“Couldn’t agree more, princess.” And then he kisses me. Hard and deep. But also soft and tender. It’s the perfect kiss and I want it to go on forever, but Flicka is suddenly buzzing in my ear.
“Oh, shit!”
“What?” Jimmy asks. “She’s been buzzing like a maniac for the last few minutes but I can’t understand her.”
“She says she’s out of venom, so she can’t help us get out of here.”
“Don’t you worry, little beebot,” Jimmy says. “I got this now. Grab all the rifles, Delphi. And get ready. We’re gonna have to shoot our way out and then…” He sighs. “I don’t know. Dicker is dead. I don’t know how we’ll get out of here.”
“Dead? No!”
“She is. I saw her disappear when the station fired back. She just… shimmered away into nothingness.”
“No!” I say. “No, that’s her new cloaking bullshit. It had some weird reverse setting that could cloak you backwards half a million klicks after your thirty-seven seconds were up.”
“What?” Jimmy says.
“She’s still alive.”
“We need to find a control room, now!” Jimmy says. “And give her permission to dock.”
“What about him?” I ask, pointing to the boy.
“I give no fucks about him.”
“I know, but Jimmy—” I feel sad all of a sudden. “Get up, you stupid boy! You’re coming too.”
“No way!” Jimmy says. “He’s gonna get us killed.”
“I know where a control room is,” the boy says, getting to his feet. “And I can get you there fast if you take me with you.”
Jimmy looks at him. Then me.
I say, “Let him come with us. It’s not his fault.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN – JIMMY
There is a rage inside me that wants to burst out in the form of a swift kick to the head when I look at this boy. I want to tear his throat out. I want to rip his limbs off. It’s irrational, and sick, and scares me a little. Because even though I’ve always been capable of such things, I have never felt an urge to kill someone quite like I do this kid.
“Please,” Delphi says. “He can point and shoot a rifle, at least.”
I glance at the door Flicka and I came through. There’s plasma fire on the other side. And lots of angry cyborgs.
I fucked up the electronic lock to keep the borgs following us at bay. Hoping there was another way out of this sector when I did that. And there probably is another way out, I just have no clue where it is.
This boy does. And Delphi’s right. He can point and shoot a rifle.
“Fine,” I say, talking to the boy. “But if you touch her—”
“He won’t,” Delphi says, before I can get my threat out. “Let’s go, boy.”
For some reason it makes me feel better that Delphi doesn’t know his name. He glances nervously at me when he pushes his way through the door. I hand both of them a rifle from the stash on my shoulder and say, “Lead on,” to the boy.
He spares a single glance at the door that is about to be breached by an angry mob of Loathsome Borgs, then turns in the other direction and jogs down the hallway.
“We have to get everyone out of this sector first,” he calls, stopping at a control room.
“Is there docking bay access in here?” I say.
“No, but—”
“Then we don’t have time.”
“But my friends,” the boy says.
This makes me hesitate. Because what if my sister is on the other side of one of these doors?
But the door on the opposite end of the hall begins to crumple inward, a clear sign that the borgs are about to get through. And I can’t risk Delphi over a sister I just found out about. So I repeat myself. “We don’t. Have time.” But now it’s a growl laced with a threat. “And you said you’d get us out, not them.”
He looks at Delphi, silently pleading. But Delphi takes my side. “We can’t. We’ll all die if we don’t go now.”
The boy takes one last glance at the closed doors in this hallway, then gives in and takes off running. There’s no borgs on the other side of the next door we approach and open. Yet. But I’m sure they’re on their way.
We don’t stop, just start zigzagging our way through a maze of endless corridors. Every time borgs appear in our path, Delphi and I take them out.
The boy doesn’t even aim his rifle and I’m starting to wonder if he’s gonna lead us into a trap.
Like… where do this kid’s loyalties lie? Does he really want to leave? Or does he think if we get caught, he’ll get Delphi?
I don’t know. But there’s not much I can do about that if I want any chance of giving Dicker docking permission. If she’s not dead, then she’s out there. Waiting for us to give her access.