Chapter 24 HUNTER
HUNTER
MY WHOLE BODY FREEZES in place as I realize Cleo’s not alone. She’s standing in the middle of the bridge facing the woman with the forehead tattoo, who … wait, has her hands up?
Holy shit, Cleo’s got her gun.
When she turns her head and sees me, she goes perfectly still.
Turn around! I silently urge her. Don’t give the merc a chance to lunge for the gun!
Whatever I expected when I got here, it wasn’t this. I tried to tell Cleo that we’d told Rover – Marguerite – that we were in the greenhouse, so we couldn’t meet there. But she tore off, and afraid to shout or draw attention, I ran after her.
‘This your boyfriend?’ asks the woman with her hands up.
‘Shut up,’ snaps Cleo, in a tone that would render me silent forever if she aimed it my way.
I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to distract her or interrupt whatever play she’s making. The smallest flicker of hope is springing to life inside me – maybe she’s trying to get this woman to start a rover for us?
Maybe we can run.
The woman speaks again, clearly not that bothered by Cleo’s tone. ‘We can talk about getting him on the list too, babe.’
I frown. What exactly has Cleo been discussing with this woman? I speak before I have a chance to think. ‘What list?’
The mercenary – still keeping her hands raised carefully in the air – leans to one side so she can look around Cleo.
Her gaze rakes up and down me, measuring something, before she speaks again.
‘Wait, is he a local? I assumed you were running with another hitcher, but this boy has money written all over his pretty self.’
Cleo’s eyes widen and her lips part like she’s looking for words but can’t find them.
It takes a long moment for the woman’s words to sink in. Another hitcher.
Cleo’s … what?
But even in my confusion, the pieces start slotting into place, each one a new blow, each one sending me reeling. It all fits together.
Cleo never told me why she didn’t make it off base during the evac. I was too busy to ask that first time I found her on the bridge.
But if she wasn’t supposed to be here, that explains why she didn’t want to pick anything up from her quarters when I offered. She doesn’t have quarters.
It explains how she knew so many back ways and shortcuts.
She told me just a couple of minutes ago in the garage that she knows places others don’t.
She told me we couldn’t radio Rover to warn her because we didn’t have a password to log in to a console.
I didn’t even think to ask about her password.
Cleo lied her way onto Mars, then she pretended to listen, to care as I showed her the pieces of my heart. And all along she was lying to me at every turn about who she was. A hitcher. One of the people who stole my father from me. Did she think they were justified? Did she agree with them?
‘No,’ I say slowly, trying to push through the numbness, to find some kind of feeling on the other side. ‘I’m not another hitcher. I take it you two know each other?’
‘Aw,’ says the woman, lowering her hands and planting them on her hips.
‘Cleo, you didn’t tell him about us? Kid, the two of us go way back.
We’ve been talking about options for an exit strategy for a while now.
Not a great time to be at Pax. I was just explaining to Cleo that she doesn’t actually need to die today.
And by today, I mean in two and a half hours, actually, so we should keep this moving. ’
‘Shut up, Sabrina,’ Cleo says softly.
‘How do you know her?’ I ask, though I know the answer.
Cleo won’t meet my gaze – she’s still gripping the gun, but it’s pointed at the floor, and she’s staring at a drink bottle someone left behind on their desk like it holds all the answers she knows she owes me.
What does talking for a while mean?
The lights flicker overhead, and Cleo lifts her gaze briefly, eyes narrowing as she studies the fittings.
‘For a moment,’ I say quietly, ‘I actually thought I knew you.’
Cleo flinches, her mouth tightening, but she doesn’t reply. What could she say?
‘I thought I knew you,’ I say again, softer still. ‘I guess I was wrong.’
This is why you don’t give a piece of yourself to anybody. All you’re doing is making yourself vulnerable. And when you do, they hurt you.
One way or another, they leave.
And sometimes it turns out they were never there at all.