Page 12 of Throwing Fire

Kez shakes her head. That’s not how the rats are modified and Kez is educated enough to know it, despite an alleged learning disability that her siblings like to throw at her, but I haven’t seen any evidence of. “Maybe he just wants what he can’t have,” she says with a shrug. “Like all guys.”

Mmm, I wondered if the rats’ love-triangle would dredge up that bit of history. Kez’s ex cheated on her with Kez’s best friend. To say that betrayal left a mark on Kez is an understatement. “Not all guys,” I say slowly. I’m always careful to correct Kez when she projects that shit on me. I’d never cheat on my kitten; someday she’ll believe that.

“Okay, all guys but you,” she concedes.

I grunt in acknowledgement. “We’ll compare notes after.” Prurient interest in Acker’s love-life aside, if he’s going to become our go-to man on the south shore, it’d be good to understand what motivates him.

“Hey,” she says softly, focusing me on the here and now, her expressive little face looking up at me. “It’s nice, you know. Getting dressed up. Going out with you.”

I give her a squeeze. “Yeah.”

Kez and I have barely been together long enough to have a routine, much less a rut, but we don’t go out much. In fact, we’ve only gone out three times in the time we’ve been together. Twice to Bounce, the dance club Kez and her crew frequent, and once out drinking with Maier, who calls himself my partner, even though I don’t return the favor. Part of why we don’t go out much is that Kez has substantial demands on her time, so carving out her nights for us to be together has been a challenge. Another part of it is that we’ve had a bullseye on our backs from the moment we met. We’ve had tolay low, and we’re going to have to keep laying low until I kill whoever’s put a hundred CeeBees on Kez’s head. “After we get back from Yrillo, we’ll make this a regular thing.”

She hugs me back. “Definitely. If I’d known how good you’d look in see-through, I’d have been showing you off up and down the Liquid Circuit.”

I shake my head. Kez knows how I look naked,likeshow I look naked, and that’s all that matters. “Let’s go, kitten.”

I take her hand, and her backpack – unless we’re fighting for our lives, my kitten does not carry her own bag – and lead her off the ship. It shifts on its presets as we ride the ramp down. The solar sails unfurl like gigantic dragonfly wings. Gossamer shields clink down over the cockpit and holds. They’ll deflect anything but an E-bomb. Very good ship.

Like all rat nests,there are entrances to the Deep Whites’ domain all over Tiv. But Kez tells me the polite way to enter is through the rats’ front door, which is in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the Night Market. Since this takes us right past Doc Gray’s chop-shop, that route suits me fine. We detour quickly down an alley to Gray’s Grotto, which hasn’t officially opened yet, but is already staffed by a pretty nurse I haven’t seen before. Probably employed with some of my credits, since Doc Gray’s had plenty of them over the last couple of weeks. She tells me the Doc is out for a swim. I leave a message letting him know what I need and where we’ll be.

Back out in the street, the Night Market is still quiet. It’s just sunset, so the Market won’t wake up for a few hours. The rats will still be waking up with a stretch and a scratch. We’ve got time for a walk on the beach.

I’ve been on the Islands with Kez at sunset before. But we were running away from a bunch of MAO-A cannibals at the time, so we didn’t have a chance to appreciate the view. Now we do, andit’s a hell of a show. The sky shades from iridescent purple to burning crimson where the twin stars are swallowed by the ocean. Rippled clouds fluoresce orange and white gold. The cracked face of the Broken Moon peeks through the clouds. Looks like an explosion in zero-gee.

“Wow,” says Kez. “Beautiful.”

I look down at her. Her eyes are full of red and gold reflections. As she meets my eyes, her pupils dilate, the way they always do when I look at her. She smiles slowly, her face suffusing with more light than the sky.

“Beautiful,” I echo.

She knocks me with her elbow. Kez doesn’t believe she’s beautiful. I’m working on convincing her otherwise.

“Best sunset you’ve ever seen?” she asks.

I think about it for a moment. I’ve seen a lot of sunsets on a lot of worlds. But none that I’ve enjoyed more than the ones I’ve shared with her. “From my deck. Fourteen days ago.”

Kez does some mental math. Her smile turns wry and she shakes her head. “You weren’t even watching.”

“Not the whole time,” I admit. “The moonrise kept catching my eye.”

She gives me a sharper jab, since she knows I’m referring to her ass, not the Broken Moon. “Seriously.”

“Honestly, kitten, I never paid attention to sunsets before.” Which is the truth. I never bothered with sunsets or rainbows or any other natural beauty, before I met her.

She shades her eyes as she looks up into the glowing sky. “But you do now.”

“Yeah, you’re pussifying me in all sortsa ways.” That gets me a hard smack on the shoulder. I chuckle, catch her hand and reel her back into a loose embrace. “Best sunset you’ve ever seen?”

“That one two sevens ago was pretty special,” she admits. She tilts her head and regards the sky. “When I was eleven, a pair of meteors hit the Broken Moon. Bits rained down into the atmospherefor weeks.” She holds out a hand and wiggles her fingers. “It was like fireworks every night.”

“Eleven. That was a tough year for you,” I observe quietly. I don’t want to ruin her contemplation of the sunset, but I also don’t want her to think I’m not paying attention. Eleven was the year she was taken away from her grandmother and put into care. The year she ran away and ended up homeless and alone on the streets of Nock. The year her older sister abandoned her. Kez is lucky to have survived that year.

She nods. “It wasn’t long after I went to live at the House. That’s how I got to know Liv. I’d climb up to the roof every night to watch the sky. She’d come up after she’d finished her last run. Watch with me for a while.”

Kez has mentioned her mentor, Liv, a few times before. She sounds like a wild-child. Watching sunsets with a scared, homeless, eleven-year old girl seems a little out of character. Makes me think that Liv was on that roof for reasons that had little to do with the sky, even if it was worth watching.

Kez looks up at me. “Where were you? Back then?”

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