Sugar Skulls (11 page)

Always good to have a plan B.

Once he’s out of sight, I wander a few pallets over into Maggie’s meager stockpile and pull out two sets of stun-knucks.
Brights
.
A little scuffed but usable.
I’ve already tucked them into my messenger bag by the time Fire Plug returns, handing me two thin, black cases. I stash them in my bag as he heads over to the door and pulls it open for me. I thank him on my way out, grateful for a Rete-free supply run. With two more errands to go, I don’t have the time, patience, or restraint to deal with him.

My head down once more, I set a measured pace for my next stop.

V

Adonis leans easily against the makeup table, arms folded over his chest.

At least he’s wearing a shirt this time.

I want to bolt for the door, but it’s only a fleeting daydream. I’m frozen in place, unable to uncurl my fists from the blanket, unable to clear the crystal cobwebs from my head.

“She slipped the leash at the mall, and I’m pretty damn sure she started that riot,” Damon tells my new watchdog. I might as well not be in the room for all the attention they’re paying me right now. “I can trust her about as far as I can throw her.”

“Meaning not at all,” Adonis says with a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, I’m well aware that she’d stab you in the back, midfuck if it suited her.”

Damon goes very still, then gets right up in Adonis’s face. Only then do I realize my keeper is a good three inches taller than the golden god. Factor in the sheer authoritative presence, and it might as well be six.

“You’re only here because I was told it was safer to give her applejack from the same source to minimize variables,” Damon says very slowly. “For the next thirty-six hours, your only purpose in life is to keep her functional. The second you fuck up, you’re headed out of Cyrene in handcuffs.” He pauses, looks Adonis up and down, then adds, “And if something happens to her . . . If she ends up dead? I’ll see to it you tragically OD in a gutter, hollowed out by the filthiest combination of street drugs imaginable. Is that understood?”

Adonis isn’t smiling anymore. “Got it. Keep the songbird singing, at least until tomorrow night.”

Damon glances over at me as his phone pings madly in his hand. There are probably a dozen technical malfunctions he needs to sort out and at least as many PR fires he needs to put out. When he finally stalks to the door, he shoots off a parting “Get her up and running. You have ten minutes” before slamming it shut behind him.

Adonis detaches himself from the makeup table and crosses to me, crouching in front of the chaise like he’s about to make a sacrifice.

“Don’t t-t-touch me . . .” is all I manage between tiny, frosted exhalations.

“Sorry, gorgeous, I’m going to have to,” he mutters, fingers finding the pulse at my wrist, gaze shifting to the clock hanging on the wall. “You’re a special kind of special. I’ve never seen anyone react to it like this before.”

I thought about the migraines, the mind-scrubs, the reboots. “S-s-special doesn’t begin to cover it.”

“Hot and cold, that’s just how you run.” He shrugs as his attention slides back to me. “I thought we were having a good time. Guess I disappointed you somehow, since you called in your boyfriend and the greyfaces.”

“Damon’s n-n-not my boyfriend.”

Adonis smiles down at me again, but this time, it’s not feral. Not calculating. Far from it.

Fuck. He feels
bad
for me.

“Whatever you say, gorgeous. Tell me the sky’s green and the Wall’s a foot high, if that makes you feel better. You just have to keep breathing. Making pretty music. If I can get you through tomorrow night, I get a clean record and more credits than I can spend in two lifetimes.” Shifting so that he’s sitting next to me on the narrow chaise, he checks my pupils. Runs a hand down my arms. “I have to admit, it shocked the shit out of me when I found out who you are. When they dragged me out of your apartment, I just figured I banged a piece of ass that belonged to Corporate.”

“You did.” By now, everything is soft and hazy and gray, like he’s pulling the blanket up over my face and shoving it down my throat. I hear Adonis swear under his breath, feel his muscles bunch and shift as he reaches for something.

I’m almost at the bottom of the rabbit hole by the time the applejack hits my tongue.

M

Bridge, sweet bridge.

Between my supply run to the warehouse, hitting up the construction site for more copper, and a quick visit to a clothing store in the Odeaglow, I’m loaded for bear by the time I return to the underbelly of the Arkcell.

And while I’ve taken it easy in comparison to yesterday’s high-speed detour, the weight of the day’s bounty is more than making up for a fairly leisurely pace. My breaths are getting shallower, and it feels like a small, mean-spirited xylophone player is working over my ribcage from the inside.

I look up at the tarp concealing my little hideout, and the plan instantly forms in my head: climb up, grab a length of rope and a pulley from my storage closet, rig it up to a piece of plywood, and voilà! An open-air dumbwaiter in a matter of minutes. Lower it to the ground and climb down after it. Load it up, climb back up, unload the day’s purchases, and break it down again.
Easy
.

That’s what Rational Mind would do. Exhausted Mind looks at the expected up-and-down-and-up again and says,
fuck it
. Then he unhooks the strap on his messenger bag, slips it through the handles on everything else he bought, hooks it back on, and soldiers on up into the warren.

Stashing everything in the storage closet, I retrieve Lara from her case, lock the vault door, and settle gratefully into bed. While the hum serenades me as always, it’s Vee’s voice in my head as I close my eyes. Wishing her good night, I curl up with the guitar, my fingers coaxing unfamiliar rhythms from Lara’s strings.

For the first time in ages . . . for Vee . . . I start composing something new.

V

We make it through the second attempt at a rehearsal just fine, running each number twice, smoothing transitions, then testing the thrum-collectors on a group of contest winners gathered in the pit just below the stage. The kids practically vibrate out of their skin with the joy of being there, getting an early glimpse, a little taste of what’s to come tomorrow. It’s well past midnight by the time the greyfaces corral them into an interview room where they scream hysterical praises to the sky.

I watch them go as the last of the music fades from my system. Adonis is next to me within seconds, hustling all of us off the stage in the opposite direction of the camera crews.

Jax starts to argue. “I don’t see why we have to go straight back to the Loft—”

“Get in the goddamn car,” he barks, not taking any of her shit.

“Fuck you, too!” she flares, ducking into the limo with a scowl that should have burnt him to ash. Sasha’s right behind her, not offering a peep of protest.

I don’t process much of the car ride. Things get progressively blurrier, so that I’m only aware in the vaguest possible way when we hit the front door.

Adonis packs me up the stairs. “Stay with me, gorgeous.” With one hand, he whips out his phone and pulls up a contact, waiting for someone to pick up before settling both of us on the bed. “She’s already crashing, Damon. There’s no way she should have burned through that tab so quickly.” There’s a pause and then he adds, “Yes, it’s from the same fucking batch. Something else is wrong.”

The pause that follows is filled with ice. Ice, and a spark, inspiration fueling my new song, red on white, blood on snow. Let Adonis and Damon wring their hands over burnouts and doses.

I’m gonna sear the sky with my words—

Another dose of applejack hits my system, and I jerk like I’ve been punched. Reeling, I scramble away from Adonis. Slam into the wall. Slide to the floor.

He’s panting, wide-eyed, like he just saw a ghost. “We’re going to have to keep you up all night. If you fall asleep, you could flatline.”

“Fine by me.” There’s a thousand and one ways I can fill the time, beginning and ending with blue-eyed dreams. There’s no way in hell Micah’s going to chance the Dome. But he’ll be watching the broadcast. Everyone will. And I want this new song ready in time.

CHAPTER EIGHT

M

In the predawn quiet, I slip out onto the streets of the city, getting an early jump on my increasingly ambitious to-do list. The first item, and the only one requiring me to leave the warren: drop a message for Niko in the usual spot. Niko handles part of Cyrene’s ever-changing real estate holdings, so he can use the address I got to confirm or deny what Ludo told me about the supposedly dead applejack dealer.

I’m hoping Ludo’s wrong and there’s still a chance I can get my hands on the guy.

The brief field trip is a solid test for how I’m healing. Everything hurts a little less than the day before. I make it to the drop and back in good time, no seeing spots or threat of hyperventilating.
Good. I don’t need any unwelcome surprises at the Dome later.

As soon as I’m home, I look around and survey what to do next. My eyes find Vee’s poster, and I smile. “Am I crazy? Am I crazy for going through all this just for the chance to see you? To talk to you? To be there when you unleash those pipes on the world?”

I don’t really expect a response. Even if I am crazy, I’m not
that
crazy.

Just crazy enough to talk to a poster of her.

“I have to tell you something. There was this girl at the Palace a few nights ago. Superconfident and floating on a cloud of this vile designer street-shit called applejack. She came right up to me and pushed me into an alcove and . . .

“I wished she was you.” I feel a weight in my gut, like I’m confessing to a crime. I guess I am. “Man, what a shitty thing to think, to admit. She was gorgeous, no lie, and she knew it, too. Wearing not much more than you in that poster.

“Another time . . . another place . . . even a few days ago, before I saw you at Maggie’s, she would’ve been a dream come true. But I just kept wishing she’d stop pursing her lips and flatten me with a note like you did.”

As I talk to her, my hands work overtime, gathering supplies and preparing for the evening’s impending insanity. A pile of finished Sugar Skulls T-shirts to my right attests to how long I’ve been at it. I survey the scene all around me, imagining it from her eyes.

I bet she’d let the mess slide.

“What do you think, Vee? What will you think if I actually get five minutes alone with you? I’m pretty sure you remember me, but would you care if I showed up again?”

Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop. The words tumble out, blurted like unintended poetry. “You shot straight through me and out the other side like it was nothing at all. You came through an unguarded window and have been padding barefoot through empty rooms ever since, leaving your footprints in the dust.

“I’ve been listening to your footfalls for days, and honestly, I wish I could listen to them for eternity. But tonight, I’m turning around. I’m risking looking back and finding you just a ghost, a delusion, a figment of my lonesome imagination.”

Even to a picture of her, I fear I’ve said too much. More than I’ve said to anyone in months.

I look away, pull the set of Brights from storage, and get to work cracking them open. The wiring inside is pretty simple, thankfully. I’m no engineer.

“This part is gonna suck like a night at Sidri’s.” I glance at Vee and steel myself for what’s to come. Retrieving my old silver chain from a small bin next to my bed, I loop a piece of wire through one of the links before putting it on. Then I run the length of wire down my back, hook the other end into one of the Brights, and slip the stun-knucks into the left pocket of my jeans.

The other one I tinker with for a few minutes more before closing it up, satisfied, and stowing it in my hoodie. I overclocked it so it will shed more energy than necessary.
But this
. . . I pat the one in my pocket twice, and the jolt stuns me for a second. “Owww.” This one triggers an involuntary emotional response. Between the two of them, I should show up on their scanners.

Hopefully.

I double-tap the one in my pocket again, and the low-level unpleasantness dissipates.

Turning to the half-sheet once more, I look Vee in the eye. “Wish me luck. No matter what happens, at least I’ll get to see you soon.”

I continue stashing supplies into various pockets as I gear up and get dressed. It’s almost showtime.

V

Adonis has circles under his eyes. It would almost be funny, except I can’t stop singing long enough to laugh. Micah’s song spirals through my brain on a never-ending loop, the first verse picking up where the last chorus leaves off. I hum it under my breath, scratch the words into my skin.

What would I give for just one taste of you?

What would I trade to fall straight into you?

I would burn this city to the ground.

Down, down, down to the ground.

Every few hours, Adonis shoves another tab of applejack into my mouth. Then every hour. He breaks out in a sweat as the window between doses gets shorter and shorter. When I start to go cold again, he has to administer CPR to get me breathing again.

“Just an excuse to kiss me,” I tease him as I race out of the room. Have to stay ahead of the music. The lyrics will slam into me, crush me, kill me, if I rest for a single second—

“Vee, you need to sit down.”

I toss a glance over my shoulder, evilly pleased to see that Adonis looks ragged around the edges. Dogging my every step from my suite to the kitchen, he tries to keep me hydrated and fueled up.

The food’s a lost cause. Even the electrolyte packs are coming back up now.

Damon shows up right when I’m puking a pink watermelon concoction into the kitchen sink. Adonis has one arm looped around my waist, the other hand holding my hair back. There isn’t anything left for Damon to grab, but it looks like he wants to snatch me out of the golden god’s arms.

“I said I needed her functional,” Damon says, but my babysitter cuts him off.

“I’m doing the best I can—” Adonis doesn’t have a chance to finish defending himself, because now I’m throwing up straight stomach acid, then going limp.

There’s no such thing as mercy here,

And the space between us grows ever wider,

Come taste the sugar on my lips,

Your precious girl, you won’t deny her.

“She’s supposed to be in makeup by now,” Damon says. The words crackle in and out like speakers on the fritz.

“She
was
in makeup, until she spewed what little food I got into her all over the stylist.” Adonis turns on the water and splashes some of it into my face. Cold trickles work their way down my neck, into my shirt. “And fuck you if you think you could have done any better. This was supposed to be an easy little nursing gig. I’ve been messaging you
all day
. Where the hell have you been?”

“Doing my goddamn job,” Damon says, bringing me a kitchen towel. He tries to dry me off as he’s pushing the hair from my face. “I’ve got Corporate to answer to, investors to impress, the lab guy up my ass—” Getting a good look at me, he can’t help the strangled noise that comes out of him. “Holy fuck, have you seen her eyes?”

Adonis tilts my head back and swears again. Scooping me into his arms, he heads for the master suite, for the bathtub. He’s already filled it with cold water and ice cubes. Without hesitating, he drops me in.

I sink to the bottom, barely feeling the cold, my skin melting the ice like it’s nothing.

What would I give for just one taste of you?

What would I trade to fall straight into you?

Two sets of strong hands heave me back to the surface—
Hands on my wrists, on my throat, over my mouth . . . Skull. Rose. Dagger . . . Back the fuck up, man, you knew this was part of the deal
—I gasp for air, startled into remembering the existence of oxygen.

His shirtsleeves wet up to the elbows, Damon snatches a towel from the rack and starts drying himself off. “She has to be onstage within the hour. Give her another tab and get her in the car. We’ll take care of her face paint at the Dome.”

“Are you shitting me?” Adonis kneels next to the tub. He pulls me against his chest, sliding me out of the water and into his lap. We’re both soaked. He’s freezing.

I’m burning.

I would burn this city to the ground.

Down, down, down to the ground.

“It’ll kill her,” Adonis says.

“It won’t. She’s stronger than that. And we’ll take her straight to the medcenter the second the concert is over.”

Adonis looks down at me, about to argue.

“Come taste the sugar on my lips,” I croon into his chest. “Your precious girl, you won’t deny her.”

He shudders in response, eyes bleak as he puts another tab into my mouth.

M

The transit hub outside the Dome is an absolute mob scene tonight, as expected. Two enormous snaking lines of hormone-fueled enthusiasm stream into the building, while small cabals are scattered beneath the streetlights, mixing up their preconcert cocktails in the hopes the high will kick in just as the band starts playing.

In simple black from head to toe, I easily blend in, lost in a field of aspiring and practicing gothdom. Meandering through the crowd, I distribute a dozen modified Sugar Skulls T-shirts to random members of the audience, all of whom are psyched to receive some free swag just before the show.

Dodging the watchful eyes and flashlight beams of a few random greyfaces roaming the lot—
they’ve saved their best and brightest for inside, probably
—I keep it gel-pack cool until I’m around the corner and away from the main doors. Stepping onto the bumper, then the hood of a delivery truck, I jog up the windshield, onto the cab, and then hop onto the body of the truck, sprinting as I leap for the eave of the great sloping roof that gives the Dome its name.

Crouching as I land, I breathe a quick sigh of relief before I start climbing. Between the natural adhesion of my fingers and the quality tread on my sneakers, I negotiate the trip with relative ease, looking for a recessed access point, a skylight, anything that will let me inside.

I sweep along the backside of the structure, away from the parking lot, just in case someone catches a glimpse of me.
Don’t want anyone mistaking a ticketless interloper on a mission for your average, run-of-the-mill ticketless interloper.

Finally, I spot power cables running from farther up the Dome to parked vans in the back lot.
Perfect
.

Sliding on my stomach, I follow the cables to a cracked access hatch. It’s held open by the thick wires that’ll channel all of that hormonal, drug-fueled thrum into usable energy for the city. I ease the hatch open more and slip down onto one of the gridded rafters of the Dome.

Whoa. Much higher than the ceiling of the Palace.
I look down and let the vertigo pass.
Long way down. Fifty feet, maybe. Stay frosty.

With great reluctance, I let go of the beam with one hand and double-tap my hoodie pocket, activating the overclocked stun-knucks. Then I sigh again, wrap my right arm around the beam, and double-tap my jeans pocket, feeling the punch of the Brights as my neck muscles spasm. I seize up for a moment.

Ow! Thought I was ready for it! Obviously wrong!

I grab on to the beam with both hands and close my eyes, pushing the steady ache down as much as I can, getting ready to move. At least it’s distracting me from my ribs.

I glance at the crowd beneath me, a mass of humanity like I—and the Dome, I suspect—have never seen.

And already, I can see plan A working perfectly. Facilitators fight their way through the crowd, trying to get a hold of the kids wearing my special Sugar Skulls shirts. I was right about the energy scanners; they must track your nanotech signature. And the copper wire that I cloth-taped inside the shirts is working like a small Faraday cage to block their signal, leaving conspicuous little black holes in whatever display they’re monitoring.

Sorry, folks. It’s for a good cause.

I gingerly make my way across the rafters, climbing three rows back and swinging from one to the next, monkey bars–style, until I reach a convenient space to climb down, dropping the last six feet and hustling for the pit. Most of the security guards and greyfaces I can see are either busy grabbing my decoys or manning various scanners. I close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing, which is a little labored.

I think I’m okay. I think I’m okay.

I might be okay.

Shivering for a moment under the onslaught of my improvised equipment, I push and shove until only the barricade and an open pathway for security stand between me and the stage. I pat the black plastic case in my hoodie pocket, grateful I didn’t have to go to plan B. A dose of Rivitocin would’ve ruined someone’s night, and quick.

But I’m in. I’m here. And I think I’m okay.

I turn expectantly toward the stage, hoping for a glimpse of Vee before the show. Hoping all these risks weren’t in vain.

V

The girl in the mirror isn’t me. Her flesh is gone, the drugs painting it out of existence. Her sugar skull shows through, eerie in the brilliant light. Where there are usually swirls of red or pink or shocking green, there’s only shadow. Her electric-blue gaze locks on to me, stripping away every attempt at artifice. Her hellfire burns through me, twisting and coiling in my veins with apple-flavored poison.

Snow-white wicked thing, she wants me dead.

I feel my robe slide from my shoulders, white silk and steel boning taking its place. The styling team banished, the golden god holds me up and Damon fastens the hooks, metal curving around me in another kind of cage. Every tug at the laces steals another tiny breath from my lungs until I’m paper thin, easily crumpled. After that, there’s a neckpiece, fabric hands that clamp down on my throat and raise my chin to the heavens. Then spiderwebs of ribbon that connect the collar to the corset, crisscrossing bare skin, tying me down and up and into myself.