“I’m a fraud, Raxen,” Bexari confessed, her voice barely a whisper, raw and stripped of all artifice. “And if you turn me in, they’ll kill my brother.”
The silence in the luxury lift was colder than the high-altitude air of Zetharis. The low hum of the grav-motor seemed to amplify the vulnerability she’d just exposed. Raxen didn’t speak. He just stared at her, his face a mask carved from ice and fury, his normally flamboyant silver-threaded tunic tight across his broad chest. His fists, however, were not still. He pivoted and drove his fist straight into the polished durasteel wall. The impact reverberated, leaving a spiderweb crack in the metallic surface and a sickening thud that echoed Bexari’s own fracturing composure. He didn’t look at her, but his voice, when it came, was a low snarl that stripped the air of oxygen.
“Not for lying,” he seethed, the words clipped and dangerous. “Not for the fraud. For not trusting me.”
His anger, sharp and incandescent, wasn’t directed at her betrayal, but at her perceived lack of faith. It was a possessive rage that shocked her more than any threat. He whirled, his dark eyes burning into hers, the playful glint utterly vanished, replaced by a terrifying intensity.
“You thought I’d just hand you over? You thought I wouldn’t find a way?” He took a step closer, crowding her against the cool durasteel, his scent of ozone and expensive synth-leather filling her space. “After everything? After I took a hit for you? After I—” He cut himself off, breathing hard through his teeth. “You think I’m that easily swayed by some hollow corporate mandate?”
Bexari flinched, not from fear of him, but from the raw wound of his words. Her instinct was to crack a joke, to deflect, but the moment was too heavy, too real. She had nowhere to hide. Just the memory of a cold, hungry night, the metallic tang of desperation in her mouth.
*The downpour had sluiced down the vertical iron ribs of the scrap-flats. Taze, tiny ribs shuddering against a wet wool wrap, had coughed until he spat bile. Then, wedged in an intake grate, the shattered chassis of a high-tier racer had glinted through grey sludge. The corpse in the harness wore a silver ID tab welded to her skin: Nezara Vaylor. A minor line-driver with a name on the broadcast rosters. She peeled the metal free while the tissue was still warm.*
“I didn’t have a choice,” Bexari whispered, wrenching her thoughts back to the present. “I had to keep him alive.”
Raxen’s stare narrowed, the fury banking into cold, predatory focus. “Keep him safe from what? From the inquisitor? That’s small fry. The Ventorx elders put out the contract on Vaylor. They’re the ones combing the tiers for any trace of her.”
His bloodline. The Ventorx Syndicate held the entire circuit in an iron grip. They had erased the driver whose pulse-code she wore.
“But… why?” Bexari choked out, her mind scrambling for purchase.
“She was a liability,” Raxen said, flat and clipped. “She skimmed from a covert spark-core shipment my father was funneling off-ledger. She was supposed to burn in the canyon. Not leave a void for an alley cat to step into.” He rapped his knuckles against the lift console. “The elders thought the problem was scrap metal. Now an enforcer is prowling, your brother intervened on the grid, and they suspect a witness made it out of the crash.”
She was marked as an active target. If his syndicate realized he was covering for the breach, they would scour both of them from the registry.
The lift shuddered. Emergency sirens shrieked through the speaker grille, bathing the cabin in crimson strobe pulses. “Shaft transit locked,” a flat synthetic tone chimed. “Atmospheric suppression cycling.”
Raxen threw an arm across her chest, shoving her into the corner. “An override,” he spat, fingers tearing into the manual lock panel. “We’ve been vented.”
Vents overhead hissed open. Thick, chemical mist poured across the ceiling plates. Bexari took half a breath before her throat clamped shut like pinched hydraulic tubing. Raxen stumbled sideways, fingers clawing uselessly at the door seam. Darkness chewed into the edges of her vision, dragging her down into the deck plates.
***
Stale runoff and scorched wiring burned in Bexari’s nostrils. Heavy zip-cables bit into her wrists and bare shins, anchoring her to a rusted iron frame. Her temples throbbed in time with a sluggish drip falling from an overhead conduit into stagnant bilge.
This wasn’t the Kymari Paddock. This was the under-vents. The lethal, forgotten labyrinth at the bottom of the canyon. The place where people vanished. Where people were sent to die.
Her gaze darted wildly. Just a few feet away, strapped to another, identical chair, was Taze. His usually vibrant hair was matted, his small body slumped. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, fixed on something in front of him. A low whimper escaped his lips. Bexari’s stomach dropped. Her brother. They had him.
“Back with us,” a voice drawled from the shadows. The syndicate enforcer stepped forward into the glow, his immaculate white coat untouched by grease. In his right hand, a plasma-cutter hissed, throwing a needle of pale blue fire inches from Taze’s temple.
“Now, little ghost,” the man purred, angling the flame until the heat singed the hair above Taze’s ear, “let’s discuss who you really are.”