The Cyborg Bounty Hunter: In the Stars Romance Read online

  “Of course.” I nod. “What route are we taking to get there?”

  My reaction shocks him, I can tell, but he recovers quickly, looking pleased with himself or me.

  Don’t get too comfortable, Cole, I want to tell him.

  The only reason I’m behaving myself is that leaving this rig might lead to my escape, and there’s no way in hell I’m passing on that opportunity.

  10 Lily

  Cole and I approach the rental. My pulse races into overdrive. The thin, sheet-metal door is ajar. When we get to the door, I see the lock I installed when I first got to Temis has been tampered with.

  My heart pumps ice. “Shit.”

  “Stay back,” Cole orders, sliding in front of me.

  Annoyed, I circle around him and barge into the room. I doubt the trespasser is there still, but if they are, I want to take the first shot. Adrenaline courses through my system when I see the disaster that’s left behind. For better or for worse, the person who did this is long gone, leaving only a mess of things.

  Cole trails behind me, clearly on edge. For a long beat, neither of us say anything, only take a visual inventory of our surroundings. My few possessions are strewn about and the storage compartments around the room hang open. I hurry to rummage through everything in an attempt to assess the damage. Right away, I can tell that the items of note that have been looted are a few of my favorite wigs, my supply of freeze-dried and quick-heat food, and a few of my clothes.

  Small losses, all things considered. I bite my pinky nail, struggling against every instinct in my body blaring at me. Telling me to go to my hiding place.

  “Let me scan the room,” Cole says. His words snap my attention back to the present situation.

  It’s a shoebox rental. Have at it, cyborg.

  I don’t say any of this, of course. As far as I’m concerned, he can perform whatever safety protocol he feels will give him any measure of security. Thoughts swarm my mind, overwhelming me, and I recede back to my headworld. This was a complication—you don’t say, Lily—but how am I to know where to go from here if I can’t get a second to myself?

  Cole sneaks up behind me, tapping my shoulder. Goosebumps spread all over my skin and my breathing turns shallow. I whip around to face him, ready to explode at him for hovering when I’m already on edge, but the moment my eyes meet his, my anger dissolves.

  “No one is hiding here,” he declares, furrowing his brows at my expression. “What’s the matter?”

  What isn’t the matter?

  We stare at each other, blinking but not doing much else. I press my lips together and then sigh. “Nothing. I’m... Oh, wait.”

  Throwing my reservations to the wind, I make a beeline to the panel concealed in the wall. During my wait for Blake’s summons, I had performed some structural surgery on the rental. The disguised under-cell contains a bag I’d stuffed in there. I yank it out and reaffix the panel to the wall.

  Cole’s watching me, his metal-arm folded over the other. He smirks when he sees the bag. Concern flares through me: will this knowledge of how I hide things, this little tidbit that I revealed freely to him, ever come back to bite me in the ass? The faint scraping of metal tickles my ears. Cole unfolds his arms and tugs at me. His touch doesn’t give rise to an inferno inside me: it’s comforting, an anchor binding me to safety. It tells me that he’s not such a threat that I have to scrutinize every single one of my actions in the hopes that I don’t give precious information away.

  I can relax a little. Sure, it doesn’t come naturally to me, and it’s almost an affront to my training, but I don’t have the luxury of time or the wherewithal to triple-doubt myself.

  Unburdened by guilt or wariness, I grin at the bag. Deftly, my fingers work to unhook the strap that cinches the fortified fabric closed.

  “We should get back to the rig,” Cole tells me, his metal arm blocking me from fidgeting any further. “There is no telling who might be watching.”

  My dread intensifies. He’s right, of course. I curse myself for slipping up. Just on the heels of wondering how I would subdue my own training when I’m with Cole, too. Sloppy work or absentmindedness isn’t the way I do things.

  I nod at Cole, who relaxes at my assent.

  “Why do you look relieved?” I ask, slinging the bag over my shoulder. “What do you have up your—uh, circuits?”

  “Nothing,” he says with a laugh. “I just don’t think we should stay here.”

  “Well, okay, but aside from the obvious, what are you planning?” I press.

  He gives me a knowing look, eyes like saucers, and a shiver runs down my spine. It’s curious, this strange ability and influence that Cole seems to exert over me, blowing hot and cold; shaky or steady. Whatever he’s got on his mind, it comes across like dead certainty. Why does it seem like this man can feel things so intuitively?

  It’s not the kind of trait I usually ascribe to cyborgs or tinmen. Intuition is so fluid, so imprecise, so idiosyncratic in a way I never knew to expect from someone like . . . well, him.

  “Nothing.” Evasive.

  I’m not clairvoyant, obviously, but I know he’s angling for something. “Come on. This is obviously not just about the dangers of our being found here. Or someone ambushing me. What are you playing at?”

  “I’d rather draw him out in the daylight,” Cole says, voice low and menacing. “I don’t like that he or his people came prowling and might have hurt you if you’d been alone.”

  There it is again, that bubble that forms around us, pulling us closer together even if we’re several feet apart, that tension that’s equal parts attraction and desire. A flutter inside my stomach gives way to a deeper longing.

  Focus, Lily.

  I nod. “Let’s go then.”

  11 Cole

  Her panic surges through me, filling every one of my living cells with dread. The sensation doesn’t arise from my wires and hardware, but something else. Something deeper and organic. It quickens my heart and shortens my breath. I feel as though I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, seconds away from being shoved over the side by an invisible force. The fear and anxiety grip me, claiming me as their own.

  I haven’t been able to feel another person like this since before my people were disrupted and ripped from our home planet. Once, we followed the sacred practice. It was what kept us together, unified us. It was what made my people who we were. Then, Donner came and tore the holy ores from out of the terra. Anger flames through my veins at the thought, but I quickly extinguish the fire. Lily can’t see me like that, not now. That’s not what she needs. Her palpable fear is sign enough that she’s possibly one of his victims, just as I am.

  The thought hits me hard, landing with a rumbling impact in the pit of my stomach. She’s afraid, because she could be one of his victims. How had I overlooked that?

  From the poor condition of her tiny rental, it’s obvious she’s on the run. Her belongings are the bare minimum. The only thing she’s managed to collect a variety of are wigs, eye contacts, makeup, shoes, and outfits—all things used to greatly alter an appearance. Not to mention, they all look to be a bit on the inexpensive side of things with cheap fibers and materials.

  I can’t use her as a decoy. She’s not one of his thugs. I shouldn’t be handing her to Donner like some prize to snatch out of a trap. I need to get her away, protect her from Donner.

  As these thoughts stream through my head, a new emotion enters my peripherals. I can’t explain how or where it came from. It’s not mine, nor is it hers. But its message is simple: caution, warning. It burrows in my gut. The dread inside of me heightens and spurs me to action. “We should get back to the rig.”

  “Why?” Lily asks.

  “I’d rather draw him out in the daylight,” I lie. “I don’t like that he or his people came prowling and might have hurt you if you’d been alone.”

  She gives me a weird look but doesn’t push for more information. After a long silence that gives rise to that prescient b
ond between us, she breaks the spell flourishing between us with a quick nod. “Let’s go then.”

  Her hand reaches into her bag, shifting around, until it comes out with a burgundy-colored wig in its grasp. “I’m pretty sure Donner hasn’t seen this one before.” The style is short and straight with a slow fade into a magenta color along the tips.

  “Good. Put it on.”

  She bundles her hair into a mesh against her head before she slips the wig on. The material grips her scalp, and the medium-length synthetic hairs tumble down to her chin, illuminating her eyes. “All right. I’m ready.”

  “Make sure to stay in the shadows as we go through the station,” I advise, drawing close to her. “I don’t want anyone to spot you or for any feeds to pick up your bio-identifiers.”

  She shoots me a glance with a cocked eyebrow. “Why are you being so protective of me? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m not. I have a job to do, and making sure you come out of this alive is a part of that job,” I say. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the reason why I’m determined to keep her out of Donner’s clutches.

  My hand presses to her lower back to guide her, and the tug I feel towards her intensifies. My breath hitches. I try to force the thought from my mind, but I can’t deny it’s there. Constantly and insistently pulling me towards her. The urge to protect her and make sure she’s safe overwhelms me. This unshakable feeling goes beyond my sense of duty and honor. The ancestral warrior has been awakened by her for one reason and one reason only. She feels like home, and I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with that.

  It’s a home I’ve yearned for since I stood at the brink of early, forced manhood at thirteen. I swallow hard and take a deep breath, trying to clear my senses and break the thoughts from my mind. I’m just following my civic duty and keeping a civilian safe. It’s nothing more than that.

  We progress through the station with her close to me and my hand not leaving her body. A part of me is thankful she doesn’t live deep in Terminal Delta. It saves us from a lot of the unsavory aspects of the location.

  As we turn the corner, the bank draws into view, and I stare for a while. It was where I had first seen Lily with Donner. I lick my lips as my mind chews on the memory, analyzing it and tugging it this way and that. Maybe she wasn’t at the bank in on some job as I had originally assumed. Maybe she was just there, passing by, and the man who makes her skin crawl crossed her path coincidentally.

  Maybe it all wasn’t coincidence. Maybe it was fate. Maybe she was there with Donner because my ancestors wanted me to find her, as though I were meant to meet Lily.

  Ancient teachings say that fate is unpredictable, but powerfully organized.

  12 Lily

  It’s super late, and I’m exhausted, but we get all the way to the shuttle platform, close to our way out of this seedy terminal and back to the docks in Terminal A, when a blur in my periphery calls my attention. Donner’s henchmen. Men might be too charitable a characterization, though. There are droids in their midst, nearing us with the mechanical precision of lifeless animation.

  Cole’s heavy boot lifts and steps in front of me. His organic arm spreads out like a wing, guarding me, while his metal limb aims at our incoming assailants. His fingers open, and his palm glows a deep red. The man doesn’t hesitate for a single second. He knows he has a fight ahead of him. I almost believe a part of him welcomes the impending battle.

  The AIs close rank around us, circling like ghouls about to ensnare their prey, and those of them who have eyes sneer at us like it’s all for sport. Like they aren’t the goons of a demented, psychotic asshole who enacts snuff performances and rampant torture just for the hell of it. The clink of metallic parts scraping the ground tells me that the ones who aren’t full-on droids are all at least part machine.

  The fact they’re approaching us from every which way means that Cole can’t protect me on his own—but that’s not to say he doesn’t try. They move in perfect synchronicity, those with humanoid features covering their faces with masks and scarves pulled over their jaws and mouths, hanging off their noses. I use the precious few seconds I have before they deal their first blows to scan for familiar features.

  One of them—the ringleader, I presume, or at least the one who’s the most courageous—breaks away from their united attack, jumping in front of my companion. Cole blocks his movement, launching a counterstrike that dents the steel frame of the cyborg’s torso. For some reason, the other lackeys only serve as onlookers as Cole and the first attacker go toe to toe. The other guy is clearly not a match for Cole’s fierce warrior nature and experience in violent dexterity. When an incapacitating punch lands on him, Donner’s henchman struggles to get up, and another one catapults himself into the confrontation.

  I shake off the sense of shock that paralyzed me for a minute and study the band of thugs again. Cole needs help—that’s obvious. Skilled as he is, there’s just too much riding on this. Too much that can go wrong. It shocks me that my instincts don’t come as naturally to me anymore; that my moves and reactions are lethargic. Is that what continued fatigue does to a person’s body? Dulls even the most ingrained responses?

  It’s time to kick some ass.

  I pull away from Cole, drawing the attention of the men watching. They lurch forward, ready at a moment’s notice to make a concentrated effort to squash me. They halt mid-move as I channel my neuratelepathy, receding from the here and now and folding deep within myself. It’s been a long time since I last tried to pull a simultaneous takedown. Eyes closed, I find my focus and direct it to them, my power slithering toward them like a serpent gliding through air. In quick succession, they fall to the ground like dominos collapsing in line. Their circuits are all fried.

  Well, all except for the first cyborg that attacked Cole. His resistance is better, doubtlessly from some advanced orders that Donner must have thought prudent to fill him in on. With the others out of the way, I aim at him next.

  Cole swivels, distraught at their collective crash, and the distraction is enough misdirection to confuse the attacker. I bite down on focus, fists clenched by my side. It’s easy enough to subdue this last holdout.

  “Let’s go,” I said, gripping my bag. It’s equally a preventive measure—if those robotic assholes have any self-regulating protocol, they might override my intervention—and reassuring. Relief floods through me as I confirm that everything I packed in there is still, in fact, in my possession.

  “We can’t go like this,” Cole said, spinning in place as he takes in the damage I caused. “We can’t leave them here.”

  “Please tell me you’re not actually feeling sorry for these assholes.”

  At that, Cole turns to face me and cocks an eyebrow up. “Right. My heart is overflowing with grief and blood I’m willing to waste on them.”

  It’s my turn to don a smug smirk. “Well, then. Let’s go.”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “We can’t leave them here because a patrol should come around to do their check of this section of the station at some point in the next hour. If they find all of these cyborg corpses—hell, even the two droids, given their caliber—they’ll sound the alarm. We’ll be under increased scrutiny and effectively locked in place until the heat dies down.”

  “Damn,” I say, half-wishing I were still traveling solo. Then this wouldn’t be a problem.

  I try to think of a covert way to program them to relocate to a deserted corner. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that Cole will discover my abilities at some point if we continue to take the galaxy by storm and make targets of ourselves. That doesn’t mean I want to volunteer that information until it’s absolutely necessary.

  My ear catches the sounds of someone rushing our way. Who it might be is anyone’s guess, but I don’t much feel like finding out. With as little fanfare as possible, I tap into their systems again and send their deactivated asses back to Blake’s headquarters with a time-restricted line of code. As soon as they arrive at their dest
ination, my fuckery will erase itself and it’ll be up to them to wiggle their way out of the extra attention they are likely to receive from the watchers and powers that be.

  It’s kind of genius, really. Two enemy vessels, one meteor, if you know what I mean.

  I keep a location tracking tag on them just in case. Who knows if there’s any way to backdoor into their systems or if a kindly handler is hiding in the shadows, ready to bring the mini-army comprised almost entirely of artificial intelligence back to function at the drop of a hat. If there were even the slightest chance they could follow us back to our hideout, it is worth keeping tabs on them.

  Now I have to think of what half-truth I’m going to feed Cole.

  There’s no time to ponder that now, though. He sneaks up on me much like he did back at my rental and guides me by the shoulder, one hand warm and gentle, the other cold and hard. A juxtaposition of the conflicting feelings coming from us, wafting through the air, lingering in the atmosphere.

  He leads the way along an alternate path, through a service door that runs right into the docks. His patrol access sees us passing through each of the thresholds and checkpoints effortlessly. At this hour, any official stronghold or choke point is unmanned, anyway. Even in a place like Temis, where money flows freely and the economy is thriving, the systems won’t justify redundancy or extraneous numbers in the workforce. Everything is automated without a sentient creature monitoring the passage and flow of people and AI.

  Cole is resolute. I glance back, catching the muted brilliance of his marbled, jade green eyes trained ahead of him. All of a sudden, I am tempted to run a cursory search through his circuits. It’s a force of habit for the most part, but there’s real curiosity lurking behind that impulse. I restrain myself because I don’t need to supply myself with more inexplicable occurrences to lie to him about. That depends on whether he would be able to feel my presence in there. My intrusion.