Total pages in book: 175
Estimated words: 166095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 830(@200wpm)___ 664(@250wpm)___ 554(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 166095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 830(@200wpm)___ 664(@250wpm)___ 554(@300wpm)
“Why?” I manage around a mouthful of noodles. She’s not trading me, but it’s supposed to be a cover story, right? I just wonder if we have to cover from her ex-boyfriend.
His expression grows hard. “Because I’ll kill him. Or her. Whoever’s blackmailing her into this nasty line of work.”
I nearly choke on my food. In an instant, Jamef went from friendly to utterly frightening. “I don’t think she’s being blackmailed,” I manage to say.
“Then she’s doing this on her own? And you’re defending her?”
I grimace, putting the food aside. “Will you believe me when I say it’s complicated?”
“It’s Bethiah, isn’t it?”
I nod. “And you’re Jamef, right?”
He gives me a quick, curt nod. “Jamef sa Raan. Bounty hunter. So she’s mentioned me to you.” There’s a hint of pleasure in his voice.
“Once or twice,” I evade. More like everyone that warned me not to go with Bethiah cited him as an example. How she’d robbed him over and over again and how Bethiah thought it was all a game between them. “Can I…ask what your relationship is with Bethiah?”
“Does Bethiah have relationships?” he asks, voice harsh. “Or does she just toy with people until it’s time to push them away?”
“You know her well.”
“Too well.” He eyes me. “Is that why you’re no longer scared? Because she’s mentioned me so often to you?”
Man, this guy really wants to know if Bethiah is hung up on him. I guess I can’t blame him. She’s dynamic. Strange and unpredictable, but utterly dynamic. “Oh, I’m still afraid,” I confess. “But I’m also a little relieved. If you hadn’t kidnapped me, Bethiah would probably be trying to strap me down to a table right now so that scary guy could fit me with prosthetics.”
He looks offended. “She was going to remove perfectly good limbs and replace them with synthetic ones?”
“Right? That’s crazy, isn’t it?” I’m a little bolstered by the fact that he’s as affronted as I am. “I thought she was my friend and we were close, but it seems to me that maybe I was wrong.”
He grunts. “She’s impossible to know.”
Either that, or we already know her too well. She’s determined to run me off like she did him. If I stay, I become a cyborg. If I leave, well…no more Bethiah. Either way I lose. I sigh heavily and peek over at Jamef. “You still haven’t said what you’re going to do with me.”
The big mesakkah male shrugs. “Not giving you back. Not if she’s going to treat you like that. You got any friends on station that can look after you? Or on another station?”
I shake my head. “I was supposed to go to Risda, but I chose to go with Bethiah instead.”
“Yeah, we all make that mistake at some point, it seems.” That red eye watches me. “You still want to go to Risda?” When I shrug, he continues. “I’m heading that way for a bounty in a few days. You’re welcome to come with me. You can stay here until then. I promise no harm will come upon you.”
“Thank you, Mr. sa Raan —”
He lifts his chin. “Call me Jamef. sa Raan just means I come from Raan Outpost. No family affiliation.”
Oh. He doesn’t have anyone in the universe either, except Bethiah…and she’s messing with both of us. I feel a kindred spirit here. “I’m Dora. No last name, either. I didn’t get that part in my memories.”
“Memories?” he echoes.
“I’m a clone.”
Eighteen
JAMEF
I’m a clone.
She says it so easily, so trustingly, that the words haunt me long after she goes to sleep on the only bed in the apartment. What the kef is Bethiah up to with a human clone? The yellow-hair is clearly an illegal one, because her skin doesn’t have the bright red marker that states that she’s been created to acceptable standards. I scan her when she sleeps, just to make sure I haven’t missed anything, but no chips or trackers of any kind.
Absolutely not a legal clone. If someone found out that she exists, she’ll be destroyed instantly and Bethiah arrested.
Kef me.
There’s a small part of me that thinks I should turn her in. If I get caught with an illegal clone—a human one to boot—I’m going to be looking at hard time on a prison planet, where I’ll likely be jumped for my prosthetics until they’re stolen from me. It’s not the way I want to go out.
But looking at the small, trusting human as she sleeps on my bed, I can’t dump her. She’s achingly sweet and innocent, and I can see why Bethiah is attracted to her. I think of Bethiah, licking the human’s mouth earlier, and my groin tightens.
If I keep the human secret, it protects Bethiah, too. She might have given up on me, but I haven’t given up on her yet. She’s still got my ship, which means she has unfinished business with me. I’m going to take that as a good sign. So while the human sleeps, I quietly sit at my table and clean my weaponry. I’m obsessive about maintenance. Started when I was in the military, and I got my first prosthetic, a hand that only worked properly if constantly kept oiled. At first I hated it because it was an older model, but I found the more I tended to it, the more I appreciated that older design. It wasn’t as heavily wired as some of the others, which meant that I could take several more hits before it stopped working. That hand is what led to my obsession with older things, things that look as if they’re meant to be scrap but can be coaxed into new life. Often those older components have hidden secrets that make them worthwhile.