her scone. She wondered if he was waiting for her to ask about the walk. If he was still programmed to let humans make the decisions.

The thought left her unsettled.

“Should we go?” She stuffed the rest of the scone back into her pocket. He nodded, and they stood up and made their way out of the garden, following the usual path to the part of the park devoted to rides—the roller coaster, a broken-down Ferris wheel, assorted flying swings with broken cables. They didn’t say much, although it was a companionable sort of silence. Eliana liked it.

They came to the wall that blocked the park from the city.

“I’m worried about Marianella,” Eliana said. “Ever since that thing with the ag dome, I haven’t seen much of her. I thought she was holed up in her room.” She paused. “I mean, the ag dome was a big deal. I just hope she feels better, you know?”

“I believe she does,” Luciano said. “She left her room last night.”

“What?” Eliana blinked at him. “Really?” All this time, Eliana had taken Marianella’s absence for grief. After what happened with Diego, Eliana thought she was doing good, forgiving her. But maybe Marianella didn’t need that forgiveness after all. Maybe she didn’t even want it.

And now she’d left her room?

“Yes,” Luciano said. “I’m not sure what time, exactly. But I saw her with Sofia, after you had already retired back to your cottage. And I saw her this morning, too.”

“This morning?” Eliana frowned. “And she wasn’t in her room?”

Luciano didn’t answer. Eliana poked him in the arm. “Well?” she said. “Was she feeling better?”

There was something off about Luciano’s expression. An awkwardness that made him seem less human. Eliana didn’t like it.

“Come on, Luciano. It’s not like I —”

“I wasn’t supposed to say anything.” He looked over at her. “Sofia made me promise. But I don’t think it’s right, keeping it a secret from you.”

Eliana stopped in place. They were at the petting zoo now, empty cages looming around them. Luciano stopped when she stopped. He put his hands into his pockets.

“What’s going on?” she said. “Luciano?”

He watched her with that unnervingly inhuman expression. “I
have loyalties to both of you,” he said. “I told her you have a right to know, but she didn’t agree with me, and—”

“A right to know what?” A desperate fear clenched at Eliana’s heart. “What are you talking about?”

“They went to kill Ignacio Cabrera and all his men.”

The world went dead. Luciano’s expression was slack. Eliana couldn’t breathe.

“Oh God,” she said, heart pounding. “All his men. Diego—”

She shouldn’t be thinking this way. Diego was a killer. Diego’s eyes were empty.

Except when they weren’t. Except when they were looking at her.

“Eliana?” Luciano’s voice sounded far away. She was aware of a hand on her back, and then she was aware that she was sitting down on the cold stones of the path, gasping for air.

“They didn’t want to upset you,” he said. “But it felt wrong to me.”

“They’re going to kill Diego!” Her voice ricocheted out into the park, echoing against the cold. She slapped her hand over her mouth. Tears brimmed at her eyes. “When?” she whispered.

Luciano looked at her. That awkwardness was still there, but now it was veiled with concern. He dropped his hand away from her back. “The plan is scheduled to be implemented in an hour’s time—”

“An hour! Where, at the Florencia?” Eliana stood up, dizzy from the sudden movement. “It is, isn’t it?” She felt as if her mind, her reason, had been detached from her body. She didn’t know exactly what she planned to do. Save her lying, murdering boyfriend?

But she couldn’t stand the thought of him dying. She kept seeing him the way he’d been before the gala, smoking cigarettes on her patio and lying beside her in bed.

He couldn’t die. He
couldn’t.

Luciano nodded.

“I’m going there.”

“You can’t.” He tried to grab her by the arm, but she pulled away. “It’s dangerous for you. You could be caught in the cross fire.” He paused. “And with Cabrera dead, you’ll be safe again, and able to
return home to wait for your departure in the spring. This is for the best.”

“I don’t want to save
Cabrera
!” The dome light was too bright. She felt blinded. She pulled away from Luciano and ran toward the train station. She’d have to follow the tracks out, catch a taxi to the Florencia.

At first all she heard was her breath and her heartbeat, her blood rushing in her ears.

And then she heard footsteps. They weren’t her own.

Luciano. He was following her.

But he wasn’t trying to stop her.

*  *  *  *

The Florencia was silent when Eliana arrived, out of breath from having run the two blocks from where the taxi had dropped her and Luciano off. The driver had refused to go any farther, muttering about how he didn’t want to be there when she handed an andie over to Ignacio Cabrera.

She stood on the street outside the building, staring at those darkened windows and trying to decide what to do next. It was a force of will that had brought her here, some primeval desire to see Diego
safe
.

“We should not be here.” Luciano’s voice was right next to her. “This is dangerous for you.”

“Nothing’s happening,” Eliana said in a flat voice. She walked away from him, her footsteps echoing up and down the narrow street.

“Eliana!”

She wasn’t thinking. Her feet moved independent of her mind, compelling her over the cement and up to the big double doors. She pulled them open and breathed in the scent of the Florencia, grilled meat and women’s perfume. It was dark inside. She would have thought the place was closed down, if it weren’t for the music playing in the background.

“Eliana.” Luciano was at her side again. He put his hand on her arm, but she jerked away.

“I have to warn Diego.” Her voice came from somewhere outside
herself. She hadn’t warned him at the gala, and Marianella had almost beaten him to death. “Not Cabrera. Just Diego.”

“You can’t. She has it all planned—”

Eliana ignored him and stepped inside. She shoved the door shut, but Luciano caught it. He didn’t say anything more, his voice evaporating as he stepped into the foyer. No one waited at the podium. Over the music, Eliana could hear someone talking. A man, his voice smooth and liquid.

She crept forward, her heart pounding in her throat. Luciano moved with her, grabbing at her hand. She kept pushing him aside. Someone stood in the doorway of the dining room, a man in a dark suit. His eyes blossomed with dark bruises; his lip was scabbed over. And he was staring at her, his face full of sorrow.

“Diego!” Seeing his injuries made Eliana’s chest hurt. “Diego, you have to—”

Suddenly the music changed to some old tango, the volume turned up too high.

“Fuck!” Diego loped forward, his eyes dark. “Get out of here,” he hissed. “You, andie. Get
her the fuck out of here
.”

Luciano grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door.

“They’re going to kill you,” Eliana said.

Diego tilted his head at her like he was confused.

The music wailed in the background. Eliana remembered her mother playing this song on Saturday morning as she cleaned their apartment, her sweet singing voice drifting through the rooms.

“Get out of here,” Diego said. She’d never seen him look so desperate. “Please.”

And then gunfire exploded in the dining room.

Eliana screamed. Suddenly she was lying on the floor, pinned there by Luciano. Diego was gone. Bullets exploded through the wall, wood splinters and gray insulation showering everywhere. The bullets implanted themselves in the doors of the Florencia.

Eliana tried to squirm away from Luciano’s grasp, but he was too strong. “Let me go!” she shrieked, and with that one command, his grip loosened and she was free, although she was too terrified to move.

The music pounded through the walls.

And through the music, men screamed.

That jolted her into action. She crawled toward the maelstrom of the dining room. The gunshots began to die away, and over the screaming and the music she could hear Luciano shouting her name. She didn’t care. She had to be brave. She had to crawl toward the screams. She had to make sure that none of them belonged to Diego.

“It’s not safe!” Luciano shouted.

Eliana stopped at the doorway. At first she kept her head down, but she realized the gunshots were mostly gone, and so she lifted her face a little—

And screamed.

The dining room was full of maintenance drones, buzzing over the floor, the lights on their backs illuminated a dark red she’d never seen before.

There were men too, men with guns, but most of them were sprawled out on the ground at unnatural angles. Blood slicked across the floor; the tables and chairs were shot to splinters. At the center of the room Sofia crouched over a man, her shoulders hunched. Marianella was nowhere to be seen.

“Diego!” Eliana screamed. No one answered her. The few men still standing shot at the drones, and the drones clawed at the men, slicing their tendons open at the ankle.

I’m not one of Cabrera’s men. They won’t attack me.

Eliana crawled into the room in a daze. The maintenance drones ignored her. She scanned over the blood and viscera and dead bodies, looking for Diego.

She found him.

He stood at the far corner, emptying his pistol into the back of a drone. His expression was calm, and that terrified her. He ran out of bullets and reloaded the gun with the quick, practiced ease of someone who had done that many, many times before, and Eliana realized she was weeping, whimpering his name, knowing she had been stupid to come here, not because she was in any danger but because he was a bad person.

Diego looked over at her, and their eyes caught, and there was a flare of energy between them. Eliana thought of the night she’d first seen him. It had been like that then, that flare of energy. Music had been playing then, too.

A maintenance drone dropped out of the ceiling and landed on his back, toppling him to the floor.

Eliana screamed. She lost all her thoughts and raced toward him, into the middle of the room. No one fired at her. Anyone with a gun was firing at a drone.

Diego was dead.

She knew it viscerally, but when she saw him, the words appeared in her mind, a pronouncement, a newspaper headline. He was dead. He slumped forward onto his stomach, his suit ripped, his back covered in blood.

She thought she saw bone.

“Diego,” she whispered.

The drone whirred away, ignoring her. Violence roared around the room. Luciano was at her side again, saying something, taking her hand. The guns fell silent one by one. She was aware of all this. But the only thing she understood was Diego, the empty shell of him, lying there on the floor.

Someone grabbed her hand.

“Let me fucking go, Luciano!” He didn’t. When she turned to him, she saw that it was Marianella, her hair hanging in tatters, her eyes red with tears.

“I’m afraid you can’t tell me what to do,” Marianella said, and then she pulled Eliana away with a strength Eliana would never have expected, scooping Eliana up in her arms and carrying her out of the noise and blood and screams. The music had gone silent. Marianella carried her all the way out to the street, where the dome light was so bright, it hurt Eliana’s eyes. Her ears rang.

Marianella set her down gently. Eliana looked at the empty building across the street, and then she looked at Marianella, and then she threw up.

Marianella knelt beside her and held her hair out of her face. Eliana vomited until her stomach was empty, but she couldn’t stop
retching and gagging, like she could expunge all her horror if she tried hard enough.

“It’s almost over,” Marianella whispered.

“How could you do that?” Eliana said. “How could you kill him like that?”

Marianella didn’t say anything, but her expression flickered with shame. Eliana sat back, and Marianella dropped her hair. Luciano stood by her side, unspeaking. Eliana couldn’t look at either one of them.

It wasn’t long before the screaming ceased.

“It’s over now,” Marianella said. She was speaking to Luciano.

The doors to the Florencia flung open. Sofia walked out. Her legs were splattered with blood. She stopped when she saw the three of them, and her head turned, taking them all in, one at a time.

“What’s she doing here?” she asked, jutting her chin at Eliana.

Eliana was too exhausted to answer, but Luciano stepped forward and said, “I’m afraid it’s my fault. She asked me. I was compelled to answer.”

Sofia glared down at Eliana. Part of her wanted to jump up and rip Sofia limb from limb, but it was only a small part, and the rest of her wanted to curl up so tightly that she’d disappear.

“It was not my programming,” Luciano said. “I thought it was wrong of you to keep the information from her.”

Sofia’s glare didn’t soften. “I see.”

Eliana started crying again. Sofia looked at her with disgust. “No one in that room deserved to live.”