Page 106 of Under His Heel

If I ever see your fucking face, I’m going to kill you.

Only minutes later, he got a reply.

Dont be like that! We’re bros! Remember how much fun we had!?

Stupidly, Alex did remember. It had been a lot easier back then, hadn’t it? He didn’t have to worry about caring about anybody except himself and Nick. Not knowing that Nick was so much of a coward that he would abandon Alex completely. Not worrying if every person he met was trying to screw him over.

No Tracht either, though. He typed up his answer.

I’ll kick your face in. I’ll laugh when you’re lying in a puddle of your own blood.

Nick didn’t write back, which was just as well.

===

Docking was less of a hassle on Cadmus than on Atalanta. Alex wasn’t allowed on the bridge during the actual docking, but Tracht came to get him as soon as everything was over and had Alex run a bath for them.

Anna wasn’t actually waiting for them on the docks, which Tracht explained was due to the whole mess with Parsons. “I’m going to meet with Vasilis later today. The party has been postponed until a week from now.”

Thank god. Alex was about as eager to meet her as Tracht was about the party.

They spent the week going to meetings. They were mostly super boring, and Alex kind of wished he was allowed to do his own thing. It was endless talk about politics and shipments and haggling over how much it would cost to ship stuff to Atalanta or for the parts to repair the ship. At least he got to talk to some of the other staff when they were all booted out of the room for the more confidential discussions, and on one day, one of the female guards started flirting with him, which was kind of fun. See, he wasn’t as hideous as they all said.

Alex was not, however, allowed to go to the fancy birthday party.

“It would be incredibly amusing to have you along,” Tracht said while Alex kissed his boots, “but Anna would be insufferable. I’ll subject you on her when it isn’t a child’s birthday event.”

Tracht kissed Alex farewell and then told him to amuse himself.

Okay.

Alex tried to remember if there had been anybody on Cadmus that he actually liked, and the answer was pretty much no. Everybody he’d hung out with had been either “friends” of Nick’s, or they were connected to the Nilsen gang in some way. No way was Alex getting anywhere near them ever again.

He ended up wandering over to the main shopping center. He cringed when he passed the alley where he’d left Parsons passed out. Man, his life would have been so much easier if he hadn’t done that.

If he hadn’t tried to run away at all.

He stayed away from the back alleys he’d taken with Nick in their attempt to run.

Shopping was about as much fun as it had been last time. It was a smaller place, with fewer people, owing to Cadmus being a smaller station in general. Atalanta had to service all the ships that wanted to do business with Pylos, while Cadmus was really just a hub for the mining goods extracted from the planet below.

He did have the credit card Tracht had given him, with that ‘low limit.’ Alex tried to think of something he wanted to buy. Maybe a nice pair of boots, like Tracht wore. Yeah. Heavy ones that he could use to kick somebody if they pissed him or Tracht off.

That would actually be kind of fun. Alex smiled a bit and walked towards the closest shoe store. Cadmus would have really good boots too, because so many of the people on station had to deal with the mining operations below. Alex wondered if they had steel-toed ones.

He was halfway to the store when Alex saw himself.

Or rather, he saw his own face as it had once been, with a straight nose and smooth cheek. The haircut was different too, an uneven cut that resembled how Alex had worn his hair before he’d joined Tracht.

The clothes were a bit dirtier and more rumpled than what Alex was wearing now, and there was a significant difference in their muscle mass.

Nick.

He sat casually on one of the benches, looking unbothered and at ease.

Alex froze. If Nick hadn’t spotted him yet, he could just turn around and leave. He could get the heck out of there without talking to him.

Or he could go over there and beat him bloody.

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