The Color of Rain (13 page)

W
hen Johnny lets go, I slip down the window. My hips tip like they've been realigned, and he laughs. “That's always a favorite part.” He holds an arm out, and I brace myself on it to keep from falling to my knees. “You've got your Void legs now, Rain.”

I watch him dress.

My own clothes are too far away.

“Your first time
and
standing. I knew you weren't going to disappoint me.” He fastens his pants.

I have to swallow twice before my words will come. “Can I see my brother now?”

“Tomorrow. Ben will need to take you, and he's on his night duties.” His brown eyes are too lively. “I'm hungry. You?”

“No.” I may never eat again.

“Suit yourself.” He leans in to kiss me, and after what we just did, I'm surprised to find his lips intimate. He presses his face against mine for a moment. “I can still be a gentleman,” he says like he's trying to convince himself. He locks eyes with me. “Thank you. I enjoyed that.”

I don't quite believe it when the door shuts, when I realize it's
over, and he's gone.

“You're welcome.”

I pull on my clothes and lean against the window. His body raged so hot against mine that it seemed to burn an impression of him into my back. I relish the cool of the pane, hoping the window can put the fire out.

Sparks and stars? How could I have been such a fool? The only spark between Johnny and me is the jolt of his needs. And what I need now is the strength of my family, or what's left of it. I need my brother.

Tomorrow
, Johnny had said. Well, I can't wait.

My legs ache as I amble out the door, and the little bit of blood that left me makes my pants stick to my thighs. Still, I keep going.

The hallway light is dim, set low for night, and it draws spiky shadows down the walls. The Family Room's lights are off altogether, and I creep around the sleeping girls to the corner window where Ben resides. I pull back a curtain and find his boots at face level. His legs slide up and down on the wall for balance while his arms lift his body in a series of vertical push-ups.

“Wow,” I say. “That's intense.”

He kicks down, and I duck out of the way of his swinging legs. “On this ship, it's too easy to go soft,” he says through pants. “You've got to . . . to try.” He peels his sweaty shirt over his head and uses it to wipe his face. I look to the window to escape getting caught in the glisten of his damp chest by the light of the window.

The white web that was braided around the ship two nights
ago has returned. It makes me gasp. “What is that?”

He pulls a clean shirt over his head. “The edge of the wormhole. The Void. You can't always see it, but it's always there.” He draws a hand down the glass as though he wishes that he could touch what lies beyond. “It's brilliant, isn't it?” The strings fade into wisps and disappear with his words, dimming the curtained nook with the dark of space.

“So you did it,” he says, still looking out the window.

“How do you know?”

“It's my business to know things on this ship.” He sighs before adding, “You all right?”

I take at least a dozen breaths before I answer. “I'm still here.”

“He's going to be out all night. He always parties after he breaks in a new girl.” He turns around and sweeps a hand through his sweaty hair. “Hell. I didn't mean—”

“I'll take that favor now,” I say. “Take me to my brother.”

Ben leads me below the plush decks to the corridor where I watched him stab that man. He keys a code into his com to unlock a door, and we enter a musty cargo room similar to the one where I was strapped into that harness. And drugged. And stolen into this world.

A single light dangles from the center, throwing shadows alongside its rays. Large boxes and crates stand eerily against the glow, and Ben pulls a tarp away from one of them. I'm leaning over it in a heartbeat, staring into Walker's frozen face through the tiny pod window.

The tears come fast, and I scrub them, embarrassed that Ben is watching. Walker's small face is being overtaken with frost, and I itch to rub it away.

“Can we open this?” I tap the glass.

“Not without Johnny's thumbprint.” He sits on a crate, his elbows propped on his knees. “Besides, he's safer in there than out here.”

I wish I didn't agree. I lean away from the pod and swallow a moan. The cold stiffens the aches from what Johnny and I just did. “I thought I would feel better if I saw him, but now I feel . . .”

“Used? Assaulted?”

I scowl. “Lonely.”

“The Void is about being alone. Get used to it.” He shakes his head. “I don't mean to sound like an ass. Think of it this way: this ship is all smoke and secrets. Everyone's lonely.”

“I saw you.” The words slip out. I can no longer hold back my confusion. How can Ben be so careful and attuned, and then turn into Johnny's assassin? “I saw you stab that man.”

“
You what?
” He stands.

“The other night.” I touch the pod behind me for support. “I followed you.”

Ben stops a few steps away. “Why—why didn't you say something?” He waves a hand in dismissal. “Scratch that, why did you follow me? Do you have any idea of what would have happened if Johnny saw you?”

“I imagine it would be something similar.” I finger the flat area over my heart where Ben knifed that man. “You always kill on command?”

“I'm not a monster!” He takes another step, and I bring up my fists. Ben's shoulders sag as he watches me, and he crumples into a sitting position on the floor. “Rain, you have to understand. He's got me by the throat. He knows my weaknesses.”

“What does he have on you?” Ben doesn't answer, but then, I don't really expect him to. “Ben, why do the other girls . . . well, they seem to hate you.”

“They're afraid of me because of what happened to Bron. They're afraid of me just like you should be.”

I force a laugh. “You're not so mean and scary, oh powerful Mec.”

“Joke all you want, but most of the people on this ship won't acknowledge me. Mecs have become the weird alien race of the universe, regardless of the fact that we're the same damn species.” He stands up. “Half the people on this ship are afraid that I'm going to eat their brains. The other half thinks I am going to read their minds.”

“You can read minds?”

“Of course not. There are some Mecs, I'm talking top-tier intelligence, who seem like they can read minds, but that's only because they can assess a situation and predict outcomes with surprising accuracy. It's mathematical. Statistical. Not mystical.”

My mouth might be hanging open. “That's quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever heard.”

“See? This is what I mean. You're not afraid of the weird Mec stuff. That either means that you're too smart or too dumb to be afraid. I'm betting on the former. You can read, can't you? That's weird for an Earth Cityite.” He grins kindly. “And when I think
about how you just got right in my face on that old pier, it reminds me of . . . her.”

“Bron?”

His smile disappears. “She was my . . . friend. Johnny got rid of her to punish me.”

“That's the girl who went out the airlock? Why didn't you do something?”

He gets to his feet. “What could I have done? I didn't even know she was gone until it was too late. I just thought she was missing. I thought he hid her from me.”

Missing
. Like Lo.

I try to swallow but my mouth is too dry. “Ben, my friend is missing, and Johnny went off on this nutso speech about needing to take things from me to make me independent. You don't think . . .”

His gaze is on mine like an aimed weapon. “You mean the ‘Nothing to lose, everything to gain' speech?”

My skin runs so much colder than Walker's pod. “You don't think he—
killed
her?” I wait for him to say, “No. She's fine. I know exactly where she is.”

But he doesn't.

“There's a way.” He gets to his feet and stands so close that I can't help but feel the differences between him and Johnny. Johnny is all heat and length like a blade under a flame, but Ben is broad and flexed—and yet yielding without seeming soft. My dad had that kind of strength.

“There's a way to find out,” he says. “If you really want to know.”

Ben leads me down a winding passage to a room full of greasy, churning machinery. Strange music plays over the clunk of grinding metal parts, and the combined sound spirals up and up without hitting a ceiling.

“This is the engine room. It runs the full height of the ship.” Ben scans the upper parts and then crosses to a black box and shuts the music off. The riot of clanking machinery fills the endless space. Along one wall, stacks of books ascend out of my sight, and I gawk at what is easily the best collection I've ever seen. My dad's book must be among them. . . .

“What what?” a grumbling voice calls down.

“It's Ben,” he yells.

Samson falls from the dim air, zipping down a rope that comes to a stop just before he smacks into the floor. He limps off a little metal seat, his black flight suit almost as faded with age as his hair. “Blasted bones.” He rubs his hip. “Thought you were
Oh Captain, My Captain
.”

He looks me over through his large fogged goggles, his beard and hair even more grimy than when he was on Earth City. “Hey there, Rain Runner.”

“Hey.” I give him a short smile, hoping that he doesn't start in on that “rain must fall” business again. I don't think I can hear it right now.

He frowns at Ben. “Don't often see Johnny's girls in my engine room.”

“I need to show her the population chart.”

“You mean the Who's Missing Chart,” Samson mumbles. He motions to the other side of the room, and Ben crosses, but before I can follow, Samson touches my arm. “You don't know any more of that poem you spouted before, do you? I've been trying to find it.” He takes a tatty book out of his pocket—my book. The binding has been reglued and the pages are lined up neatly.