Chapter 2: Axis | page 8

They were close now. Within seconds, the strutting women would be close enough to see Maeve and Coldhand. She jammed the barrel of the Talon-9 up under Coldhand’s chin. With a sharp jerk, she finished the work of her first needle slash and tore off the Prian’s shirt. There was a thick, knotted scar in the center of his chest, about the length and width of one of her fingers. That must have been the wound that took his first heart, the real one. Maeve had to stretch up onto her toes to grab Coldhand by the throat.

There was raucous laughter and jeering cheers as the gang caught sight of them. The ragged collection of women stopped at the mouth of the alleyway, holding their nanoknives aloft and howling at her in vicious approval. One of them, a tall Ixthian missing three of her fingers on her knife hand, whistled approvingly.

“Don’t bleed him too much yet,” she said, smirking at Coldhand. The Prian made an impressive show of trying to turn away, looking ashamed. “Lose too much and he won’t do you any good, eh?”

“You like them ugly, don’t you?” another Sister asked. She thrust her hips suggestively. “Careful with that one, he might be metal down below, too!”

Maeve smiled thinly at the poor joke. “Nothing will remain to him, metal or otherwise, when I am finished,” she said.

“Just make sure to clean up when you’re done,” the Ixthian called. “Don’t leave boy-trash on my streets!”

Maeve nodded in reply. Laughing and hooting, the women continued down the road, their search momentarily forgotten as they loudly commended Maeve’s conduct. Their voices faded into the distance as they resumed looking for their willfully lost sister. Not a word of derision for the bird-back intruder. Little as they regarded Arcadians, these women clearly thought even less of men. Maeve leaned heavily against Coldhand, the gun still pressed into the soft spot under his jaw.

“Ja’hiraa ilvae,” she whispered. It would be so simple.

The Sisters would say nothing. No witnesses. For a year Coldhand had hunted her. Thousands of cenmarks poured into nanite surgery, days guarded in a hospital bed for the injuries this man had lavished on her. Yet he had never taken her, never killed her, never captured her. Maeve’s gaze wandered to a pale line across Coldhand’s shoulder. That scar was hers, left by her spear early in his chase. He had almost as many scars from their skirmishes as she did.

Almost.

It could all end right now. Maeve tightened her finger on the Talon’s trigger. It could all end now. Just pull the trigger and then… She flipped the gun in her small hand and offered it back to Coldhand by the grip. He took the Talon quickly and thrust it back into the long holster on his belt.

“They’re gone,” he called back into the alley.

The girl, Kessa, tumbled from her hiding place. She lurched forward and awkwardly threw her arms around the pair, sobbing her hysterical thanks.

“We cannot leave her here. The Sisters will find her if she remains,” Maeve said.

Coldhand nodded in mute agreement. They looked at each other over the Dailon girl’s head with narrowed eyes. Ice blue and storm gray, neither one relenting or forgiving. Their battle had been interrupted, but not forgotten.

- End Chapter 2 -