“She’s not deformed. She’s a human. It is an entirely different kind of entity.”
“Sounds disgusting.”
Katie was offended, but couldn’t express it. She had to keep her back to the soldiers and the shopkeeper and shuffle upstairs as if she were a genuine customer. The suit was doing her a lot of favors, hiding her lack of wings and helping her to blend in with the rest of the customers.
Crowds were her friend. She had always liked them. Crowds were the perfect way to blend in and stay safe in numbers. Some liked to stand out in crowds. Not Katie. She liked being one among an endless number of others.
The soldiers turned around and walked out. They didn’t really seem that motivated to find her, and from the sounds of things, they also didn’t actually have any idea what she looked like. Apparently Dominax didn’t have pictures.
The stores were crowded with goods, and Katie had grown up in similar terrain. The suit had deep pockets, enough to slip a few relevant items into. Once she’d picked up what she hoped was food and drink, she headed back out of the store and up through the stairways to what looked like a park, except instead of trees there were rocks, and small lava installations like waterfalls but more likely to burn your face off if you fell in.
Katie made sure not to do that. She found a seat not too far away from the crowds, somewhere she wouldn’t stick out, but not so close anybody would take a second look at her. She pulled out her little stash of stolen items and started picking through them.
“Cute suit.”
A young male Homelander was standing next to her, his hair tousled, his feathers ruffled in what looked like a deliberate fashion. He smiled broadly, and welcomingly. He had pale eyes and dark hair, cut much shorter than the king’s.
“Thanks,” she said. “A friend gave it to me.”
“Bit old to need a suit, aren’t you?”
“I have a skin condition,” she lied smoothly. It came so easily to her. She never realized how much living in New York had prepared her for fitting in on a fucked-up alien planet.
“My cousin had a skin condition,” he said. “Had to spread cream all over himself twice a day, but eventually he sort of got over it. Moved off-planet. It’s the vapor.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“You’re eating a lot of junk food.”
“Is that what this is? I thought they were the components of a healthy meal.”
“You’re funny.” He laughed. “I like your sense of humor.”
Shit. He was hitting on her. She wasn’t going to get into this, not with anyone. Not because she belonged to Dominax, but because…well, she didn’t want to get anybody killed. She could only imagine what Dominax would do to this alien skater boy.
She did what she would have done to a guy on Earth. She looked through him without smiling, until the smile fell off his face. He shrugged and walked away.
None of the food tasted good, but some of it did seem vaguely edible. She nibbled at it and watched the Homelanders and their alien counterparts wander about in a vague sort of way. There was another winged beast up there somewhere, higher, up toward the sun, circling overhead. It had a much wider wingspan than most of the Homelanders, and there was a certain imposingness which made her want to cower from it.
Dominax.
She knew it was him. She could feel him, even at this great distance. She had to trust in the power of the crowd, and in keeping her head down, that he would not find her. He might be the most spectacular thing in the sky, but she was one dot among many thousands. There was no way to catch her. Not unless she fucked up somehow.
10 Consequencelessness
“Stop! Thief!”
Well, that didn’t last long. Katie scurried through the streets of the city, a big batch of Homeworld currency tucked under her arm. She shouldn’t have been so brazen, but she’d gotten away with every theft so far.
She’d gotten cocky. That was her mistake.
It had been thirty days since Alf sprang her from the palace. Thirty days in which the city had been searched and swept enough times to annoy the citizenry into near rebellion. She had not been found, obviously.
But she was about to get fucking caught by the guards who were flying way fucking faster than she could run, overtaking her with gusty beats of their wings.
It was fucking hard to run in the suit. The filtration could keep up with normal breathing, but it didn’t work for running. She was gasping for air that just wasn’t there, dropping a trail of stolen money behind her as she headed for the overbuilt area of the city where the poor lived, and where the soldiers would be forced to land to catch her.