Ch 1
"They say most of your brain shuts down in cryo-sleep. All but the primitive side… the animal side. No wonder I'm still awake. Transporting me with civilians. Sounded like 40, 40-plus. heard an Arab voice, some hoodoo holy man, probably on his way to New Mecca. But what route? What route? Smelled a woman, sweat, boots, tool belt leather. Prospector type, free settlers, and they only take the back roads. And here's my real problem. Mr. Johns the blue-eyed devil. Plannin' on taking me back to slam, only this time he picked a ghost lane. A long time between stops a long time for something to go wrong."
"For once my animal is just purring its not trying to get out of cryo. Theres this smell that just makes me want to stop running or protect it. I've never felt this before not even when I was just a boy in the homes with my friends and the nice old lady that called me Richard while everyone elts called me Rick. It all whent down hill after that old lady was killed. Her son had it pinned on me becaues only monsters have no soulmark".
"By the time my words showed up, I've already escaped from a few slams, killed more than few people (way way more than a few), and recently recovered from my eye shine surgery. So, waking up to find "Where the hell can I get eyes like that?" scrawled over my right pectoral is a bit of a shock. I try to forget them, because hell, they can't be real, and anyway, supposedly perfect someone was 13 years my junior, so yeah, I wasn't planning on holding my breath on finding them."
"It's impossible to ignore them though, no one else can see them, not even with my usual tank top on, there just a little too low down, but still knowing that they're there, and I finds himself touching them sometimes.
OOO
Audrey at first doesn't quite get why her parents are so upset about her soulmark, by the time she's five though she understands. "Gotta kill a few people" is not a nice thing for someone to say, and so little Audrey quits fussing when her Mommy makes her wear long sleeves even in summer. As she gets older, she sort of hopes that maybe it's a joke or something, but doesn't hold her breath.
Then she's eleven and her parents die in an accident, and she's sent to live with Uncle Mack. Uncle Mack is evil, a bad person and she wishes desperately that maybe her soulmate does kill people and he'll come kill Uncle Mack so Uncle Mack will stop hurting her.
Her soulmate doesn't show and one night she leaves, not only does she leave Uncle Mack behind, she leaves stupid Audrey, with her long brown curly hair and dolls and weakness behind to. Jack is a streetwise tough kid, who can pick pockets and steal food and other things and nobody messes with him.