Beyond These Walls (5 page)

“Why the invite then?” I glanced around the loft, noting the expensive furniture and artwork. My Quinn hadn’t cared about the trappings of wealth or so I’d thought. “Nice place,” I added waving at the tinted windows overlooking the city.

Something flickered in his eyes. “I call it home.” He motioned for me to take a seat on the white leather couch. “Wine or are you still more of a cheap vodka kinda gal?”

“Vodka.” I walked around the couch picking through the knickknacks and trophies that made up new Quinn’s life, his ‘better’ life without his family or friends, a better life without me.

Quinn handed me my drink as I sat down. I gulped the vodka down, enjoying the burn as it flushed away any remnants of regret at what I was about to do. “So you wanna tell me why I’m here?”

“Let me ask you something?” Sitting on the couch next to me, he adjusted his large frame against the cushions. “How’d you know it was me? Today I mean. How’d you recognize me?”

I fingered the rim of my empty glass and considered lying, but Quinn had always been able to see right through me. “Your eyes.” I grinned, shocking him with the truth. “And the stench of decaying flesh, of course.”

“Of course.”

Most Body Dwellers preferred fresh skin, but they made do with corpse flesh if it served their purpose. And David West’s corpse was far from fresh. Even in the wide-open space of Quinn’s loft, the aroma of death seeped from David West’s skin suit hidden somewhere inside Quinn’s closet.

He nodded, and I relaxed against the soft leather of the couch. So far, so good. Quinn faced me, his eyes pinning me. “If you could change, would you?”

“No.” I didn’t need to ask what he meant. Each of us had asked the question at some point in our mutated lives. “I like who and what I am.”

He smirked. “But what if you could live in the human world? If you could be free forever? Free to live your own life?”

“What’s this about?” I frowned, hating the doubts his words generated inside me. Freedom meant so much to a child born and raised behind the wall. “Are you telling me you found the cure for mutantity?”

“No.” He shook his head and laughed. “But Resden’s close. Soon we’ll have a vaccine that will eradicate mutated genes.”

“Are you insane?” I swallowed, terror rising with his every word. “You’re willing to kill off all mutants so you can live this life. What about Ivan or Mikey? You’d destroy your own family.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Quinn frowned. “The vaccine won’t kill anyone. It will fix them. It will fix us. Make us human, like God intended.”

“I don’t want to be human. And who are you to say what God intended?” Pushing from the couch I spun to face him. “I like being a mutant. I like being me.” I took a steadying breath. “Jesus, Quinn, you have to find a way to stop this.”

“What if the vaccine could cure the plague?” He reached for my hand, but I pulled away. “Save people like Emily and Calvin?” An image of Calvin’s plague riddled body exploded in my mind. What would I’ve given to change his fate, to relieve his pain?

Quinn rose from the sofa, his face a mask of compassion and sympathy. I wanted to smack the look right off. “The vaccine can save lives. End disease,” he said.

“Or mutants.”

He nodded. “Mutations too.”

“It’s not worth the cost.” I reached for his arm, digging my fingers into his mutated flesh. “You and I, we’re not a disease. We’re people just like them. I won’t let you destroy us.”

“You have no choice.” He yanked his arm from mine, and lifted a sleek, black cell phone from his pocket. “I’m sorry, Indeara.” Pressing a few buttons, he spoke into the phone, “I’d like to report an escaped mutant.”

“Bastard.” I threw myself at him, knocking the phone from his hand. It smashed against the floorboards showering us in a spray of broken phone parts. Channeling three years of frustrated rage, I drew my fist back and let it fly toward his deceitful face. My fist connected with bone and blood spurted from his lip.

“Go back behind the wall or they’ll hunt you down.” Quinn pushed me off, twisting his fist in my hair and yanking me back. “The choice is yours, but stay out of my way.”

He shoved me toward the door. I fake stumbled, taking a moment to palm my Mateba. I flicked off the safety and leveled it at his chest.

“I can’t let you do this,” I said.

“You can’t stop me.”

Yeah, I could.

I fired two slugs, hitting him dead center in his chest. The force threw him backwards, and he landed on his back with a thud. There he lay, unmoving, his legs contorted underneath him.

I took a careful step toward him, my gun still clutched in my hand. I’d killed the one man I’d ever loved, but tears didn’t come. I felt numb. How many mutated lives had his death saved?

A siren screamed in the distance. The HOA, they were coming. My eyes swung to the hallway and the sound of pounding agent boots rushing up it. I needed to get out of here and quick. I glanced at the patio door.

Inside the loft the unmistakable ping of a .45 caliber round being chambered drew my attention. Quinn struggled to sit up, the .45 in his hand pointed at my head.

“Whatever I am, Indeara. I’m not stupid.” He emphasized his point by jamming the barrel of his gun in my direction. With a smirk, he tore at his shredded oxford shirt. A thin Resden Enterprises bulletproof vest poked from beneath it. Two shiny, brass slugs dimpled the Teflon vest. Fucking Resden would be the death of me. I laughed, somehow that seemed fitting.

“Drop your weapon.” Quinn motioned to the gun in my hand. I did, but not before I slid the knife strapped to my thigh from its sheath. Shouts from the corridor ricocheted around us. Quinn smiled and shook his head. “You’d better go.”

“No.”

“Yes, damn it.” He fired the weapon in his hand. The shot went wide missing my foot by inches. “By the way, we’re even. I shot you. You shot me. The game ends here.”

“Nope.” I shook my head, rising from my crouched position and heading for his high-rise balcony. “By my count I owe you at least one more slug. And you know me, I always pay my debts.”

On that note, I crawled over the railing of his glass-screened balcony. Hundreds of feet below cars whizzed by at breakneck speeds. The wind whipped my skullcap from my head and the ends of my hair swirled around like a madwoman. With a finger wave I jumped off the balcony.

Chapter 10

My dive to freedom from Quinn’s high-rise aside I wasn’t a total idiot. I usually did try my best to stay alive. But this time I didn’t have a choice. It was either a sloppy swan dive or be captured and tortured by the HOA.

Or so I told myself as I picked bits of a Fichus tree from my body parts. The poor tree, now more of a flattened bush, had saved my life, cushioning my fall from the balcony above. I promised in my next mutated life I’d remember to feed and water my plants, even if it killed me.

Nevertheless I had other things to worry about; namely, escaping the building without further incident. Agents were everywhere. I could almost smell their hate, or maybe it was the stench of garbage from inside the trash chute where I currently hid. When my legs couldn’t stand the cramped quarters any longer I half-sprinted/half-limped to the safety of the streets.

Darkness concealed my escape, but a niggling paranoia that someone had followed me tickled at the back of my brain. I stayed in the shadows, fighting my way uptown to the ritzy brownstone Arthur Resden called home.

I owed Granddad an explanation for my soon to be abrupt departure. Quinn was right about my need to return home. If I wanted to fight him and his vaccine I needed support. I needed the Resistance. That was if they existed outside mutant legends and fairytales.

I arrived at the brownstone thirty minutes later, only to find it surrounded by HOA agents and rescue vehicles. Poor Arthur. What a way to find out your only daughter had bore a mutant child.

No help for it now, I thought with a shrug. I glanced down at my garbage-encrusted clothes, whispered a quick goodbye to Arthur and the human world, and headed for the gate.

Around midnight I slipped past the lines of protestors bordering the entrance to Mutant City. HOA agents and human militia swarmed like honey-fleas. Excitement, the kind that foretold of blood and violence, filtered through the crowd. A line of mutants waited to pass through the gate in hopes of reaching the safety of their homes before the crowd turned vicious.

I looked down at Mei’s battered dress and the combat knife strapped to my thigh. If the agents were looking for me I’d never make it through the gate. I needed a disguise, or at the very least an AK-47.

On a corner up the street from the gate and out of eyesight of the guards, a group of nightcrawlers huddled around a dim streetlight, smoking cigarettes and mutant-rock. “Need a date?” they called to passing humans, battering their glitter-soaked eyelids. Nightcrawlers, one of the few mutants allowed to slip in and out of the gate a will, provided a service to the mutant and human populations. Right-wing mutants condemned the nightcrawler lifestyle, but, really, behind the wall, what other career prospect did a mutant chick with dual vaginas have?

With a glance from the gate to the nightcrawlers a semi-logical plan formed inside my head. Picking a used coffee filter from Mei’s dress I strolled up the street. The nightcrawlers watched me approach, eyes weary, pupils no bigger than pinpoints.

“Anyone wanna make a quick hundred?” I waved five twenties or the equivalent of ten mutant-rocks at the girls. The youngest one with dreadlocked red hair, a lip ring, and the telltale rash of the mutant plague lining her arms grinned. “I’d blow a reptoe for that kinda dough. Whadda ya got in mind?”

Lovely.

“Trade me clothes and forget you ever saw me.” I pressed one of the twenties into her palm. “Do that and the money’s yours.”

“That’s one ugly outfit.” Her eyes flickered over Mei’s ruined dress. “Tell you what, make it two hundred and you got a deal.”

“I’ve got one-fifty.”

“Fine.” Stripping off her red kimono, she nodded to my feet and Mei’s knock-off Prada boots wrapped around them. “But I get those.”

“Fair enough.” I kicked off the boots, stripped off Mei’s dress, and slipped the girl’s clothing over my head. The top fit much too snug and the whole outfit smelled bitter, like burning rubber at a tire factory. But who was I to complain? My own dress smelled like a landfill. Moreover I was nearly home free.

Just one thing left to do.

I pulled the DNA chip from my pocket and smashed it on the concrete. Carefully, I palmed the busted pieces. If the guards at the gate had my fake DNA profile flagged, a broken chip might buy me a few needed minutes.

“Thanks.” I handed the cash to the nightcrawler and strolled toward the gate swinging my hips like a pro. My bare feet stung as bits of gravel dug into their soles. I waited for the two mutants ahead of me in line to go thru the gate, my eyes scanning the faces of the guards for any sign of recognition. So far nothing seemed out of place.

The guard waved the mutant in front of me, an
Ulterius Vir
with a piggish snout and rabbit-like ears, through the gate, and a stench worse than the sewers on a humid night erupted from him. Tears rose in my eyes.

“Stink-ass mutants.” The guard held his nose and waved me forward. I stopped in front of him, my head bowed in an affected submissive pose, one I practiced daily in the mirror, but had never gotten quite right.

“I don’t remember seeing you around.” He leaned close to me, so close I could smell his lack of dental hygiene and body odor. I wanted to step back, maybe offer him a breath mint, but I stood my ground and said nothing.

Taking that as some sort of invitation his finger trailed along the collar of my kimono, dipping inside and stroking the valley between my breasts.

Ew. I tried not to gag, or worse, smash his face in. When his stubby finger brushed much too close to my nipple, I forgot myself and knocked his hand away, jerking the Kimono closed. “No free samples.”

Face red, he reached for my arm. “I’ll sample whatever I damn well want, mutant-bitch.” I twisted away from his grasp, but he was quicker than I thought. He grabbed the back of my head and started dragging me toward the guard shack. “When I’m done with you, you’ll know your fucking place.”

With a sigh, I allowed him to pull me across the pitted concrete. Why fight it? Once we were alone in the guard shack I’d tear him apart then slip through the gate unnoticed.

Piece of mutant pie.

Or not.

He shoved my body against his erection, mooing like a Buff-cow. Spittle showered me as he rubbed his tiny naughty part back and forth. I yanked from his grasp, losing a good-sized chuck of hair, but he tugged me back. His eyes burned with violence and lust. He wanted me to fight him, for me to cry out. “You like that, whore,” he said.

If he wanted me to submit, the poor bastard was in for a disappointment, that and a broken neck. “Like what?” I smiled, my eyes dipping to the small bulge in his pants. “Am I missing something?” The implication was clear to us as well as to the mutants in line. A few of the mutants chuckled, which enraged the guard more.

He raised his fist and I prepared for the onslaught. With only five tiny steps to the guard shack, five tiny steps to freedom, and five tiny fucking steps to crushing him into a pile of human-mush, I couldn’t risk drawing the attention of the other agents circling the gate. Too bad too since I really wanted to smash his skull under my bare feet. I waited for the pain of his fists meeting my bones, but the blows never came. I cracked one eye open.

Another man, this one looking far more dangerous with close-cropped blond hair, held the guard’s arm. Disgust showed in the tight lines circling his face. The coldness in his blue eyes suggested he’d spent time in the military. A trained killer. A mercenary for hire. A hunter.

Damn.

“Release her,” the man said. His hand squeezed the guard’s arm until he complied, and thrust me away from his quickly fading hard-on. I stumbled, catching my balance before I fell to the ground, but my eyes never left the stranger’s face. He looked familiar, dangerous, and sexy. A deadly combination for any woman, but one made far worse for me after three years of abstinence.