The Color of Rain (10 page)

“He has plenty of answers, but that doesn't mean he'll give them to you.” He stops at a glass door that looks in on a massive command deck. “Do whatever he says and you should be all right.”

“What about my brother? Where is he? When can I see him?”

He looks away. “Those are questions for him, but I wouldn't ask them yet.”

I touch the door handle, but I can't seem to open it. “Let me ask you something then. You don't seem
bad
either. What's your game in all of this?” I glance at his com. “Are you trying to get that thing off? Are you trying to escape?”

He tugs the door open. “If I was, would I really admit that to you?”

The command deck is crowned by a wide window, giving me my first real view of the Void. Silver and white stars shine against a velvet black backdrop. Their magnitude and brilliance are so much more stunning than I ever imagined.

I can barely breathe.

Ben taps my shoulder, and I follow him around control panels and crew members. They don't look at us, their attention poised
instead on Johnny at the center of it all.

And yet, the captain doesn't seem to be doing too much of anything. When he looks our way, he motions for Ben. I'm dying to step closer to that window and the teasing parade of stars, but I follow instead. I need some truth, and I need to find my brother. He better be somewhere safe.

He better be exactly the way we agreed.

Johnny waves everyone else away from him. He slides his shoulders out of his suit coat and tosses it to me without a glance. The fabric is surprisingly heavy and drenched with body heat, but still it may be the softest material I've ever touched.

“So that little hiccup?” he asks Ben.

“Taken care of.”

“It better be. But I'm more interested in
how
it happened in the first place.”

So Ben
was
the one who had to handle the tripped alarm just like Kaya said. What kind of secret things live in this ship anyway? I shift Johnny's jacket from one hand to the other, wanting to dump it on the floor.

“I don't know how it happened,” Ben says after a long pause. Johnny's eyes have that flint to them that stirs up my arm hairs, but Ben is unmoving.

Johnny turns at me. “Tell me, Rain. What good is a Mec on staff if he can't sort out a simple security bug?”

“It branched,” Ben says. “And you didn't give me all the pass codes.”

Johnny sits on the edge of the control panel. He leans back until his leg is touching mine. “That, Rain, is a Mec trap. Do you
really think he needs the pass codes?”

Both of them are looking at me, and I clear my throat. To side with Johnny or Ben?

Johnny, of course.

“He's probably just lazy,” I say.

Johnny smirks at my assessment. He uses his thumb to unlock his communicator's clasp and hands it to Ben. “Here you go then. Make the system work.” His tone has a playful edge that is too sharp. “Or else. Right, pal?” He knocks Ben in the shoulder, and I can't help but catch Ben's returning glare. A look that says, “Stand the fuck back and watch me.”

But Johnny doesn't see it. He's too busy combing me with his eyes. “Let's take a walk, Rain.” His hand creeps to my arm, then up my back until it's resting on the nape of my neck.

We head back toward the elevator, and I wait until we're out of view of the crew members before I shrug away from his grip. “I can walk. You don't have to leash me.”

An amused grin plays on Johnny's lips, but he doesn't say a word—not until we've taken the elevator up to a floor where the only door is labeled
Captain's Quarters
.

The room is the nicest I've ever seen. Deep carpet cushions each step and ornate silver light fixtures fill the room with a low glow. An overstuffed chair takes up one corner, backed by a bar loaded with dozens of bottles. Finally, my eyes are drawn to the large window at the foot of a huge slippery-looking bed.

Fear dawns like a brilliant sun. It was easy to say that I would
sleep with Johnny, but the actuality of it is blinding.

He pours a drink, and I strangle the coat still weighing down my hands. “Come, Rain. You've never been shy before. Where's the ‘say anything' quality?”

“You barely know me.”

He collapses in the large chair, his knees spread a little too wide as he sips his drink with one hand and unbuttons his silky shirt with the other. “True, but let's not play strangers. That game is truly boring.”

“Am I a game?” I toss the coat on the edge of his bed. “I'm starting to doubt our agreement. This ship is—”

“Is a Void ship that's taking you and your damaged brother to the Edge. I would treat her like a lady, Rain. Particularly if you want me to keep up my end of the bargain.”

The truth is obvious: it doesn't matter if it is a game or not. I have to play. “So we still have our arrangement if I do . . . what I said I'd do?”

I watch his eyes wander up my tight outfit. This is nuts, and still, my heart beats in a rushing, warm sort of way.

“We have our agreement.” He sips from his glass while his free hand touches his neck. His chest. “But I've been awake for three days to make sure we made it into the Void while you girls napped in storage, so check your bitterness.”

I sit on the footstool, forcing a reserve that I don't feel. “I'm not bitter. So you didn't tell me that you're a pimp. I should have guessed as much, but it doesn't matter. You get my body either way.” My words are meant to please him, but they also feel damned with reality.

“I don't like the word
pimp
. Clear it from your vocabulary.” His eyes narrow for a moment. “But this attitude is refreshing. You don't seem to want to play the ‘Oh, but don't you love me, Johnny?' game. Still, you must have questions. Tell you what, you give me something to take my mind off my exhaustion, and I'll answer a few of the concerns knotting up that pretty face.”

My mind streams with images of red alarms and bracelet tags as well as Lo and Walker, but I know that I have to tease him. And I need to start at the beginning. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.” He swirls the amber liquid in his glass.

“How'd you end up with a starship? You're so young.”

He points to his knees, and it takes me a moment to remember that this is tit for tat. I massage the top of his legs, and he groans. “The short answer is that my father owns a fleet.”

I venture a little further up his toned legs. One thing is for certain: Johnny may be lean, but he's no weakling. “So he just gave you
Imreas
?” This is the first time that I've used the ship's name, and I don't like the way it slips off my tongue.

“My father gave me nothing. He marooned me on Entra when I was fourteen, determined to make me ‘Find my own way.'” He takes a drag from his drink. “I'd never been without my servants for so much as a day, and there I was in the middle of a fucking forest planet. Truth be told, I was starving, eating dead things that I found in the woods.” I bring my massage back toward his knees, and he doesn't seem to notice. His eyes are glazed with a kind of crazy glow, which makes my breath go shallow. “But my girl came and found me. My Crysta. She stepped out of the clearing between two trees like a Void angel.”

Johnny has withdrawn into a memory, but it feels dangerous. “She was my lifesaver.”

“She helped you find your way out?”

“She gave me the way out through the casino. She has this
body
. I tell you what, finding men to pay for her was the easiest job I've ever done.”

“You pimped her?”

Johnny sits up fast, knocking me back a little. His hand is on my neck in a second, tugging the zipper and opening my clothes all the way to my cleavage. “I warned you about that word.”

“You did.”

He touches my newly exposed chest. “Are you afraid of me?”

“Sometimes,” I admit.

He leans back and finishes his drink. “You'll get over that. It's a virgin thing. To be honest, I detest virgins. Too high maintenance. By the way, what do you think of your color?”

I think that he means my bracelet, but he motions to my skin. I glance at my arm. It's got an olive tan to it like Johnny's. A healthy glow. “It's all right.”

He puts my hand on his leg again, but when I start stroking him, he scoops me into his lap. “So where were we?”

“Crysta was making you money.”

“Right, so I soon saved enough to collect the interest of other girls, and then my own ship. I used that ship to commandeer the best in my father's fleet.
Imreas
was his gem.”

“Was he angry?”

“He was proud in his own way. You might say that I exceeded his expectations.”

“How old were you then?”

“Seventeen.” He sighs. “Now I run the Void with passengers. A self-made man at twenty-two. Are you impressed?” He fingers my jaw as I nod. And the truth is, I am impressed. I don't even have a set of clothes to my name, and yet when he was my age, he was in command of a starship. Pimp or no, that's no simple feat.

“But Kaya said you have even more lucrative business onboard.” My curiosity gets the best of me. “Why do you keep trading girls?”

“Demand mostly. Plus I like giving beautiful girls a home and job. I take care of them like I'll take care of you. You'll come to respect me like they do. Or at least need me.” He shifts forward, and I almost tumble off his lap. “
Who
says I have more lucrative business?” His arms have slipped around my waist so that I can't turn.

“One of the girls.”

“You said ‘Kaya.'”

“I did.”

“Oh, Kaya.” He sits back with a sigh, and I can't help but push him further, remembering his angry mumbling on the rooftop beside my greenhouse.

“So you don't work for your father?”

“Did Kaya say that I work for my father?”

“No,” I say in a rush. “I was just curious. So you don't run errands for him?” I should have stopped sentences ago. His arm tightens me to him until I'm breathing his breath.

“I'm no
errand boy
.” Johnny's eyes have blackened, sending a chill down my entire body. “But I'm glad you asked about my past
as it might serve your future. I see through you right now. You're damming up your fears and growing as solid as stone, but”—he says while stroking my hair from my ear, and then whispers into it—“I don't want you like this. We'll wait until you want me. We'll wait until you've gone . . . soft. I have big plans for us.”

He parts my lips with his thumb. “What do you think?”

I ache to bite his fingers. “I think you'll be waiting a long time. I'm not going to drool over you like these other girls.”

Johnny smiles. “Yes, well, I loved Crysta. Before my exile, I couldn't have imagined trading her to other men, but then, it's amazing what you'll do when everything else has been taken from you. Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. It's the truest kind of freedom. You'll thank me for showing you.”