Page 43 of Star Claimed Omega
She lunged, grabbing for what she could.
He hissed like an alley cat and attempted to wrench it away, but she held fast, her hands white-knuckled, her entire body burning with fever and cold.
They wrestled for a moment, her strength fading, and she was about to scream when the man finally gave a mocking cackle and tossed it at her feet. ‘Ain’t nothin’ in there, girlie. Nothin’ worth fightin’ for.’
Fokk, it was all she had left.
She pulled the limp bag to her chest and collapsed in a corner far from the vent, curling in on herself.
Her vision blurred as chills racked her again, this time harder, accompanied by a deep ache that rooted in her back and spread like wildfire.
She was burning up and freezing all at once.
Sometime later, minutes or maybe hours, a shadow fell over her.
She blinked up, unable to focus.
A woman crouched beside her.
Wrinkled, hollow-eyed, dressed in three layers of patched clothes and synth-plas sheeting.
She looked like she’d been born in the alley and might die there, too.
Her hands, cracked and dirty, extended a bruised piece of fruit.
An apple, half-rotten.
‘Eat,’ the woman said. ‘Won’t help much, but better than nothing.’
Soleil took it with trembling fingers and bit into the flesh, but the moment it hit her stomach, nausea surged.
She turned away and vomited onto the steel floor.
Her body curled with the motion, every muscle spasming.
When she lifted her head again, bile burned her throat.
The woman rose, shaking her head, a kindness in her eyes.
‘You canna sleep under the vent,’ she croaked. ‘They cycle heat at night, dump cold air in the mornin’ to clear it. Mixes wrong with the mist. Makes folk sick. Killed two men last month. Shoulda warned ya.’
Soleil groaned, unable to speak as the octogenarian shuffled away.
Her stomach lurched again, but she had nothing left to give.
She lay back, cheek to metal, her body trembling as the fever took over.
Time slipped sideways.
She thought she detected music.
A knock. A laugh. The flutter of Santi’s voice, deep and slow like a lullaby she craved.
She saw sunlight through slatted blinds.Her cousins giggling. Her mother chopping fruit. Her father calling her Scarletta.
Somewhere beneath her shirt, her commtab pinged, a soft, insistent vibration, over and over. Probably Astra or Wren, wondering where she was.
But her arms refused to move in response to the calls.
