Page 5
One wrong spark, one wrong look; that was all it ever took to make people stare, and staring never led anywhere good.
He’d always wondered how she understood when no one else seemed to.
Hell, he didn’t even understand himself. All he knew was that it was weird. He was weird. A poor foster kid with static in his veins.
She must have seen the question on his face back then, because she’d only pulled him close and said, “You’re mine. That’s all that matters.”
Good Light, he already missed her.
The scanner washed his face in pale blue. For a heartbeat, the display glitched, characters smearing before snapping back into place. The clerk frowned and hit the side of the console with her palm.
NAME: RYNETH KYRON
ORIGIN: DÜREN ORBITAL OUTER RING — SECTOR 7
DESTINATION: HELION CENTRAL ORBITAL — TRANSFER TO SURFACE
CLASS: THIRD
PURPOSE: LABOR CONTRACT — HELION OUTER DISTRICTS
“Multi-slate,” she said, finally looking up. Her eyes were bored, but her tone carried the weariness of someone who’d had their time wasted too often. “You actually paid for this trip, or did you copy someone else’s file?”
He lifted his wrist without answering.
She scoffed and checked the stamps and codes, fingers moving fast. The screen chimed.
That was it. There was no way back now.
“All right,” she muttered. “Gate four. Move.”
He picked up his bag and followed the queue into the boarding tunnel. The static under his skin rose as if it could sense the engines. He pressed his tongue hard to the roof of his mouth until the buzzing behind his teeth dulled.
The tunnel narrowed into reinforced glass and metal. Flickering holos lined one wall, looping the same Helion feed he’d seen in recruiters’ offices: glass towers, terraced parks, white stone streets washed in soft rain.
HELION WELCOMES ITS WORKERS. SERVICE IS SECURITY.
“Only if you make it to the nice districts,” someone muttered.
Ryneth barely listened, too busy trying to get himself under control.
He was spiraling, and that would trigger whatever sparked under his skin. This static might have been the closest thing he had to a friend, but it had never brought him anything but trouble.
One year, he told himself. Enough to send back to Mara. Enough to get Tavi the care he needs. Maybe enough to leave Düren for good.
The shuttle interior was already cramped, seats packed tight in narrow rows. A faint vibration ran through the floor where the dock clamps held them in place. Ryneth found an empty seat by the window and dropped into it. The plastic felt cold under his palms.
Across the aisle, a girl watched him openly. She looked about his age, maybe a little younger, with a braid falling over one shoulder and a jacket equally too thin for Düren’s cold seasons.
She kept glancing away and then back, her eyes catching on his hair, pale gold even under the harsh strip lights, grown a little too long around his ears, and then on his face.
Düren’s inhabitants didn’t have blond hair. Except for him, apparently, which was why people always looked. Pretty meant watched. And watched meant questions.
Questions meant trouble.
It made him feel exposed while he tried to stay in the shadows. He’d even used some cheap sector dye that stunk like hell and burned out in a week, the color bleeding away as if it refused to stick.
People assumed he was lying about where he came from after that.
