Unsettled by the uncharitable direction of her thoughts, she drew away from him.
He fell into step beside her, though he kept his hands to himself this time. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed by the lack of touch.
“Hey!” someone shouted. “Look, that’s her.”
She didn’t look at first, oblivious that she was the ‘her’ in question. It wasn’t until one of the cyborgs stepped into her path that she realized which alley they’d passed. This was the same block where she’d been dragged off the other day.
Idiot, she thought numbly as her blood began to pound.
The teen in front of her sucked his teeth, glaring down his nose at her. There was a gang tattoo over his throat—TNG.
“You’re the bitch who narced on us the other day.” He tapped beneath one chrome eye. “The scanner has your biometrics. You really think you were getting away with that?”
Her mouth opened, closed. She was at a loss.
Sam stepped in front of her. It was a kind and utterly awful gesture. She tugged at him, trying to get him safely stowed behind her before they damaged him, but he wouldn’t budge.
“Sam!” she whispered, yanking harder.
He ignored her.
“Walk away,” he told the teen.
Another cyborg off to the right laughed. “Dude, he’s a bot. She’s trying to hide behind her sex doll.” He looked at her. “You’re a freaky little slut, aren’t you? I knew it the second I saw you. You should have come with us. We would have shown you a good time.”
Sam gave him a steady look. “Watch your mouth.”
They both laughed.
Sam canted his head like a dog. “Tell me what’s amusing. I want to enjoy the joke, too.”
The guy in front of him scrubbed a hand over his jaw, grinning. “The gag is that you’re a big, dumbfuck vibrator posturing like you’re about that life when we both know I could crack her over my knee like a glowstick and you couldn’t do shit but watch.”
The visual made Ophelia’s blood run cold. “Sam.”
He looked back at her.
“Just run,” she whispered. “Get help.”
The other guy tutted. “Waste of good chrome, those moral guardrails they put on bots.” He shrugged. “Let’s grab them both. He’s gotta be worth some bands.”
When he reached for Ophelia, Sam moved faster than would have been possible for a human man.
He wrapped his hand around the throat of the man, whose mouth fell open in a silent scream. His bionic eyes tracked back and forth so rapidly they were a blur. The glass lenses cracked loudly as electricity arced from his temples.
“What the fuck!” the other man yelled, reaching behind his back.
Sam yanked the guy’s hand back into sight. The borg with the broken eyes hit the ground in a heap as Sam released him, groaning and writhing.
“Get off me, bro!” The other cyborg shouted, trying to wrench his hand free. “What the fuck are you?—”
His metal teeth clacked together with a loud sound as his jaw locked up.
“You talk too much.” Sam’s eyes glowed faintly blue. “For the sake of your fellow man, I bid you to be silent.”
The guy began to seize.
She pressed a hand over her mouth, horrified as his mechanical eyes rolled back. He fell to the ground, jerking violently as all his cyberware seemed to go haywire.
