Eko (NINE Series, #1)

  * * *

  From the outside, the Vendor Mill looked like a square, squat box, plopped in the center of the city. Inside, the smell of grease and gasoline was overwhelming. Waves of people knocked into Sydel, first on the left, then on the right, as she followed the strangers down the dank corridor. Ahead, a break of light: the marketplace. Cloth banners of every color draped over makeshift stores, stalls and display tables. Vendors in magenta robes called out their wares, sometimes grabbing at people’s sleeves to force them to look. The multi-pitched voices, mixed with the roar of transport ships and ground vehicles, made for a weirdly melodic backdrop to all the commotion. That was what Sydel told herself, anyways, as she cupped her hands over her ears, trying to process all the stimulation.

  Leading the group, Renzo suddenly stopped. “My repair job’s this way,” he gestured to a dark opening to the left. “Shouldn’t take long. Meet back in an hour.”

  He limped off into the masses. Cohen and Phaira kept walking. Phaira hovered behind Cohen’s enormous frame, her eyes darting in all directions. Why is she so afraid? Sydel wondered. Should I be afraid too?

  As they reached the center of the Vendor Mill, people moved in a kaleidoscope of color. Sales took place at rapid speed, with lots of fingers pointing. Sydel slipped on a puddle of oil, and she resisted the urge to moan.

  Then Phaira was backing away from them, moving into the surging crowds.

  “Hey, wait, where are you going?” Cohen yelled after her. “We should stay together.”

  “I’ll be right back!” Phaira said sharply. Then her expression shifted. “I’m not going to a dealer, Cohen,” she continued, her tone gentler. “Of any kind. I promise. I just want to buy my things in privacy. Okay? Take Sydel and show her how to barter. I’ll be right back.”

  Before Cohen could say anything more, Phaira disappeared. People rushed into the void left by the woman; when their frantic energy crashed into Sydel, she felt the urge to just let her body be carried away….

  Then Cohen’s enormous bulk was before her. The crowd curved around them and she could breathe.

  “Sorry,” he told her. “I can take you around, if you want. Or we can just go back to the Vol, if it’s too much. It must look pretty crazy to you.”

  Sydel lowered her hands from her ears. “It’s - you’re very considerate,” she managed.

  Cohen shrugged. “I know it’s strange. It’s strange for me too sometimes. Don’t know what’s happening half of the time.” He kicked at an oil spot as his voice trailed off.

  A tiny flicker of affection grew in Sydel. She expected such a large man to be aggressive. But he was kind. He meant well.

  So she forced a smile and touched his arm. “Phaira mentioned bartering? I’ve never done that. Show me how?”

  Cohen grinned. “I can do that.” He practically bounced as he made a path for her. Thankful for his great shadow in the crowd, Sydel studied the little swirls in Cohen’s hairline, shorn so close to the scalp. He was a good man. Renzo did repair work; there was nothing evil about that. Phaira acted strangely and she still wondered about the circumstances of that gunshot sound, but maybe she was wrong about them.

  A ripple went through the air.

  She froze in place. A flash of magenta caught her eye in the distance, perhaps a balding head.

  Sydel.

  “Yann?” she whispered. Had he followed her all this way?

  Cohen didn’t notice her stopping; he kept walking, weaving around a pillar towards the open market.

  Then everything burst into white.

  V.

  Her ears rang so loudly that it took a moment to register her own whimpers of fear. But Sydel’s mind filled with collective terror, voices screaming and crying in a million octaves. She squeezed her head with both hands, trying to manage the overflow. Her right hand grew wet and warm. She was lying on the floor, covered in dust. Cohen was - Cohen? She strained to see through the billowing smoke. A few people lay on the floor, moaning and writhing, but Cohen….

  There he was, ten feet in front of her, lying on his side. Sydel crawled to him, coughing. She put her hand on his shoulder. Cohen didn’t move.

  “Cohen?” she whispered.

  He screwed up his face in pain. Sydel quickly assessed his condition. His pulse was slow; his blood pressure was probably dropping. His breathing was ragged, but no sign of a lung collapse. There were spots of blood on his shirt. Tiny pieces of shrapnel had torn through his chest, but Cohen gave no reaction when she swept her trembling hands over his arms and legs checking for broken bones.

  And where were the siblings? Were they hurt, too? Should she run? What if he was dying? What if they all were dying and she couldn’t do anything?

  Panicking, Sydel broke open her mind, her thoughts soaring through the Vendor Mill. Phaira! Renzo! Please!

  Suddenly, Phaira burst through the smoke and slid next to Cohen’s body. “Co!” she panted, her clothes smeared with soot, her hair wild around her face. “Are you okay? Are you awake?”

  “Prefer not to be,” Cohen mumbled, ending his sentence with a cough and a groan.

  Phaira flinched at the sound of sirens in the distance. “Please tell me we can take him back to the Vol,” she begged Sydel. “And you can heal him there.”

  Sydel stared at the woman. “I’ve never done anything like this alone.”

  “But you can manage, right?” Phaira’s gaze dropped as she spoke under her breath. “We can’t go to a hospital, we can’t have any records taken. We have to get out of here.”

  “I - I need an ultrasound to be certain,” Sydel said. “In the Communia, we had a device for remote imaging - do you have those out here? Can you buy one? Or - ?”

  Before Sydel could finish the sentence, Phaira had disappeared into the smoke.

  Cohen tried to sit up, but his face went gray with the movement. Sydel took hold of his big hand. “Be still,” she ordered.

  “Dizzy,” he muttered. His hot fingers gripped hers. “What happened? You alright?”

  “I’m fine,” Sydel told him. “We’re going to take you back to the Vol, just as soon as your sister -”

  Phaira emerged again, a white metal box tucked under her arm. “There’s an ultrasound in there,” she told Sydel, shoving it at her. “Do it quickly.”

  Sydel popped open the case; a gleaming remote ultrasound lay inside, along with gauze, scissors, sterile cloths, a stethoscope and blood pressure monitor, all neatly arranged. She quickly screwed the device together and activated it; holding the screen to her eye, she scanned down Cohen’s body, starting at his head and working down each arm and leg.

  Past her point of vision, Phaira’s foot tapped over and over. “Is he okay?” she asked twice.

  Sydel swallowed as she lowered the ultrasound. “I think I can manage.”

  “Good. And he can walk, right?”

  “I think so. The drop in cardiovascular output - ”

  Phaira waved her hand impatiently. Then the woman ducked underneath Cohen’s arm and gestured for Sydel to do the same. “Come on,” she told her brother. “Time to get up.”

  Sydel replaced everything in the box and gripped it in her left hand. She put her right shoulder under Cohen’s arm, and with Phaira, together they rose to their feet, straining under Cohen’s weight. The brother groaned, but he was able to support his body enough for them to walk as a trio.

  Slowly, they made their way back to the garage, maneuvering past the injured. Paramedics ran past them, carrying the same white metal boxes. Sydel’s mouth dropped open.

  “Did you steal this kit?” she hissed at the blue-haired woman across Cohen’s chest.

  Phaira just shot her a look.

  Sydel gripped the handle of the white box as they ran. Should she drop it? She didn’t dare. It was too valuable.

  When they had dragged Cohen into the Volante and onto his bed, they split off: Phaira to start the engines, Sydel to her little storage unit. She didn’t have much f
rom the Communia, but Yann had been kind enough to include her personal medical kit, complete with healing balms.

  On re-entry to Cohen’s room, the smell of burnt flesh and chemicals choked her nostrils. Sydel snapped on a pair of gloves and tore his shirt in spurts until she could pull it off his body. Little chunks of metal were embedded in his chest and right arm. Shallow, though, and small. There were some pink patches on his hands, possibly second-degree burns. But it didn’t seem like there was anything more. He was lucky, so lucky. She recalled the pillar in front of her, before everything went white; it probably kept her from serious injury. Just as lucky as Cohen.

  The Volante shuddered. Sydel felt her stomach drop as they lurched into flight. A few seconds later, Phaira returned, staring at her brother from the doorway, wringing her hands.

  A strange anger rose in Sydel. “Come in here and help me,” she ordered Phaira. “Go into my kit and take out the burn ointment. In the green jar.”

  Phaira rummaged through the bag and withdrew the container. Sydel nodded; she had mixed it only one week ago, so it should be at full potency, ready to trigger the skin to regenerate its lost layers. Sydel kept that detail to herself, though; she didn’t know much about medicine in the outside world.

  “You can apply it,” she told Phaira. “Put gloves on and be gentle. Just where the skin is pink on his hands.”

  “Me?” Phaira looked ill at the thought.

  “Yes, you.”

  I sound like Yann, Sydel thought suddenly. She didn’t quite know how to feel about that.

  As Sydel began to extract the metal pieces and staunch the flow of blood, the sister scooped the milky white gel from the jar and applied it to her brother’s hands. Cohen’s body stiffened, shaking with pain.

  At the sight, warmth prickled in Sydel’s palm again, but this time, she could breathe. Red circles swam behind her eyes, and instinctually, Sydel mentally chanted: Be calm. Be still.

  Cohen’s hands unclenched and his breathing began to slow. The red receded into nothing.

  When his body was clean and bandaged, Cohen struggled to sit up. Both Sydel and Phaira moved to push him back. “You need to rest,” Phaira told him.

  “Where’s Ren?” Cohen mumbled.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Phaira soothed. “We’re on our way to pick him up. You need to sleep.”

  As the women exited, Phaira headed in the direction of the cockpit. Sydel retreated to her little storage unit, slid behind all the water units into her little alcove. Then she allowed herself to crumble into a ball on the floor.

  An hour later, a knock on the door. Sydel lifted her head from the quilt she’d bunched into a pillow. She had cleaned up her head wound, and hoped to sleep a little, but it was no use. The scenes of the Mill were on constant rotation in her brain: the sounds of the market, the burst of hot white, the moaning, broken people.

  “Sydel? Are you in there?”

  Renzo’s voice made her instantly nervous. But she brushed away any hint of tears and stood up.

  “Yes,” she called. “I’m here.”

  The door creaked open. Over the top of the crates, Renzo looked exhausted, his blond hair sticking up, his tanned face streaked with soot.

  After a long, uncomfortable silence, Sydel spoke first. “Your brother will be fine.”

  Renzo nodded, avoiding her eyes.

  The silence continued. Sydel didn’t dare to say anything more.

  “I’m just -” Renzo said abruptly. He cleared his throat. “I’m very - we’re very lucky that you are here.”

  Before Sydel could respond, he was gone.

  She had done the right thing. It felt incredible.

  But only for a moment, as the sounds of arguing travelled through the open door.

  Leaning over the threshold, Sydel saw Renzo grab Phaira’s arm, just outside of the common room. Phaira brushed him off. “I need to get back there before it’s wiped clean,” she was saying.

  “This had nothing to do with you!” Renzo snapped, hobbling after her.

  “How do you know that?” Phaira challenged. “I told you, one of them is still out there - ”

  “That guy is not going to expose himself in public,” Renzo shot back. “If he knows you’re alive, and if he cares that you are, he’ll attempt something a little more direct.”

  Something clicked in Sydel’s brain. “You speak of the one who shot Phaira,” she impulsively called out.

  The siblings stopped fighting. First they stared at her, and then at each other.

  Sydel exhaled with a huff. She was already so tired of their secret looks. “Please just tell me the truth,” she insisted. “I have a right to know if I am in any immediate danger.”

  “She’s right,” Renzo said.

  Phaira whipped around to argue, but he held up his hand. “You know she’s right. We can provide some details. Some,” he added pointedly. “It’s only fair.”

  Several seconds passed. Sydel did her best to refrain from blinking.

  Finally, Phaira stomped past Renzo to enter the common room. Renzo exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

  “Let’s go,” he told Sydel. “You asked for this.”

  Inside, Phaira slumped in a chair, her head in her hands. Renzo leaned against the chipped table, his long fingers tapping the edge.

  “Sit down,” he instructed, as Sydel hesitated by the doorframe.

  Sydel took the seat closest to the entryway. Her fingers plucked at her dress; she hadn’t noticed, but there were speckles of blood in the fine fabric. Hers? Or Cohen’s?

  “About a year ago, a very - notorious - man died in an accident,” Renzo began, glancing at the top of Phaira’s head. “Phaira was blamed for his death and driven into hiding. Co and I searched for her for months. Then her solar tracker went off in your commune. You know what that is?”

  The little cylinder, with the sun etching. The tiny click. That’s how the brothers came to Communia. She had summoned them.

  Sydel pressed her mouth together, and shook her head.

  Renzo shrugged, continuing. “It wasn’t until we came back on the Vol that we found out...”

  His voice trailed off.

  Then Phaira’s blue head lifted. “Four bounty hunters tried to kill me. That’s how I got shot. But one got away, and I think he might be behind the bombing.”

  Her eyes met Sydel’s. “And the reason I came into your clinic.”

  It was a pointed remark. She was talking about the very tall man, but she didn’t want Renzo to know about it.

  Sydel blinked a few times, processing.

  “He got away,” she repeated. “There were four hunters.”

  “Yes. And I had to defend myself.”

  So the rest were dead? By her hand?

  She is a murderer.

  I have healed a murderer.

  As she stood up, Sydel did her best to speak without trembling. “It would be best if I were to leave now.”

  “No!”

  Sydel shrank back at the man’s outburst.

  Phaira bolted upright, her boots making a loud thump on the floor. “Ren!”

  Ignoring his sister, Renzo lifted his palms to Sydel. “Please don’t go yet,” he pleaded. “Please.”

  “Ren!” Phaira warned. “If she wants to leave…”

  “No!” Renzo fired back over his shoulder. “I’m thinking of Co now. And you too.”

  Renzo turned back to Sydel. His hands clasped in front of his sternum. He is begging me, Sydel realized with shock.

  “Sydel, we’ll make a decent room for you,” Renzo said. “Whatever you need or want. I’ll make sure you transition into a new life, a safe one. But I need to know that if something else happens…”

  He wrung his hands as he paused. The man’s energy was white and frantic.

  “Please. Please stay for a little longer. ”