Interlude
The Instrument of Darkness Tells Us Truths
That was…” Caoimhe lay wrapped around Lusa, one leg thrown across her waist, attempting to stretch out her sore and cramped muscles. “Intense.” Her heart thundered like an unmuffled V-twin. Getting words out was difficult. “I thought you said you never…”
“It’s why I don’t do relationships.” Lusa interrupted. She trailed fingertips across Caoimhe’s radiating skin, but the action felt sombre rather than celebratory.
Caoimhe craned her neck, silently cursing her height. “Unbelievable sex is why you don’t do relationships? You’re ridiculous, yeah?” But Lusa’s expression didn’t change.
“No,” Lusa said with too much regret for her to be joking. Caoimhe waited. Whatever it was, it was more than the temporary nature of whatever this was. “I always want too much. I’m bad at controlling myself.”
That sounded perilously close to Caoimhe’s own jealousy issues. “Go on.” she traced the swell of her breast, delighting in the juxtaposition of her ceramic fingertip against uncorrupted flesh.
“I don’t think you want me to.” She inhaled, holding her breath. Lusa looked uncharacteristically small and scared.
“You don’t have to tell me.” Caoimhe tried her best to sound comforting. “But if it’s a kink thing, there isn’t much I haven’t seen.”
Her breath formed curlicues in the cool air of the tent. Somewhere outside, a chorus of insects sang, the hold music to fill the silence while Lusa gathered whatever pieces she needed to answer a question Caoimhe had no right to ask.
But she did. “If I lose control.” Lusa stopped and sniffed. “Start falling, there’s part of me that always wants more. More than anyone can give. I hurt people. I can’t. I…” Lusa took a few quick breaths.
Caoimhe placed a hand on her chest, hoping she could communicate enough sympathy through her eyes while suppressing the giddiness of learning that Lusa might be falling for her too.
“It’s like there’s a voice in my head,” Lusa whispered. The tremor put Caoimhe on edge. What could a woman like this possibly have to fear? “Like when you’re up really high and part of you wants to jump.”
“That’s normal, though.” Caoimhe drew soothing circles across her sternum.
“Is it? Have you ever bitten someone so hard you drew blood?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s where this came from, yeah?” Caoimhe skimmed a fingertip across Lusa’s bottom lip.
“So hard part of them…” Lusa’s mouth trembled. Caoimhe wanted badly to kiss her, to make it stop.
“…came off?” The words tumbled out like an accusation that Caoimhe couldn’t possibly understand. Lusa pulled away, anticipating Caoimhe’s revulsion.
But Caoimhe remained. While unexpected, it didn’t shock her, either. It was a missing piece, a key that explained a lot about the woman she was trying so hard not to fall in love with and failing badly. “That’s why you wanted me to choke you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
Caoimhe pulled her close. “It’s okay. I’d probably keep that secret too.” She hoped the dark humour would be received as understanding rather than rejection. Her mouth always did work faster than her brain. But since she’d already dug the hole, Caoimhe kept digging.
“There’s a camgirl witch who does that.” Caoimhe pressed her cheek against Lusa’s shoulder, avoiding her eyes. Lusa didn’t pull away.
“Greasegun is friends with one of her exes. She uses the money to buy implants to replace the parts she eats.”
That was too far. Lusa sat up, looking horrified. “That’s not…”
Caoimhe scrambled to recover. “No-one has ever wanted me enough to eat me, though.” She turned her head and placed a kiss. “That’s fucking hot. The wanting part. Don’t actually eat me, yeah?” Caoimhe rambled.
Lusa made a noise like a strangled laugh. “I don’t really, though.” Her eyes reddening, tears spilled freely. How long had she been carrying that? “It just happens when I like someone too much. Something else takes over.” Lusa’s voice wavered.
Caoimhe stared, searching for a hint of regret, but either Lusa was sincere or she didn’t realise that she’d admitted she liked her. “I like you too.”
A sob-laugh later, Lusa confessed. “I’ve never met anyone like you,” she admitted. “I don’t know what this means. It’s not fair.”
Caoimhe traced a hand along her bicep. The lacerations she’d left had stopped bleeding, but ugly bruises circled them. “I know.” Fairness wasn’t a concept in Tyton. Justice and retribution were. But this felt particularly unfair.
Lusa sniffed again and shook her head. “You don’t get it.”
Caoimhe wasn’t sure what there was left to get. “I want to get it.” She splayed her fingers across Lusa’s chest. Lusa’s mouth quivering, the steady thrum of her heartbeat picked up.
And then it spilled, the dam holding back the flood cracked and burst. “No-one my age has cyberware. They can’t stop me if I lose control.” Her chest heaved like the best part of a terrible romance novel. “I hurt the last person I had a real relationship with. That’s why Alana hates me.”
Trying her best to absorb Lusa’s avowal, Caoimhe tried to both comfort her and process everything she’d let slip. “No-one in the whole city? Because of your biosig blockers?”
Lusa grabbed her hands, like she urgently needed Caoimhe to understand. “There is no biosig to block. We’re different. Genetically, I mean. We can’t even use DocPods.”
Caoimhe’s mouth opened and closed several times. The biosig blocking tech everyone had been after didn’t exist. The Adlets hadn’t disappeared because they were cyber wizards, they just couldn’t use cyberware. How could they have been so blind?
A million questions paraded through Caoimhe’s mind, but the girl she maybe liked and who maybe liked her back was hurting. They could wait. “You’re like, a different species, then?” Caoimhe hoped her smile would lighten the mood. Lusa’s tears had dried but the redness remained.
The breath of her laugh burbled through tears. “I guess.”
No wonder Pinga needed a prosthetic arm. Caoimhe would have to reconsider everything she thought she knew. Later. “Well, that’s a relief. I was afraid of getting you pregnant. But if you’re a different species, that can’t happen.”
Lusa couldn’t help but fully laugh this time. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Yeah, we’re too old anyway.” Caoimhe agreed. Aside from pulling her back to the sleeping bag, Lusa didn’t respond.
They settled into a comfortable silence, the ebb and flow of Caoimhe’s breath across Lusa’s chest. The shape of Lusa’s body conforming around her, like Lusa had been designed specifically for her.
Her oxy levels must be off the charts with her hormone regulator turned off, but she didn’t care.
Right now, Lusa felt like home. “Will you show me one day?”
Lusa’s heart stopped. Caoimhe heard and lifted her head. One day meant more than a fling. Would Lusa think she was asking for more? She did want more, even if she had no idea what that would look like.
Lusa chose to deflect. “My moms would kill you.”
Caoimhe’s natural inclination to be oppositional got the better of her.
“You didn’t kill me.” It was true, even if she now sounded like she was trying to convince Lusa to introduce her to her parents.
“You didn’t eat me either,” she added. Sexualising the conversation to distract from what she had said previously was a terrible idea, but her brain always did play catch-up to her mouth.
“I still could.” Lusa looked terrified at the possibility.
Lusa’s problem. The one she had carried for years, the one she believed insurmountable, Caoimhe had a solution for that one, at least. Her cyberware booted up with a high-pitched electric whine. “I dare you to try, lioness.”
Interlude
The rover jostled over ruts and soft spots in the half-thawed tundra, throwing Alana from side to side. After a day and a half of this, her arse was bruised and she was in a horrible mood. Sparx’s survival tent in the distance meant only half an hour more of this nonsense.
Siku had been sparse on the details, but the message had been clear; Lusa had asked for her specifically.
Why Sesi was letting Lusa give orders, she couldn’t fathom, especially after she’d left without any warning to chase Pinga.
Talia agreed. The only one who seemed reluctant had been Callie.
None of them had any control over their children.
Begrudgingly, Alana could admit Lusa was more than capable. Her and Talia would spend hours running, training, throwing dangerous objects around and strategizing for some unlikely scenario. They were both fucked up violent psychopaths, as far as she was concerned.
Even if Danica’s scar had been an accident, it only proved her point. Lusa was dangerous, whether or not it was intentional. Cam thought she was too harsh and a month passed before Danica spoke to her again.
Just as well. For every teenage girl who thinks they’re Juliet, there’s a mother who remembers it was a tragedy.
Time passed. Her and Lusa worked security together and there were no more incidents. Only because Alana never dropped her guard.
Another depression smacked her hard. Her hip bones would be feeling that tomorrow. This detour made no sense. Talia was also half-way here. Why hadn’t she asked for her?
Grateful to pull up next to the tent, Alana finally managed to stretch her legs.
Red rays had turned yellow and a gentle breeze blew in from the East as the air warmed, but the tent remained still and quiet.
Lusa tended to be up before dawn and given the urgency of the situation, Alana worried this might be a trap.
She adjusted her aural processors, hoping they hadn’t been damaged after all that jostling.
Alana approached cautiously, though her heavy rubber soles still made too much noise against the flat rock.
The tent shivered in the breeze, but nothing stirred inside.
Hearing only breathing, she confirmed her processors were fine.