Carapace (Aggressor Queen Book 1) Read online

  It’s Samuel.

  “I won’t touch you again.” His brown eyes are soft, pitying; his mouth is the warm mouth of my dreams. “You need help,” he says.

  I turn away from him and back onto my shoulder, then push away from the wall and begin walking again.

  “Khara,” he says, and his voice has a note of pleading in it. I want to laugh at him, but I don’t have the strength. Samuel pleading with me. I remember our last meeting and want to tell him to fuck off, to exercise my limited vocabulary. I don’t. I keep walking.

  “How’d you find me?” I say, unsure whether he’s still walking with me, not sure I should care, but I do.

  “Dominique’s.” A pause. “I thought you were dead. I couldn’t find you anywhere. But then I learned where your master . . . goes,” he says. I wonder which word he didn’t use. Plays? Tortures? It doesn’t matter. “I waited for you,” he finishes.

  “Fuck off,” I say, and an aborted chuckle escapes my mouth. I take several more steps, sure I’ve angered Samuel again. I take satisfaction in this thought.

  I stumble to a stop and turn to see if he’s still with me. If he hasn’t given up on me already, I want to see the anger in his face.

  Samuel is smiling at me. Smiling. I’m confused and dizzy. One strong arm reaches up as if to support me again as I sway. I flinch and he stops himself, lowers his arm to his side, with small twitches toward me as if determined to catch me if I fall, and sure I will. “You are one tough lady,” he says, still smiling.

  His smile is crushing. I want to cry. I’m flayed.

  “Go away, Samuel,” I say. “I’m tired.” I turn and stumble toward the dorm that is nearest. Just one block and I can rest. I’m alone again in the crowd.

  ***

  Samuel is there when I wake. He has a bowl of steaming water, and a clean rag. He offers them to me with a lift of one heavy eyebrow. I look at him and then away, toward the stained wall. He doesn’t move. I turn back to him and take the bowl, not understanding why he’s here or what he wants, but the water’s warm, the rag’s clean, and I want to wash.

  “You need food,” Samuel says.

  I pull the rag from my face, shove it under my shirt. “What the fuck do you want now?” I ask. “Why are you here?” I’m angry again, but I don’t know what I’d do if he just left.

  “I came to apologize,” he says. He looks around at the sprawled human bodies around me and says, “Can we walk? I’ll get you some food.”

  “I can get my own damned food, thank you very much,” I answer. I want to sound forceful, but my words are pathetic and childish.

  “I think we can help each other,” Samuel says. Before I can respond with a question or a demand for him to leave, he adds, “Can we take a walk?” Again, he glances around, but this time with eyes widened to indicate he wants to be away from listening ears.

  I want him to go away. And yet I don’t. A huge sigh gusts out of me.

  “I guess I can eat,” I say. I sound like a child. “I know a good place,” I add, hoping to counteract my peevish tone.

  Samuel leaves so I can finish my washing. I meet him outside the dorm and lead the way to the shop that serves rice and fish. As soon as we’re walking, Samuel takes my elbow and starts to talk, but I jerk my arm away from him again.

  “I’m not going to hurt you!” He seems angry I’d think this of him.

  “I . . . I don’t think you’re going to hurt me,” I say. I’m ashamed, but I want to explain. “It isn’t you. I get touched enough. I don’t like to be touched.” I can’t look at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. We walk for a minute with no words. Then he says, “I’ll try not to touch you again, but no promises.”

  I think of several responses, all of them rude, but I don’t say anything.

  “Thank you for the message,” Samuel says, not looking at me. He’s walking very near me, but appears to be making an effort not to jostle me.

  I’m angry again – angry for getting the message in the first place and the burden it placed on me, angry at his reaction when I delivered it. But I say nothing, not knowing what response he’s expecting, or why he’s here.

  “It was helpful,” Samuel says. Still I wait, walking, not believing he’s just apologizing, and wanting to hear what he wants of me now – if only so I can refuse him.

  “Don’t talk much, huh?” he says, and I can hear in his voice he’s smiling again.

  “I have a limited vocabulary,” I answer, almost smiling myself.

  “Look, I’m sorry for the way I treated you. I was . . . an asshole, as you would say.” He spits out the curse word as though it doesn’t fit right in his mouth.

  “Agreed. It doesn’t matter,” I answer.

  We walk for a time, and as I step toward the entrance to the rice shop, he says, “Let’s keep walking for a bit. I’ll buy your meal, to make up for prolonging the time when you can eat it.”

  I’m hungry now and tired of waiting for Samuel to tell me what he wants. I have credit enough from Ilnok for a hundred meals. For some reason, I step toward him instead of into the shop.

  “We can help each other,” he says, walking again.

  “I don’t need your help,” I answer.

  “You’re strong. You’re angry, and you already have helped me. Helped us. And in so doing, helped yourself,” Samuel says. His eyes wander over me and he says, “You’ve cleaned yourself up.”

  “I...,” I begin. I don’t know what I want to say. I don’t need his help? I don’t want to help him? But the feeling of lost purpose that’s been haunting me chokes off my response like a noose.

  “Help us fight, Khara,” he says. “Join us. We can offer some small protections, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be dangerous for you. It will be.” He takes several quick steps to move past me, turns, and places himself in front of me. He walks backwards now, glancing over his shoulder every once in a while to see if the path through the crowded street is clear. His brown eyes are soft and caring, his mouth is relaxed, neither smiling nor tight with anger. He comes to a stop, eyes fixed on mine. His tongue licks at his lips and I’m mesmerized by the wet pink thing. I jerk my eyes from his face and stare at the cracked cement between our feet.

  His hand approaches my chin as if he would lift my eyes to his face again. I raise my head to avoid his touch and he drops his hand.

  “You need this. You’ve already taken great risks. You did so for reasons of your own.” His eyes move back and forth between my own and I feel like a snake, innards coiled, ready to strike, but hypnotized into motionlessness. There are flecks of gold in the brown.

  I drop my gaze to the sidewalk again. My defenses drop with my eyes. “What do you want me to do?” I ask. I still have the ability to refuse, but I do want to hear what he says. I don’t understand his effect on me.

  He doesn’t answer and I look up to see him smiling again. His teeth are small and straight, with sharp incisors. I like the smile. I like that I have earned it.

  “Eight o’clock. Outside Refugio’s. Meet me. We’ll talk about what you can do, what you are willing to do. It’ll be up to you,” Samuel says, still smiling.

  He’s giving me choices. It’s been so long since I’ve felt I had choices. I’m stunned, feeling buoyant, released from something somehow.

  “If Ilnok–” I say, and he interrupts, “I understand. If you can’t, then same time next night, okay?”

  I nod my head and look down at the cracked sidewalk again.

  “Come on, let’s eat,” he says, and takes my elbow to turn me back toward the rice shop. I jerk my arm away from his touch and am sorry in the same instant. Not because I want him to touch me – I can’t bear it – but because of how he must interpret my reaction.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m really sorry.”

  Somehow I feel he’s not apologizing for touching me, but expressing sorrow for something bigger than this lapse.

  I shudder. Samuel represents a danger to me. Not because
he’ll ask me to risk myself physically, but . . . .

  I can’t finish the thought. I’m scared and excited, and for the first time in a long, long while, alive.

  CHAPTER 24

  SAMUEL

  Khara and I move through the back alleys and dark spaces that are my pathways. When I can, I whisper to her, teaching her the ways of stealth. Where to watch, what to look for.

  It’s remarkable how observant she is for someone who so recently lived a lifestyle of oblivion. Her ability to move in silence is a testimony to the depths of her self-preservation. Against my will, I am impressed with her brightly burning core, so strong and fierce. I can’t let that incandescent kernel seduce me. I can’t allow emotion to interfere with my duties and responsibilities. Even so, I’m smiling, stomach jumping with each step we take toward this culmination of a months-long effort to wake Khara up, to get her involved. She’ll be an asset to the rebellion.

  The closest of my squad are at the meeting. Silence cottons the room as we enter and Khara’s anxiety is evidenced by her effort to hide behind me. I turn to pull her forward, and then remind myself not to touch her. She moves beside me at a gesture.

  “Mmm, que bella,” Jan says in an aside to Bell with an appreciative grin, and Bell, stone faced, whispers something into her ear. Not like Bell. He must be troubled by some new crisis. I’ll ask him when we’re done here.

  Bell’s eyes meet mine and now he smiles. He winks.

  I narrow my eyes with an odd pang of possessiveness and then almost laugh picturing the unhappy response they’ll get from her if either of them touches her.

  The group shuffles chairs to make room at the round table, and Khara and I sit between Rex and Diane, Rex almost dumping his own chair over backwards in order to pull Khara’s chair into position. Khara looks at Rex – his face is stretched into a huge smile – but says nothing, and I wonder if she recognizes that this is the boy she rescued from slaughter. I run my eyes around the table and stop on Jan, who says, “Eli couldn’t make it.” Before I can express concern, she says, “He’s fine.”

  My squad eyes Khara, although they know of her through my reports, and Khara stares at the center of the table. It would be easy to mistake her anxiety as anger.

  “Introductions,” I say, and Khara jerks her head up. I start with Rex, who grabs and shakes Khara’s hand, profuse in his thanks. Khara can’t mistake him now. I wince, waiting for Khara’s explosion at Rex’s grasp upon her hand, knowing this reaction won’t be understood by my people. Khara doesn’t jerk her hand away as I expect, or yell, or shove herself away from the table. She looks long into Rex’s eyes and, as an awkward silence descends and Rex’s face reddens, she says, “You remind me of someone I used to know a long time ago.” There seems much behind her quiet statement, but she doesn’t elaborate.

  Diane and Tanner wave in unison as I introduce them together. Jan half stands to reach a hand across the table to shake, but Khara keeps her hands in her lap and says “Hello,” eyes flicking from the extended hand – as if it were an insect – to Jan’s face. Jan leaves her hand out and looks at me. The expression on her face is poisonous.

  “It’s me,” Khara says. Jan looks back at Khara, and Khara says, face coloring, “It’s me, not you. I don’t like to be touched.” Khara keeps her eyes on Jan’s, and the strong muscles in Jan’s arms bunch and release, but then Jan pulls her hand back across the table and says, “Okay, I get it, my bad.” She smiles and says, “Welcome.”

  I am thankful I have such good people.

  Bell stands, bends in a small bow and introduces himself. I expect him to flash his trademark smile, make some suave witticism. Instead, he sits again. His expression is pleasant enough but his eyes seem locked on her, as though he is looking for something from her, some response.

  I turn to Khara. She nods to Bell with a nervous smile, acknowledging his introduction, then looks to me. No explanation there.

  “Khara,” I say. “I’ve already briefed everybody on your general background as I know it, but is there anything you’d like to say about yourself?”

  Khara shakes her head, and says, voice low. “No thanks.”

  “There are some things we need to know,” I say. “For example, I’ve tracked you long enough to know who your master is and where and how you spend your days, but I may have missed a thing or two. Do you have any contacts? Any human friends you talk to and trust?”

  “No,” Khara says. It’s the answer I expected.

  “Any humans who might become suspicious at a change in your patterns?”

  “No.”

  “Which ants do you come in contact with besides your master?” I ask.

  Khara pauses, nonplussed. “Whichever are at the club at the time . . . ,” she answers.

  “Do you know any by name? Do you have dealings with them outside of Ilnok’s presence?”

  For the first time, Khara loses her timidity. Her mouth drops open and a short burst of breath escapes. “Of course not!” she answers. “Why in the fucking hell would I . . . ? would I . . . ?” She sputters to a stop, takes a deep breath then lets it out, regaining her composure. “I don’t want anything to do with them. So, no.” Another deep breath.

  “Do you have any business contacts? Shop owners? Ants you are on good terms with?” I ask.

  After a pause, Khara says, “Bartenders, I suppose.” Bell laughs at this, but Khara doesn’t react. “I don’t speak to them, or have a relationship with any. But they know me, I guess.”

  When I look at Bell, his head is lowered, perhaps contrite at this ungracious response to Khara. I’m surprised at his behavior. Khara is new and raw and scared, and Bell is usually much more supportive. And flirtatious.

  Into the silence, Khara asks, eyes glazed and introspective, “Can anybody really have a good relationship with these monsters?”

  “Not all ants are bad,” I say.

  Khara snaps her head around to glare at me. “Not all ants . . .?” Her voice is raised and her hands are clenched into fists.

  “Fatchk didn’t hurt you,” I say, hoping to break through to the rationality behind her instant rage. “Did he?” I can see Khara is thinking, evaluating.

  “It’s true,” Diane adds, before Khara can flare again. Tanner nods his head beside Diane.

  “Do you know their language?” Diane asks.

  Khara seems confused at this tangent, then shakes her head as if clearing it, and says, “No. I mean, not more than a couple of words here and there. And I don’t even know if I’m right. I can’t explain it, but I get feelings or meanings, sometimes, like I’m at least getting the gist.”

  “Would you like to learn?” asks Diane. She leans across me toward Khara as if she would like to reach out to comfort and pet her, but she doesn’t move her free hand at all. I admire her control, her form of reaching out with body language, without touching. I determine to practice and learn this method, if only in respect for Khara’s comfort.

  Khara cocks her head, perhaps considering Diane’s question: whether it would be better to avoid all things related to ants, or be better to understand them, even if she never speaks to them.

  “Yes, I think so,” Khara answers.

  “Would you like to meet a nice ant?” Diane asks, as gently as if she is speaking to child, although they are about the same age, in their early twenties at the most.

  Khara guffaws, something between a belch and a snort. “Fu-u-u-ck . . . ,” she says, elongating the word into an obvious expression of incredulity. “As if.”

  Diane is cajoling now. “We know an ant,” she glances over her shoulder at Tanner to include him in the statement, “and it’s nice. Gentle, I mean. It doesn’t want to hurt us or use us. It wants . . . well . . . to be friends, as crazy as that sounds.”

  Khara snorts again.

  “Hey, man, it’s true!” adds Tanner. “It’s the weirdest thing! It’s actually pretty cool!”

  Khara stares at the two of them and Diane continues. “Are you afrai
d of getting close to ants?”

  Khara’s expression sours. “I don’t get a choice.”

  “If you had the choice? Could you do it?” Diane asks.

  Khara doesn’t answer, but shudders.

  Diane looks at me. “Samuel, look, we could use the help. We’re only let into the garden to keep it up, and it’s a big garden. We’re falling behind and you know the queen. She’s famous for getting rid of ‘useless’ humans. Nestra wants to share all the time. Khara could maybe take over some of the gardening duties . . . .”

  Tanner takes up as Diane trails off. “Yeah! She could help with the work, we could help Khara with the language, you know, and . . . Yeah, this could totally work!”

  I can see the benefits of what they suggest. Bell, Jan, and Eli work full days, Rex can’t go near ants – not that he’d likely be recognized, but we can’t take the risk; his computer skills are fantastic and he can’t be lost. Tamerak needs me at the factory. Khara could slip in and ease the danger to Diane and Tanner by taking over some of their gardening duties.

  “Khara?” I ask.

  Bells raps knuckles on the table, a light staccato, for my attention. “She admits she doesn’t have any other skills or contacts, Mate. This would be perfect,” he says. I widen my eyes at Bell, chastising him without words for the negativity. Khara seems to hear the slight in his comment and her eyes dart to him before she looks down at her hands.

  “Khara?” I ask again. She looks up at me, agony and pleading written on her face.

  “It would help?” she asks.

  “It would help,” I answer.

  After a moment she whispers, “What can I do?”

  There is a release of breath around the table, as if the decision has been made, as if Khara has passed some test.

  The rest of the meeting is spent with me explaining what I understand about Nestra, and Diane and Tanner explaining the odd form of sharing they engage in. Diane tests Khara’s vocabulary and is incredulous at how much Khara understands. Even Khara seems pleased with her knowledge. Despite the lack of practice in speaking the ant’s language, according to Diane, Khara’s accent is excellent.