Daughters of Forgotten Light Read online

  “Oh, great.”

  “I’m taking a shower,” Dipity said, and headed for the black stairs. No one would have been stupid enough to stop her. She tossed her jacket to Sarah. “Wash that for me.”

  Sarah caught it and nodded, staring at the floor.

  “Hurley,” Lena said. “I need you to find a place for a new dweller to stay.”

  “New dweller?” She perked up at that. Hurley Girly always liked fresh meat.

  “I need you to keep it professional.”

  Hurley Girly brushed it away with a pfft, and a wave of her hand. “I’m always professional. Is she hot?”

  “Just get it done. Today.”

  “No probs. Wait. Is it that dweller from the OC?”

  Sometimes Lena hated how small a world Oubliette was. You couldn’t take a piss without someone knowing about it. “Yeah.”

  “Whoa. Why is she coming over here? Ain’t that going to cause some trouble? Does she have any good dirt on them? What did she say to you while we were gone?”

  “Will you relax?”

  “Sorry,” Hurley Girly said with a big smile and buzzing energy that never quit.

  “Yeah, what was so important with that dweller?” Ava asked.

  Here was another crossroads, another time the two competing sides of Lena’s brain would argue over which path to take. She could tell them what Jessica had told her. She could warn them the Onyx Coalition was going to put a major wrench in their operation. They’d argue that it was a sign that they should stay out of it, remain neutral. The OC and the Amazons could kill each other and the Daughters of Forgotten Light could reign as the last gang left standing. But like last time, when she came to this place of decision, the voice of caution and reason was gone.

  “She wanted to come where there was a more diverse choice of women.” Lena shrugged. “And ones that wouldn’t eat her.”

  Hurley Girly, mind always in the gutter, grinned.

  Chapter 21

  Just hold on. Hold on. You’re almost there. Holding both hands to her mouth, Sarah clomped down the hallway, toward the shower room.

  She refused to let the other Daughters see her cry anymore. On the roof, Ava had looked at her like she was such a pitiful thing, not cut out to ride in their gang. If Sarah could just get to the showers she could cry and let the water mix with her tears and no one, not even herself, would be the wiser.

  When her boots clacked against tile instead of glass, she dropped one hand, letting a whimper slip out. Sticky moisture filled the air with the funk of mold, and as she rounded the corner she bumped into a wet, naked body.

  “My bad, Pao.” Dipity grabbed Sarah’s shoulder to keep her from falling. Her enormous arm tensed, her muscles bulging from her dark, slick skin.

  Sarah quickly looked away, listening to the pat, pat, pat of water dropping off the big woman’s body. There were no towels, and unless she wanted to use her glass cloth bedsheet Sarah would have to do like Dipity and let her body air dry.

  “I saved you some hot water.” Dipity laughed.

  If it was a joke, Sarah didn’t get it. They’d told her the Core provided an unlimited amount of hot water as it recycled the Sludge and what dripped down the drain. Besides, Sarah wasn’t in the mood for jokes, especially from someone dripping wet and missing their clothes.

  “You did good tonight,” Dipity said. She patted Sarah’s arm.

  This got Sarah to look up, dodging her third-in-command’s massive breasts and settling on her eyes. With a smile and a nod, Dipity left the shower room, whistling a familiar song Sarah couldn’t place. A few minutes later, Dipity’s slapping steps faded, and after a few more minutes Sarah pulled off her clothes.

  The water burned as it left the faucet, and Sarah had to turn it down to make it comfortable, but the initial pain set her to wailing under the spray, sobbing until the air left her lungs, breathing in deep and wheezy as if she’d crawled from below a dark ocean. When she opened her eyes and put her head against the wall in front of her, blood and bits of dark flesh flowed off her head, circling the drain. She hadn’t noticed that pieces of Dandelion’s face had splattered over her blue hair, staining it red, like one of the Amazons.

  If I look like this on the outside, I wonder what the inside looks like.

  A hand caressed her back. Sarah started and turned, and there was Sterling. The mute Daughter kissed Sarah’s lips, and instead of being freaked out like she was around Hurley Girly, Sarah welcomed the kiss, glad to have something to comfort her, something else to think about besides the face of…

  Pulling out of the kiss, Sterling smiled, signing, Do you want to come to my room?

  Oh. Sarah hadn’t thought of that being the next step, she was just appreciating a friendly gesture. “You’re beautiful,” Sarah said. “I’m just… I’m not attracted to you… in that way. I’ve never been into boys or girls. Even when all my friends… oh God, what’s wrong with me?” Sarah buried her face in Sterling’s bare shoulder, crying even harder.

  With gentle hands, Sterling moved Sarah in front of her. Nothing is wrong with you.

  Sarah lowered her head. She didn’t do what she’d done with Dipity, averting her eyes from Sterling’s naked body. She wanted to see. But she didn’t expect Sterling to have boy parts, hanging there, right between her legs.

  Catching her gaze, Sterling gave a small smile. I was born in a body that didn’t match my soul.

  Sarah started to speak, but couldn’t find any words. She stood there staring at all of Sterling, trying to figure out if she could have ever guessed… no, she would never have known. Not until that moment. “How did you get sent to Oubliette? Wouldn’t you have gone to the military?”

  My father walked in on me one day, Sterling signed. Caught me wearing one of my mother’s dresses. By the time my mother found me, I’d lost consciousness. I guess it must have been after the twelfth punch my father gave me. I woke up later in my mother’s car. She was driving us somewhere and had a black eye. I never found out what happened to my father, but my mom emptied their account and paid for me to have surgery on this beautiful face you’re looking at. Sterling smiled and touched the backs of her fingers under her chin.

  “But she shipped you?” Sarah wiped shower water from her eyes.

  She saved my life. She knew my father would have found us eventually, even if we had a restraining order or something. She didn’t want me going to the military. In her eyes, I was who I am. So Oubliette it was.

  “The shipper guards. When they hose you down–”

  Tucking it between my legs seemed to work OK. Sterling shrugged. And if they saw it, they didn’t care. I was just another body to process, another shippee to ship.

  “Do the other Daughters know?”

  Of course.

  As Sarah stared at those dark, wonderful eyes, she felt her own swell with heat and tears. “I killed that woman tonight!”

  Sterling held her, stroking Sarah’s head. They stayed that way for a long time. And Sarah didn’t feel ashamed to cry, despite the whole reason she’d come to the showers in the first place. This was different. This was Sterling.

  Chapter 22

  Sarah wanted nothing more than to lie down in her bed and never get back up. When Lena had come in and told her to meet her on the sixth floor for rang-shooting practice, the desire to sleep tripled. Why did it matter if she practiced? She’d never shoot her rang again, not after she’d seen what it could do. She didn’t want to be the reason someone else died, especially like that. She’d asked Lena if they could save it for another night. If she was slippery enough, she could put it off forever, holding back when they went to take the baby, letting the others shoot… kill. She could fake being sick or something.

  “We’ve put it off for too long,” Lena said, “and I don’t want you accidentally killing one of us.” She must have seen the pain in Sarah’s face, because then she added, “No offense.”

  Sarah climbed to the sixth floor, her rang weighing a ton. When she
came off the stairs, she froze. This floor was different. The lights in the ceiling shone brighter than anywhere else in the ganghouse. Most of the room stretched out like an alley and became much narrower the farther it went from the doorway. To the right, a glass division extended from the wall where Lena stood.

  “Welcome to the target floor,” she said.

  “You guys built this?” Sarah asked.

  “Yep. We needed somewhere we could practice, and it’s something to do when you get bored.”

  “I should have brought a book instead of brass knuckles.”

  Lena snorted. “Don’t tell me you’ve become a pacifist.”

  Sarah shrugged.

  “OK,” Lena said. “I’ll explain it to you another way. We’re here to practice shooting your rang gun so it only goes off when you want it to. Does that sound fair enough?”

  It did. But it didn’t help the feeling that Sarah wore a killing machine on her forearm. “I know how to follow orders,” Sarah said. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  That only seemed to annoy Lena, but Sarah didn’t care. Lena could make Sarah shoot her rang and ride into whatever hell hole this city had under the glass streets, but she couldn’t make her like it.

  “So this is how it’s going to be from now on?” Lena asked. “You need to lighten up.”

  Lighten up. Seemed that was the one “up” Sarah would never be able to follow. She had enough trouble shutting up, because even though she’d wanted to bite her tongue, the next words flew from her mouth. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  It was out there now. Might as well say it. “I can’t go crazy.”

  Lena smiled, even though it was a little sad. “Is that what you think happened to all of us? We all went nuts?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t stop being honest now.”

  Sarah swallowed.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Lena said. “Maybe Oubliette is more like an insane asylum than a prison. But it made us that way. And like it or not, Pao, you’re here just like the rest of us. We briefed you on what’s expected of you, how things work here. I want this to be the last time I have to talk to you about this. Do you want to live?”

  “Yes.” It came out more softly than Sarah had wanted, so she cleared her throat and said again, louder. “Yes.”

  “Then do what you have to so you stay that way. Whatever battle is going on underneath all that blue hair, get it taken care of and fill your role in this gang. Got me?”

  “Loud and clear,” Sarah said.

  “Now let’s move on to more fun stuff.”

  Sarah faked a smile. In time, the inability to hide her feelings would dissolve. Lena made it sound so simple. If you lost your mind, oh well. You still had your life, and wasn’t that something? Sarah liked simple. But this was complicated.

  “Step over there and face the targets,” Lena said.

  So that’s what the two blotches on the far wall were. They looked like burned-in drawings in the shapes of women. Shadows.

  “I guess you figured out how you shoot the rang.”

  “Not really,” Sarah said. “It just… happened.”

  Lena raised her left arm and bent her wrist quickly as if she was knocking on a tabletop. “Quick. Intentional,” she said. “There’s a sensor right above your wrist. When you do that, it fires the rang. Go ahead and try.”

  “Now?”

  “Sink or swim, Pao. Sink or swim.” Lena backed away to stand behind the barrier.

  Sarah breathed and raised her right arm at one of the targets. She ground her teeth and fought against the urge to squeeze her eyes closed when it happened. She flicked her wrist down like Lena had shown her. The blue ball fired from her arm and zipped down the long hallway. Damn, it was fast. It hit the wall just above the target’s shoulder and flew back toward Sarah. She stepped away and flinched.

  “Keep your arm up,” Lena shouted.

  Sarah cringed but did what Lena said. The ball of light returned into the rang and Sarah eased a bit, blowing out air she’d been holding.

  “The only rang shot you don’t need to avoid is your own,” Lena said. “After you fire, it’ll zip back into your gun after it contacts glass. And there’s plenty of glass around.”

  “So it can’t hurt me?”

  “Oh, it can damn well hurt you. You’d just have to be reckless or suicidal.” Lena looked away for a moment, like a ghost had walked in.

  Sarah knew she probably should have kept it to herself, but something had been gnawing at the back of her mind, and she felt it was as good a time as any. “Is that what happened to Loveless?”

  “Is that what they told you?”

  “No one told me anything,” Sarah said. “But I knew it had to be something that didn’t mess up the truce.”

  Lena nodded and kicked at a nonexistent object on the floor. “She was spiraling into depression for a while. Nothing we did could cheer her up. It happens. One day some sheilas just wake up and don’t feel like living anymore. So she did what she did. She always said she wanted to go out with a rang blast to the head. Always kept her word.”

  I’d rather be murderous than dead, Sarah thought, and hated herself for thinking it. “I’ll shoot again,” she said.

  “OK. Remember, the shot will bounce around until it finds your rang. Always try to fire in a straight line.” Lena backed behind the barrier.

  Sarah flicked her wrist again, this time keeping her arm steady. The shot hit the middle of a target’s chest and returned to Sarah’s rang with a final, buzzing pop.

  “Easy as that,” Lena said. “You are the one in control. Remember that.”

  Lena was right. The power was Sarah’s to wield. If she ever let it get away from her, that’s when she would begin to crumble. Just like the rang shot, Sarah could release her rage when, and only when, she decided. Her grandmother used to talk about the yin and the yang. Pull too hard in one direction, you’ll be snapped back far into the other. It’s all about balance. If Sarah tried too hard to be sane, she would end up going crazy. But she always sucked at gymnastics, especially walking the balance beam.

  Sarah chuckled.

  “Well,” Lena said, “I’m glad to see you’re having fun now.”

  Sarah lost track of the time they spent there on the sixth floor shooting their rang guns. Lena showed her how to use the glass to her advantage and bounce shots off the wall to hit her target. She taught her to always be mindful of how her wrist rested against the gun, mainly while riding her cyclone. To set the safety when in doubt. After some discussion on how the Daughters avoided shooting each other and what their hand signals meant while riding through the streets, they took a break and ate some manna while sitting against the wall.

  “So I heard you know some martial arts,” Lena said.

  Sarah nodded and chewed on her food.

  “I can’t tell if you’re really humble, or like to keep secrets.”

  “You’re the one with the big secret. I’m just trying to follow the ups.”

  Lena laughed. “You need to share all your hidden skills with the rest of us. Your parents taught you how to fight?”

  “I went to Wing Chun class since I could walk. But my father used a more aggressive style. He took over my training when he knew I was coming to Oubliette.”

  “You mean when he had your mother send you here.”

  “I don’t blame them,” Sarah said. She didn’t. It was the government that had forced them into near poverty. That’s where she placed her hatred.

  “You probably won’t find anyone here as forgiving toward their mother.”

  “So what’s with all the stuff you wanted the dwellers to bring back from Grindy’s? Are we attempting an escape?”

  Lena’s face lit up at that, her lips curling into a mischievous smile. Sarah was just glad she could change the subject.

  “Come on,” Lena said. “I’ll show you.”

  Chapter 23

  Oubliette gav
e little, but what it did offer was plenty of spare parts and time to think of all the wondrous things you could build with them. Lena had been planning some nasty inventions for some time, and now with a dweller mob to help she could realize her visions. It was going to be a blast.

  After watching the dwellers entertain themselves with old songs and dance battles, Hurley Girly and Dipity rode in, dragging two big boxes attached with wire cables. The cyclones lowered, and the accompanying dwellers got off and began handing out the assorted junk. A factory line of sorts formed from the first two dwellers, and soon a big pile of scrap gathered on the ganghouse floor.

  “What’s all this for?” one of the dwellers asked.

  “We’re making tampons,” Hurley Girly said.

  Dipity dragged a spare metal door from the pile. “I don’t think this is big enough for you, Hurley.”

  Several dwellers muffled laughter and Hurley Girly extended both middle fingers.

  “I do have plans for that door,” Lena said. “Dipity, help me haul it up to the top elevator.”

  “Elevator?” Sarah asked. “Then why do we always take the stairs.”

  Lena considered nicknaming Sarah “Detective Pao”.

  “You grab hold of that door with Dipity and I’ll show you.” She led the way up the black stairs.

  Sarah breathed hard carrying the lower end, but Dipity had no trouble with the door’s weight.

  “You want me to swap places with Pao?” Dipity asked.

  “No,” said Lena, “it’s good exercise for her.” Sarah would need all the help she could get before the shipment came.

  At the final landing, Lena stepped over to a wall around the corner. The only difference between it and the flat plainness of the others was a thin line shaped into a square.

  “Set the door down before Pao falls over and dies,” Lena said.

  They dropped it, Sarah crouching on the top step and wiping sweat from her eyes. Lena put her hand to the right of the wall square and the elevator door slid open. Air rushed up from the empty shaft, bringing with it metallic particulates that danced on the stale wafts escaping the darkness.