CHAPTER 3

C arlson. His name is Carlson. And as one of my dad’s personal guards, he’s an elite fighter with advanced tactical training, mad weapons skills, and he’s modded to the teeth. He could kick the ass of pretty much anybody on the planet—probably blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back.

I’m trained in self-defence, but I’m no match for this guy. Not even close. And he’s got a blaster to my best friend’s head.

“Don’t hurt her,” I say, voice shaky. “I’ll come.”

A second dark-clad form, anonymous behind a black ski mask, materializes out of the shadows and clamps a hand around my upper arm. Another deadly member of Dad’s private army.

The two guards shuffle us out the door and into the stairwell. My heart pounds at a frantic tempo, but I keep quiet. The last thing I want is for Sana and her kids to get involved. Tori’s been captured because of me, but at least her mother’s wealth and social standing should keep her alive. Sana and her family are only Varuns—expendable in the eyes of my father’s soldiers.

Carlson pushes Tori up the stairs ahead of him, blaster shoved between her shoulder blades under a curtain of pink hair. The second soldier keeps me next to him. His hand is a vise around my biceps as he hauls me along. He holds a wicked-looking blaster cocked and ready in his other hand.

My mind races. As massive as Carlson and his companion’s advantage is now, the odds of escape will only get worse for me and Tori the farther we get from the Underground. We’ll have to cross the Wastes to return to civilization. Escape in the Wastes would be suicide.

And once we’re in my dad’s custody in the capital, we’ll be surrounded by dozens of guards instead of just these two.

The rusted metal stairwell resonates under our feet. We reach the bulkhead at the top and exit through a maintenance door, stepping onto an outcropping of rock that functions like a rooftop for the building. Plumbing vents and long-derelict electrical conduits jut upward out of the stone like a forest of stalagmites. Discarded fixtures lay abandoned. Beside a hulking old condenser unit, a pair of sleek, top-of-the-line hoverbikes waits, looking out of place amid the dankness and rust.

“Get on,” Carlson orders Tori, swiping his blaster toward the bike on the right. She stumbles on a mass of cables and cries out, voice muffled by the cloth wadded in her mouth. Carlson steadies her, and Tori manages to throw a leg over the seat. The sandy-haired soldier climbs on behind her, encircling Tori with his arms as he reaches around her shoulders to grip the handlebars .

The engine roars to life and the bike rises, hovering above the surface of the rooftop and casting a blue glow onto the stone beneath.

My guard nudges me forward, and I straddle the second hoverbike, unable to keep from admiring its sleek lines. This baby is going to go fast. And I’m starting to formulate a plan.

I may be no match for this guy physically, but if I take him by surprise while he’s focused on driving, I might be able to throw him off. If I get hold of his blaster first, I can chase Carlson down and get him to release Tori.

It’s not much of a gameplan, but it’s better than nothing.

My black-masked guard slides onto the hoverbike and reaches around me for the handlebars. His torso is a wall of solid muscle behind me. He has to lean over my shoulder to see, jaw brushing my cheek. Under different circumstances, the situation might be kind of hot.

As it is, one of us is going to be dead by the end of this ride.

He revs the engine and we rise, following Carlson and Tori up over the edge of the rooftop. We speed above the dark neighbourhood, unhindered by air traffic. Most of the residents here can barely afford rent, let alone vehicles, and those who do possess shabby transport are asleep.

I keep still. Once we hit traffic, I’ll enact my plan.

We zip around an early morning delivery van, sticking to Carlson’s tail. Tori’s hair whips up over Carlson’s shoulder and waves behind him like a banner of neon-pink ribbons. Beyond them, the lights of heavier traffic course over the Warehouse District, joining the lightning stream of vehicles that charges endlessly toward City Centre.

Carlson’s blaster is holstered in a two-point sling across his back, but I think my guard has stored his weapon at his hip. As we lean to swerve around another slow-moving delivery truck, something I’m pretty sure is the butt of a blaster digs into my side, confirming my suspicion.

Ahead, Carlson hits traffic.

Almost time.

I slide my right hand up my thigh and rest it on my hip bone, rolling my shoulders as if repositioning from discomfort. My fingers hover centimetres from the blaster.

“Look, Gemma…” The soldier’s lips move against my ear through his mask as we hang a right, joining the swift-moving current of vehicles over the Warehouse District.

Now’s my chance.

I don’t wait to hear what the guard has to say. In one fluid movement I hunch forward, then slam my head backward into his face. At the same time, I wrap my hand around the butt of his blaster and yank it free.

“Fuck! Gemma! I’m on your side,” the guard yells in my ear. Something warm and wet smears against my cheek through the fabric of his mask. Blood .

Hopefully I broke his nose.

I wrap both hands around the barrel of the blaster and thrust it backward like a battering ram. My captor grunts as the butt of the gun meets his gut, but he’s barely fazed. He maintains speed, weaving in and out of traffic. Lights of vehicles surround us in a blur of coloured lines. We cut someone off and a horn blares, quickly fading into the distance as we barrel ahead.

“DJ Girl!” the guard yells, reaching for his mask and ripping it off with one hand while steering us around a freight-rig with the other. “You can trust me!”

DJ Girl. There’s something familiar about the word choice. And about his voice.

I hold off on slamming the butt of the blaster into his stomach again and glance over my shoulder, panting. Brown eyes meet mine before he glances ahead to steer us around a cluster of vehicles. Black hair whips around his face. He’s the guy from the rave.

Shit, this guy is everywhere.

“What the hell?” I shout over my shoulder. “You’re one of my dad’s flunkies?” I slam the gun into his abdomen once more. I can’t believe this guy’s been spying on me all night. I launch the heel of my boot into his shin for good measure.

“Will you stop that?” he says through gritted teeth. “I don’t work for your dad. ”

I glance back at him again, glaring. “I’m supposed to believe that? When you’ve been on my tail all night, and you’re clearly with Carlson?”

“I was following you because I wanted to offer you a job.” He drops the hoverbike down to a lower stratum of air traffic, tailing Carlson. My stomach lurches at the sudden plunge. “A hit job.”

“A job?” I repeat. It doesn’t make sense. “Then what’re you doing with the guy who’s threatening to blast a hole through my best friend’s brain?”

“Long story. Mostly involving me beating you to your apartment, knocking out some blaster-wielding asshole who tried to go all kung-fu on me, and stealing his clothes.”

“And you knew where I lived, how?”

“May have trailed you and your friend home when you started working on Zander.”

Holy shit. We’ve been on Zander for nearly a week. And all the while this guy’s been keeping tabs on us. “ Work for me, I’ve been stalking you. Real great sell.”

“Needed to see you in action. Think of it like a job interview.” He follows Carlson between a pair of airbuses, and for a moment we’re zooming through the narrow passage between two moving walls of animated advertisements. Dancing neon colours light his face as I glance over my shoulder to give him a skeptical frown .

“You passed, by the way,” he says. “You girls are good. You’re exactly what I need for this job.”

As far-fetched as it sounds, I kind of want to believe him. My sense of logic has got to be clouded by his arms around me and the gritty stubble of his now-unmasked jaw grazing the side of my face. And he smells so good, like musky spice.

Shit.

Keep your legs shut, Gemma . I channel my inner Tori.

“How can I believe you?”

“Can you drive a hoverbike?”

“Hell yes!” Multitasking, hand-eye coordination, and split-second reactions are my forte, enhanced by my mods, making me an ace on a bike. “But what’s that—?”

“Good,” he interrupts. “Because I’m about to prove you can trust me.” He grins, nose still trickling blood, and jerks his chin toward the handlebars. “Take the reins.”

I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove, but no way am I going to give up the chance to man this gorgeous machine myself. I tuck the blaster between my thigh and the seat, then place my hands on the handlebars, just inside his. I slide my hands outward as he slides his off the bars. The transfer is seamless.

A huge grin spreads over my face. I weave in and out of traffic like a dart, relishing the speed and the control, eyes locked on Carlson’s back.

“Can you get us just above them? And a little to their left? ”

I click the lift lever up a couple notches, raising us higher, then twist the throttle. The acceleration is almost as good as a drug rush. I bring us even with Carlson’s bike as we come up on the tail of a sluggish work truck with a ladder secured to the roof. Carlson swerves around it. I swerve with him, maintaining our position above and to his left.

“Perfect. Stick with him.” I feel movement at my back as my would-be-employer shifts position. The pressure of his legs is gone. His chest no longer warms my back. A hand grips my shoulder lightly.

I shoot a fleeting glance at the rear-view mirror. Shit. The guy is crouched behind me, facing to the side, both boots on the seat. He can’t be about to—

“By the way,” he says, “I’m Vince.”

Then he jumps.

“Nice to meet you,” I mutter, though he’s out of earshot. There’s a crunch and a surprised cry from Carlson. A vehicle blares its horn as the overweighted bike dips into its path. Fear for Tori clenches my stomach.

If they crash, she’s dead.

But there’s nothing I can do. I can only lag back a beat and watch.

Vince straddles the tail of the other bike, one arm locked around Carlson’s neck. He yanks upward on the blaster strapped to the guard’s back with his free hand, lifting it out of the harness. Carlson slams an elbow backward, into Vince’s side. Vince fumbles the blaster. It bounces in his lap and slips down the side of the bike, but he catches it against the frame, pinning the weapon to the body of the bike with his knee.

Carlson lets go of one handlebar and reaches up over his shoulder. He hooks his arm around the back of Vince’s neck, digging fingers into skin as he pulls Vince tight against him.

Tori’s helpless, trapped on the bike as the men jostle for control. My heart pounds a frenzied rhythm. Terror for Tori knots my stomach. The weapon I took from Vince waits under my thigh, but there’s no way I can shoot and not endanger Tor.

Vince strains to reach the blaster pinned at his knee. His fingertips brush the metal of its nose, but with Carlson yanking his body forward, Vince’s fingers close around air.

Vince slackens, seeming for half a second to have given in. Then he bucks his torso, wrenching Carlson backward along with him. The movement rips Carlson’s remaining hand from the throttle. The bike plummets.

Even through her gag, I hear Tori scream.

I nosedive, dodging vehicles as I pierce through layers of traffic, but Carlson’s bike drops so fast I can’t keep up. A cluster of cars in the lowest stratum clogs my view for a blink. I curse and slam my horn, refusing to reduce my speed. Vehicles swerve and scatter.

I burst through .

But Carlson’s bike is gone, swallowed by the blackness of the sparsely lit Warehouse District below.

I pull up and hover in the empty airspace between traffic and rooftops.

The flat, square warehouses below me are laid out like tiles in a grid. No movement. No sign of a crash.

My eyes go to the black trench between two buildings. Maybe they touched down in an alley. I trawl slowly, crisscrossing the nearby backstreets, but most are too narrow and shadowed to see.

I slow to a stop. Should I dismount and search on foot? Or hold out hope that they might rise?

I hang suspended, waiting.

My breath drags in shaky rasps as my throat tightens and tightens. My eyes burn. If Tori doesn’t reappear… if Tori’s dead… it’s my fault.

No. I shake my head as I swallow a sob. If she’s dead, it’s my father’s fault. He always takes the people I love.

I grit my teeth, strangle the handlebars, choke back the unvoiced accusations I wish I could scream in my father’s face. Squeeze them back into that dense, hard lump of coal that rattles inside me, as packed with pressure as the inner core of a world. If Tori’s dead…

Wait.

A shadow between two buildings warps, lightens .

I blink tears away and squint into the dimness, trying to focus.

A fuzzy shape with a faint bluish glow coalesces. It rises from the black trench between two flat rooftops, enlarging as it eats up the distance between us.

The hoverbike!

It carries only two riders now. As they climb skyward, I make out Tori’s pink head. The rider behind her has Vince’s broad shoulders and dark hair.

My whole body slumps as the fear that was keeping me up drains away.

Vince brings his bike up beside mine and winks. “Told you I’d prove you could trust me.”

My jaw drops.

Asshole.

Cocky, idiotic, daredevil asshole .

His arms encircle Tori, who clutches Carlson’s blaster to her chest between still-duct-taped wrists. She stares at me with wide, shocked eyes, as if she can’t believe what just happened.

I can’t believe it, either.

Vince guides his hoverbike forward and lands on a nearby rooftop. I join them, so overwhelmed with anger and relief that my own bike screeches gracelessly against concrete before it clunks to an unrefined halt .

Poor machine doesn’t deserve the brunt of my anger. Vince does.

I dismount and run to where Tori stands on wobbling knees, still hugging the blaster. I throw my arms around her, weapon and all. We’re both shaking.

“Tori! Oh God, I thought you were dead.” My voice is barely more than a whisper. I bury my face in her soft hair, choking back the sobs that threaten to rise.

“Me too,” Tori breathes.

Finally, I let go and face Vince. He looks like such a cocksure douche, the way he’s leaning casually against the seat of the bike with his arms crossed.

He has the audacity to smirk, actually smirk , after what he did to Tor. “Do I get a hug, too?”

I step closer, giving him a syrupy smile. “You want a hug?”

There’s a glint of recognition in Vince’s eyes. He can tell I’m pissed. But he doesn’t wipe the smirk off his face.

I take another step, right up in his personal space. Then I ball my hand into a fist, pull my elbow back, and deck Vince in the jaw with all I’ve got. There’s a satisfying wet crunch, and an equally satisfying sting in my knuckles. “That’s for almost killing my best friend.”

Vince doubles over and spits blood. When he rises, he looks at me and then at Tor, who’s managed to saw through the tape at her wrists and now stands a few metres away with the blaster pointed at his head.

A slow grin spreads over his handsome but bloodied features. “You know, I think I’m going to like working with you two.”