"That rat bastard!" Amber screamed as she stormed into her office, kicking over a chair. "I told you to make sure he never got up again!"
Her guards looked at each other, stoney-faced and not acknowledging the shouting. They'd had strict orders from Rotti not to kill anyone on his daughter's temperamental orders, because her temper when her favorite SurGEN or Zydrate dealer couldn't help her was worse than whatever had caused the killing in the first place. They'd taken that to heart and apparently chose to obey him past death, much to Amber's dismay.
"Why haven't they found him yet?" she shouted again.
"Calm down, sister," Pavi shrugged from where he lounged on the couch.
"I want him dead this time! I mean it!" Amber's voice rang through the chamber like a siren. "I want his head on my desk in an hour, or you're all fired!"
"Oh, that would make a terrible mess," tutted Pavi. "Is one little embarrassment in front of just your guards cause enough to go to war?"
"Shut the fuck up, Pavi! You don't know what you're talking about!"
"Sister, please," he sighed, putting his other foot up. "You're beautiful - you know it, I know it, he obviously knows it. Just get over yourself."
Pavi had taken it upon himself to become the voice of reason for Amber since their father had died. He knew that he'd already saved the company a few times from Amber's temper tantrums, but this was a small thing compared to those. The voice couldn't have been Luigi; he got even angrier than their sister, and she never listened to him anyway. When they were kids Pavi and Amber had gotten along famously, and even after she turned into a spoiled bitch she held a soft spot for him. Well; he got less yelling than Luigi, anyway.
"It was an insult!"
"You left him lying for dead in a ditch," Pavi reminded her. "It was his own luck that saved him. Just leave him alone."
Amber stared at him for a moment, and Pavi bemoaned her gorgeous face during the pause in yelling. It was even better than the one he had gotten. He vaguely wondered if she was going to start throwing things at him again, but she finally sank into the expansive armchair, looking defeated, nodding to her guards. They left, and the room quickly emptied of Genterns.
"I just ... I didn't even need the Z this time, Pav," she murmured, looking embarrassed. "I don't even know why I went. I hate that skinny little prick so much, but I just wanted him tonight."
"So now your pride's hurt, and there's no daddy to cry to, so you're doing the job yourself." Pavi laughed, reveling in his sister's embarrassment, and she glared at him. "Just find another one. There are plenty in this city."
"Another dealer?"
"Another lay."
More glaring.
"I don't want him dead," Amber finally admitted. "I'll just get them to scare him."
"There's a girl," Pavi grinned. Despite all appearances he actually cared about his sister, not just her face.
"Don't tell me you decided to hold a meeting without me?" Luigi spread his arms, mockingly indignant as he entered. The two of them turned to him from where they had been lounging in expensive chairs. Pavi wore an expression of civil greeting, while Amber's face twisted into slight disgust as she met his gaze.
"No meeting going on here," she sniffed. "I was just talking to my brother. You know, the nice one."
"Aw, come now." He pinched her cheek teasingly and she swatted his hand away. "No need to be like that. I can be nice too." Luigi turned to a Gentern scurrying by and shouted, "Where the HELL is my coffee?"
"Right away, sir!" The woman rushed off, nearly tripping over her own feet.
"Idiots," Luigi sneered. "They're all idiots."
"You really should try being nicer to the Genterns," came Pavi's light voice from the sofa. "Trust me." He winked. "It's worth it."
Luigi rolled his eyes. "Yes, we all know what you do with the Genterns, brother. Who says I want your leftovers?"
His younger brother sank into an offended silence. If Luigi had any empathy at all he would have felt bad at that moment, but he was a psychopath, plain and simple- a high-functioning one, surely, but a psychopath none the less. His gaze fell on his sister, and his eyes narrowed calculatingly. "You didn't have your new nose today. You never miss a surgery…" He paused. "Unless something happened. Did you murder your surgeon? No, I would have heard about that before now. Then what was it?"
His sister glared at him but did not provide an answer.
Luigi's eyes widened. "Ah!" he exclaimed. "It wasn't a lack of surgeon, but a lack of numbness. Your zydrate supply has trickled to a stop. Did you kill your supplier?"
"Tried to," Amber spat, glaring at the door her guards had just exited. "Slippery bastard got away again."
Pavi grinned from his seat, although it could have been a grimace. The face made it hard to tell. He knew that she'd never have made the confession she just had to Luigi, and he decided to keep quiet about it for now. "Let it go, Amber. It's good; you need to get the Zydrate somehow, since you're so prissy about GeneCo's."
"It's not the same! There's almost a ... rush to the street Z." Suddenly she looked dreamy again. "Legal Zydrate is just so boring. Nothing extra."
"Like street faces," Pavi suggested. She glared at him and his smile fell off.
xxx
"Graverobber?" came the tentative voice as he shook himself awake. He sucked in a hard breath as he felt fire in his injuries like never before. He couldn't move. Shit, he'd fallen asleep. And Shilo was awake.
"Yeah, kid?" he managed without passing out again. He should have seen this coming. He hadn't even gotten the television on before he'd dropped dead.
"I - thanks for bringing me to bed," she said softly. "Sorry I kind of freaked out. It's not your fault. It was just..."
"Unexpected?"
"Yeah."
Shilo stood like she was waiting for him to move over. He prepared himself, then pulled into a sitting position. It was a bloody miracle he managed not to scream.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," he groaned the lie. "Hungover."
She exhaled a breath of laughter and looked down at her knees. "It's so unfair."
"What is?"
"Everything."
He chuckled. "Welcome to real life. You're not caged up anymore, little bird. Now you have to actually worry about cats." She'd left her wig upstairs, he noticed. She was self-conscious about her super-short, dark hair, but he liked it. It was a little curly, but stuck out everywhere and made him think of wild grass.
She smiled up at him with a turn of her head, and his heart skipped a beat from the unadulterated innocence and trust that shone out. For some reason, that look made him feel guilty. "But I have my big strong raven to protect me."
He groaned and laughed, holding his ribs as they flared. "This is so cheesy I'm going to be sick."
Shilo smiled again to herself, turning away. With an effort, he lifted his arm to rub her back comfortingly. She looked back to smile bravely at him, but gasped halfway through and jumped up.
"Oh my God! What happened?" she demanded, pointing at his bloody, scorched shirt. Fuck. The movement must've lifted his jacket away.
"Nothing, just a run-in with some GENforcers," he grinned, covering up quickly and trying to make it seem like a joke. "It's nothing, kid, don't worry about it."
"That doesn't look like nothing!"
"Honestly, I'm fine. I've had worse." When her worried look didn't improve, he chuckled. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, I'm going to see Heron later, she'll take good care of me."
"You are not leaving like that," she told him, flat out. "You're going to get in a real bed and rest."
"I'm fine," he protested. "I just need some neutralizing cream and some electrotherapy. Heron can take care of it in a minute."
Shilo looked thoughtful. "We have neutralizing cream. And ... and dad had loads of equipment. You shouldn't be walking around."
"It's just a sprained ankle," he protested, and she gave him comprehensive eyes.
"What else is wrong?"
Shit. "Just the ankle, Shi, don't be such a worry-wart." How he managed to keep a pleasant face while his whole body was throbbing remained nothing short of a miracle. "Are you going to let me go?"
"If I don't?"
"I'll leave anyway."
"You won't," she said firmly. "I'm locking the mausoleum if you do. And I'll throw away the key so you can't come back, not ever."
"You know I can just find it again in the garbage," he told her with a tight grimace."
"When I throw it in the ocean?" she asked sternly.
They stared at each other, locked in eye combat, until he finally sighed. He was in too much pain to argue. "Which bed?"
xxx
They finished the room in a few hours, and it actually looked no worse for wear. Resa, however, couldn't look outside without seeing the body until the GeneCollectors came, and a bit of nausea still swept her when she thought about it.
Nathan seemed to be doing all right without the bed rest, though, which was great. "You haven't had a hit of Zydrate for hours now," she remarked casually as they left the clean study so she could work on the lab. Even though he was a doctor, she wouldn't let him touch any of her things. It wasn't a trust issue, just a normal obsessive-compulsive issue. She wouldn't have let even Lauren the doctor touch it. "How are you feeling? Any pain?"
"Not really," Nathan lied, following Resa into her lab. The truth was that his leg was in agony but he was trying to ignore the pain and trying to build up a tolerance. Ever since the Repo thing formally introduced itself, he had sworn not to compromise his mental control. The experience of having something else command his body was horrifying, and he didn't want to give it any more chances then necessary to slip past his defenses. Nathan thought that if he refrained from drugs or alcohol, maybe he could keep the thing at bay.
He watched Risa take inventory of her zydrate, accounting for the few broken bottles that had burst in the struggle, skilled fingers working quickly and confidently. He couldn't risk her safety just because he was a little sore.
She made Nathan get back into bed as she picked up the instruments that had been knocked over and put almost everything back. One of the machines had been jostled and the wires unplugged, but that was the worst damage done. The only thing missing was the drip bag of diluted Z, but she hadn't expected that to be put back. When she offered a new drip to Nathan again, however, he declined with a reassuring smile.
"You must be feeling a lot better," she commented. "You're healing nicely, anyway. And the stolen lung held up outside, that's good. Any discomfort?"
He shook his head. "Hungry, then?"
That got a hesitant nod. She grinned and left to make them dinner.
xxx
"Oh my God!"
Graverobber winced at Shilo's horror.
"Shit, Graverobber! what did you do?"
"Nothing," he groaned. The bandages were sticking to the wounds and it wasn't exactly comfortable. "Stop pulling so hard."
"Sorry," Shilo murmured, using water to loosen the bandages. He didn't tell her that that only sparked and hurt even more. He looked down at his bare skin. It did look pretty bad - it normally did, but the bruises and cuts and scorches didn't help.
"How're your ribs?" she asked as she concentrated on scraping cream over the sides of the electric welts, tongue sticking out between her teeth. He smiled fondly at her, a mixture of distraction and pain making him forget to answer. She looked up. "Graves?"
"Oh, fine. Better. Whatever you gave me helped."
She nodded and looked down again. "It's not as good as Z, but it'll work." Her fingers brushed the cut and he winced. "Sorry!"
"Just around it, kid," he told her. She nodded and kept working.
"Are you sure you don't want any Zydrate? I bet I could..."
"No," he said firmly. "I never touch the stuff. Ever."
"I know, sorry. It's just ... this must hurt. A lot."
He laughed, sending spikes of pain down his sides. "Yeah. It does." Graverobber waited for the pain to dissipate some and leaned back, wondering what to do with his hands. He settled on peeling away the last bandage on his chest. He'd saved it because it was deeper and he knew it would cause more tearing pain than the others.
"How did this happen?" Shilo asked again, and Graverobber finally gave in.
"Amber's cronies," he replied shortly. "No money. Again."
He couldn't stop watching her hands. They worked so delicately, brushed the ointment precisely with light fingertips.
"Didn't use sex this time?" Shilo asked, and the phrasing was so blunt that Graverobber stared at her and snorted.
"She tried," he said, studying her expression. Her tone was cool and casual, eyes focused on her task. She laughed.
"Tried?"
"Yeah. I told her to get lost, and she told me to die. Same old."
Shilo's eyes flicked up at him, holding questions. "You didn't ... do it?"
He tried not to laugh at her uncomfortable, naïve look and shrugged. "I was tired, I needed cash."
He was making excuses. Why had he turned her down? It certainly wasn't worth all this. And now there'd probably be warrants out for his ass. He could dodge a few GENforcers, no problem, but it would make his normal selling places tough for a while.
"Oh," was all that Shilo said. She was playing casual, but he could see her ears turning red even when the tips were hidden beneath the slightly shaggy hair. Hobbit hair, he'd started calling it in his head when Shilo gave him Lord of the Rings to read. Classics were rare, but her father had had quite a sophisticated collection, mostly from being passed down. A large portion of Shilo's favorites were battered hardcovers bound in the late 2010s, but written much, much earlier.
"Disgusting," Graverobber had said when she first handed him the pile, and the smell of dust and old paper reached his nose. He hated books. She'd laughed.
"Just try one. You can't just watch that trash on TV all the time, it's not good for you."
"I'll never pick one up," he'd vowed. But the pile had been gone from the table the next night, even though he refused to acknowledge reading them.
"Graverobber?" Shilo interrupted his thoughts.
"Yeah, kid?"
She looked like she had a lot to get off her chest. She had for a while.
"Why didn't ... how come you've never asked me about my dad or anything?"
He wanted to squeeze her hand, but they were both decidedly busy. "I didn't want to rush you. I knew you'd tell me eventually."
Shilo smiled briefly. "Oh. I just ... I thought you just didn't care."
Graverobber wanted to laugh out loud, but considered the pain and decided not to. "Would I be here if I didn't?" he asked obviously.
"I suppose not," she admitted. "You do eat a lot of my food, though."
"Food that I buy!"
"With my money!"
He gave up. "Touche." He stretched out his leg, trying at the bandages on his chest again.
"And Graves?" she said again.
"Mm?"
"Does Amber ever ask about me?" she asked hesitantly. "I mean, I don't want her to think about me, I just know she's seen us together a few times. I dunno if she's ever made the connection or anything ... I just don't want to be a target. I don't ever want GeneCo."
He smiled reassuringly at her and brushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear. "You won't be, kitten, don't worry. Amber's happy on her throne." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the headboard. "No one'll ever think twice about you."
Shilo smiled, looking relieved. "That's good," she said. "I'd rather just sink into the background. No questions asked."
