Page 151 of Code Bound
“She’s mine. I found her first,” the man carrying me spits. “Go find your own doll.”
There’s the metallic slide of a blade I can hear even over the music. “I’m not going to repeat myself.”
The man holding me snarls. “You’re gonna get yours, Crumb.”
My head lolls and I’m suddenly plummeting toward the ground. I can’t stop my fall, can’t even move my arms to catch myself. Luckily, I don’t have to. Strong arms wrap around me and pluck me from the air, cradling me against himself. My head lolls and I look up at such a familiar face, it aches. I’ve seen him on posters before. On the nightly safehouse news. Everywhere. Nowhere. All at once.
Svetlana is sprawled out on his shoulder, her legs holding on for dear life as she hiccups in his ear and gives in to the drunken stupor I’m quickly falling into.
I reach up to poke the man carrying me in the cheek and he looks down at me with a grumpy expression. Sadly, I can’t do anything more than giggle.
“Hey . . .” I croak, my head collapsing backward again as the darkness starts to claim me. “. . . Legend.”
CHAPTER41
VESPER
“No!” I scream, sitting up so fast, it makes my head swim. I immediately plop back down as nausea slams into me so hard, it takes every ounce of willpower to keep my stomach bile down. I press my hand to my head as a skull-splitting headache flares up at the light filtering in through windows. It’s so bright I have to squint my eyes.
Sunshine. It’s sunshine, I realize.
I’m still not used to the lack of red glow that shined on Dross. The colors here are more vibrant, more real, but wherever I am right now, it’s anything but.
I’m in a bed I don’t remember climbing into. The sheets are soft and silky against my skin. The pillow is thick and smoosh-y. I look down at my clothing in a panic and see everything but my thick winter jacket and cloak in place.
Beside me, on a nearby table, Svetlana is asleep on a pile of cloth. She’s passed out as hard as I must have been, soft snores coming from the praying mantis. A bug shouldn’t be able to snore, but she is, her little arms tucked tight against her body as she dreams.
I wait for the nausea to calm for a few minutes before I risk sitting up again. This time, I move slowly, careful not to jostle my body too hard. I sit on the edge of the bed for another few minutes, gathering my bearings, before I risk rising to my feet. I sway just a little, a reminder of the alcohol I’d drunk before filtering in through my mind. I press my hand against my forehead again and try to remember what happened. I remember drinking, then dancing, then . . . nothing. I remember nothing.
I do a mental check of my body, searching for any new aches and pains. Nothing. Not even the pain from the yeti fight. I frown.
“Hello?” I call.
I’m in a small room with very few furnishings, but there’s an open doorway before me that leads to, I assume, another part of the building. No one answers my call, but I can hear the gentle sound of papers rustling. I follow the sound out of the doorway and find an apartment larger than the one Dox and I had shared. There’s a man in the main area, a man I’m starting to recognize. He’s sitting at a table, a large paper with small font open in front of him, his back to me. He doesn’t look at me.
“It still surprises me that they put out a newspaper in this region,” he says in a gravelly voice.
I blink. I’ve never met this man before, but I certainly know who he is. How I ended up in what’s clearly his home though? I don’t have an answer for that.
“A . . . what?” I ask, wincing at the sheer amount of sunshine streaming in through the large bank of windows along the wall. I can see we’re high up judging by the scene outside those windows, but that still doesn’t answer anything other than that I’m somewhere I very much don’t remember coming to.
Havoc turns finally and looks at me over his shoulder. He holds up the paper in his hand. “They write stories about what’s happening in The Harrow. New stories every week. Like the news updates in the safehouses. I’ve seen you a few times in the last couple of weeks. Making a name for yourself, it seems.” He folds it up and sets it down on the table so that he can turn and fully look at me. “The propaganda from Dross makes it in, too.”
I stare at him and then look back down at my own body again. I’m wearing everything. All my fastenings are in their proper places. Everything is as it should be, but if I’m in his home . . .
“Nothing happened,” he grunts, looking away out the windows. “You passed out. I made sure you were safe.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why?”
“Why, what?” he asks. “Why would I help or why did you pass out?”
“Both.”
I move slowly into the room and weakly fall into the opposite chair from him. My head is still pounding, but I need to figure out what happened.
“The drinks here are a risk unless you know what you’re drinking,” he says, answering the second question first. “The one you were drinking is one of the stronger ones. They make it like vodka, but they add in some hallucinogenic potion that I have yet to find the name for. I’d suggest avoiding it in the future. Knocks you out and gives you one hell of a hangover.”
I wince, reminded of the pain I’m currently dealing with. “Noted.”
