More noises came from behind, but she was too tired to look. Then Rutger walked past and dropped something heavy on the table, making the judges flinch and splutter.
“Oh, quiet down. Hello, Cyn, again.Thisis Little Mo.” He rapped his knuckles on the rusty, frypan-sized robot. “This is Cyn’s helper. Whatever else it is I’m not entirely sure, but it may have vital evidence. So all of you shut the fuck up with this half-assed decision until we see it. Cyn, tell it to cough up the video.”
Stunned, she could only stare at Rutger.
“You know! The one he must have recorded on the day you killed a Ghoul Lord.”
“Ohhh.”
“He must have done? Surely?” This time Rutger looked closely at her, and she realized how painful this was for him. He, at least, wanted her to live.
Pull up those big girl panties. Time to do some adulting and stop blubbering out tears.
“Yes, of course.”Take another deep breath, forget your hands are going numb, or that the Lure is whispering at you. “Mo?”
With its rusty metal limbs raised, her robo-critter scuttled and circled to face her. “Yes, Cyn. I have been in concealment awaiting your release. Do you wish to see the recording? If so, you’ll need a way to output it.”
“I do wish to see it, Mo. Can anyone help with this? Please?”
They shouted for Locke who’d done this before, and while all the fussing happened, Rutger came to her side and made her sit again.
“We’ll wait together,” he told her, crouching down yet managing to look eminently desirable and big. His horns spattered blue motes into the air. His one totally blue eye in the blue socket seemed ever so wise to her. He’d found somethingthat could help her, providing Mo had looked in the right direction.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, leaning into him, into this furnace of masculine heat. Then she dared to add softly, “I need you.”
“I need you too. Soon.” He squeezed her thigh and the dig of his fingers into her flesh sent her hormones into a tizz. “It was my pleasure. Of course if this works, you’re still going to have a lot of explaining to do. I don’t trust you entirely either.”
“Oh.” If she was him what would she do or say? The same? “And if it doesn’t work?”
“I don’t know. He shrugged. “We run?”
She could do that, but without Vargr… She felt itchy and uncomfortable even considering that. This whole bondmating thing would be the end of her.
29
While people milledabout helping Locke connect Mo to a projector they’d powered up with a solar battery, Cyn had to remain seated and wait… wait to find out if they were going to decide she was an insane murderer. Anger resurfaced. What. The. Fuck.
She’d killed a motherfucking Ghoul Lord. Peoplediedin battle. It happened. Most of these were ex-soldiers and should realize the costs of war.
Her stomach was cramping again, from stress or whatever.
Not that she’d wanted to kill Tom, her angelic friend, or anyone, or to hurt Vargr.
She’d dropped into that guilt loop, again. Being angry only took her so far. She stared at her feet and tried to figure out what her body and mind were doing. It was as if she’d found a foreign land inside herself, because she didn’t know why she’d forgotten to check for friends before shooting. The violence had filled her up, to the very top. There’d been nothing left except the desire to kill that thing.
Rutger was staying with her, but she wasn’t keen on hand-holding and hugs at a time like this. Besides, she was cuffed.
Finally they had the video playing via Mo. Her small robotic companion was perched on the table with cords running from him. The entire thousand or so Worshipper tribe seemed to have gathered for this movie, though there would be some out hunting and gathering.
It was enough to ram the importance of this event down her throat, if she wasn’t already living on a thread of hope.
Please, please, show what I need.
The video blurred due to the distance to the overhead glass visor it was playing on. The Parklands glass shield was there to protect the long opening in this scraper from the elements. One day it would fall or break. Today it let them watch a movie.
Cyn found Rutger gripping her hand at her back, while what was at most a five-minute video ran until the end of the relevant part, where all the death happened. There were feet and legs and shouting, the flashes as she fired her gun or the Thing exploded. Screams, more running feet, but that was after she’d shot everyone she was going to. Mo had been down on the floor the whole time with little view of the fight. He’d watched as she collapsed to the floor and was taken down by several beasters, bound, and dragged away—some of that showed through the gaps between the people. Then Mo had run off and hid.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. It hadn’t shown anything she needed. Just Tom bleeding out. Her crashing to the floor, exhausted.
