Page 37 of The Fall

Adorableness aside, Lusa couldn’t help but fight. “I thought you said there weren’t any lessons. Is there a test you didn’t mention?”

“Yeah, I’m the one who gives out dancing licenses.” Kerr refused to be baited. “Let’s see you move.”

She shouldn’t, but whether it was Kerr’s playfulness or the alcohol, Lusa wanted to see her laugh again. There was no harm in having fun. They couldn’t be friends, but she could forget they were enemies for an hour or so. Lusa followed the bass, the whirr, the whines of industrial instruments cobbling together something resembling music.

It felt good. Normal, even. Like the dull ache when you relax your shoulders you forgot you were clenching. Like the sounds slid over her, rhythm dripping from her fingertips like lake water.

“I need to pee.”

“What?” Lusa said, her brief reverie broken.

“I’m going to the lav. You stay here. I’ll be back, I promise,” Blue eyes too sincere, too big for her head.

“Okay.” Lusa took a breath. Blend in, she told herself. She could do this. Lusa willed her body to continue dancing, closing her eyes and letting the music wash over her.

This is what you wanted, she reminded herself. You’re acclimatising. So many different people, so many different experiences, leaving whatever responsibilities they had at the door to share a moment. A maenad of machines celebrating being alive. And in this moment, she could be a part of it.

The crowd pressed closer, the sweat of a thousand different people on her by now. The slip of arms and cool prosthetics all touching her, invading her space with implicit permission simply because she was here – different than the unmistakable possessiveness of fingers that curled around her waist and slid toward her hips.

“You’re new.”

The voice wasn’t Kerr’s. Neither were the fingers. Hoping it would convey her lack of interest, Lusa froze. The fingers remained. The message either hadn’t been received or it was being ignored.

A small space opened up, the crowd reacting to the hostility steaming off her. Why couldn’t this fool behind her feel it?

Finding the small knife tucked away at her left hip, Lusa twirled it between her fingers deftly in the pulsing light. A warning, before she did something they would both regret.

Instead, he laughed, breath hot against the back of her neck. “Kinky.” He ground his cock disgustingly against her backside.

Lusa had been eleven when she’d seen Sesi kill a trader for doing the same thing, but that was outside with fewer people and more allies. Here, she was badly outnumbered.

It was too crowded to perform a throw. She couldn’t see clearly enough to stab at his face without hitting someone. His metacarpal was exposed. Implants might block the pain, but they couldn’t alter physics.

As she readied to strike, his hand fell away. Lusa spun about and planted the point against his throat only to find Kerr holding a very large pistol at his head. Panicked grey-green eyes met hers, begging for sympathy. She curled her lip, thinking only of the way his corpse would crumple if they’d been anywhere else.

Trembling with rage, Kerr’s eyes glowed dangerously in the dancing lights. A tiny demon, she cocked the hammer. “Apologise, yeah?”

His unevenly stubbled jaw shook, stammering the words. “Sorry miss.” Kerr shoved his head with the barrel and he stumbled off the dance floor.

Gripping the oversized pistol, shoulders hunched menacingly, Kerr glowered at him until he left altogether.

A sudden squall erupted in Lusa’s chest. That was definitely a new experience. She provided security. She came to the rescue, not the other way around.

Holstering the pistol, Kerr grabbed a fistful of Lusa’s shirt, her appetite for violence apparently unsatiated. She pulled Lusa down, practically climbing her, jamming her tongue down her throat before turning to the crowd and yelling “Mine!”

A low murmur of agreement followed before everyone went back to dancing as if nothing had happened.

“They’ll leave you alone now.” Kerr released her with a smug twist of her lips. Suddenly, her face dropped and she ran away.

A thousand questions needing answers and even more feelings she couldn’t name, Lusa chased after her as best as she could.

Averting their eyes, the crowd scurried out of her path. No-one wanted to be caught touching her after Kerr had laid claim.

It was her skin, glowing between her freckles in the black lights that Lusa spotted first. A skinny, androgynous-looking barman with a gleeful smirk poured shots onto an unwashed tray. Lusa hung back. She wasn’t about to confront her with an audience.

“Way out of your league,” the barman said. “You know better.”

“Fuck you, Grease.” Kerr’s head remained bowed, eyes glued to the shots.