Page 23 of Under His Skin

He couldn’t even manage a nap now, uncomfortable as the bed was. He kept remembering the previous day.

The interview at the station had sucked. Alex hated the way Kuroyama had asked their questions, and if the lawyer hadn’t been there, Alex would have given in to the urge to do something violent. He thought he should have gotten some sort of reward for holding back, all things considered.

Fuck, he’d thought he was done with all the law enforcement crap. Five years without any run-ins with security, and now he was under even more scrutiny than before.

This was all Anna’s fault. How hard was it to not break the law, seriously? And she was a judge, and loaded! Like, he understood taking every opportunity for money, but why’d she have to get Tracht involved too?

It didn’t help that Tracht had been gone when Alex had woken up in the morning. There’d only been a pathetic breakfast shake on the bedside table, with a note from Tracht saying to enjoy and that he’d be back later.

When Alex messaged him, he’d only gotten a curt response.

So between all the thoughts and the bad bed and the memory of being completely bound and helpless, Alex was tense and irritated.

Nadia’s mail, the one Kuroyama had started reading, was just as porny as Alex had thought it would be, and with all the talk of needles, Alex’s stomach churned in disgust. She’d sent a follow-up mail asking him if he was all right, and to contact her, but Alex didn’t feel like it.

There was a weird spam mail too, with the subject line in a language he didn’t understand—what the fuck did subpoena mean? Maybe it was Chinese. There’d been a similar mail sitting in his inbox already when they’d first entered comm space, which Alex had sent straight to the trash. He was a bit annoyed at how persistent the spammers were, but he deleted it again.

Then he sent another message to Tracht, and he got another vague response. Alex decided he was done hanging around the guest room alone.

He wandered downstairs to the main living area, where Johan and Markus were sitting watching the vid screen. The screen was tuned to the news, and it was playing another piece about “Judge Tracht” and her alleged crimes.

“Why are you watching that?” Alex asked, irritated. He couldn’t escape any of this shit! Why the hell would the kids be watching a hit piece against their mom?

“Mom’s not gonna tell us anything,” Markus said, shrugging. “And Chryssy called me last night, demanding to know what was up. She said something about all her friends treating her like a leper.” He had his weird pen-thing in hand, and he was doodling on his tablet, only looking up from the news occasionally.

“She’s lucky she’s on Pylos.” Johan sat on the same single-person seat as last time. “I can’t even go to school now.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Alex asked. “Nobody wants to go to school.”

Both Markus and Johan gave him weird looks.

“I like school,” Johan finally answered. “It’s better than hanging around at home.”

Alex decided he didn’t want to stand around the entrance like a loser, so he went to sit down next to Markus. If anybody took issue with it, they could tell him off. He also fumbled for the controller, because he had no intention of watching the same news clips over and over. Judge Tracht accused of corruption. Allegedly took bribes in exchange for specific outcomes. Witnesses say that… Blah blah blah, who even cared. It wasn’t like it made a difference for anything. So what if she took bribes? Alex had seen how the world worked, and he was pretty sure almost everybody did the same. He’d definitely take money if somebody offered it to him. Never mind that Anna had no fucking reason to do any of it.

He pulled up one of the action movies he’d watched with Nadia, which they’d both liked on account of the pretty graphic threesome scene in the middle.

“This is a good one,” Markus said when the movie’s opening played. “The lead is gorgeous. But Johan, I think you’re too young for it.”

“Are you gonna kick me out?” Johan countered. “I can just play it in my room.”

“There’s parental controls for a reason. There’s no way the program will let you play that movie.”

Alex watched while the two brothers squabbled, and it made him think of Nick. Nick, who was apparently perma-banned from Cadmus. He’d been kind of happy about it when Tracht mentioned it yesterday, but now, watching the two of them, Alex was struck by the sudden desire to see his brother again.

Nick would know how to avoid all this crap with the “Department of Internal Affairs.” Except he wouldn’t. Alex was pretty sure Nick would have been no match for any of the lawyers, or even for Kuroyama. Nick would have come up with some weird scheme that would have ended up with Alex… with Alex sold into bondservitude, just like before. Meanwhile, Tracht had called in a lawyer not just for himself, but one for Alex too.

. He wouldn’t even be in this situation if not for Anna, because nobody Nick and Alex had known had been important enough for this kind of shit. He liked the fantasy though. Him and Nick running away again, off to some new solar system.

Now there was an idea. It didn’t have to be with Nick. Alex could run away with Tracht. That sounded a lot better. They couldn’t take the Sigrun right now, and that would suck, but with Tracht’s money they’d just start all over in some new solar system where nobody knew them. Between Tracht’s business acumen and Alex’s intimidating looks, they’d get back on their feet in no time. And maybe along the way, they could beat up some dudes, fuck them over really hard.

Actually, it’d be nice if they could do that to Kuroyama. Alex imagined stripping them down, watching Tracht whip them bloody, then—actually, he didn’t know if Tracht thought Kuroyama was hot. Trying to figure that out ended up being too confusing, so Alex scrapped that fantasy. Better to pick a dude. Somebody like Galanis, who had pissed Tracht off a lot. Yeah, they’d have a great time beating him bloody. Nobody had a face quite that punchable.

“Alex?”

Alex startled upright, surprised to find Vasilis in front of him. Neither of the two kids were there, and the movie had stopped.

He must have fallen asleep.

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