Page 284 of Seer Prophet

I didn’t answer that time, either, figuring I’d go with the weird and immature thing, since that’s where I started. Even so, I had to bite my lip to keep from snapping at her. I’m sure the issues with my light and Revik’s weren’t exactly helping with that.

“…I am from Russia originally,” she said, prodding me again, her accent stronger. “I have lived and worked in America for the past few decades. Where are you from, sister? Did they take you from America, too? I did not see you on the ship with the rest of us.”

I turned and stared at her, letting my hostility leak openly into my voice.

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up… sister?” I said, cold.

The male seer next to me grunted a laugh. Still smiling, he nudged his pal, who was looking over Kat’s body in obvious interest, especially her breasts.

Kat didn’t answer. When I glanced at her next, she was staring at me, her mouth pursed in a frown.

Shit. I should have kept my mouth shut. What if she recognized my voice?

We’d both been speaking Prexci, not English, but seers had photographic memories. I shouldn’t have said anything at all, much less given her a reason to pay attention to me.

If she did recognize me, though, no sign of it showed on her face.

“Fine,” she muttered. Folding her thin arms, she blew up her bangs, exuding annoyance. “Be a cunt. I suppose there’s no point reminding you ‘we are in this together?’ Clearly you are one of those who lets the worms drive wedges between us.”

Her words came out bitter at the end.

I frowned after she said them. Then I thought about them, unable to dismiss her meaning entirely. Worse, she managed to remind me she was in a pretty crappy situation here, given where we were, and where we could expect to be going after this. Really, her situation was significantly worse than mine, subjectively at least.

I was here of my own volition?more or less.

I had people looking for mesomewherein the city, even if they didn’t currently know where I was. Kat, on the other hand, was kidnapped off the street in the United States and shipped here, from what she’d said?likely for her sight rank, which I happened to know was more than decent. She’d worked as an infiltrator for Revik in the past.

She’d also probably endured a lot of crap on the ride over. More than I wanted to know about, truthfully.

Even so, I didn’t answer her.

It was going to take more than shared ownership to get me over my issues with Kat, whatever fleeting empathy I might feel for her. Especially since it had already occurred to me I couldn’t just leave her here.

Which meant I had to bring her with me.

Thinking about that now, walking under the shaded glass dome, I frowned.

The thought still didn’t please me. It hadn’t pleased me the first time it crossed my mind, or in any of the times since. Truthfully, it probably annoyed memorenow, if only because I’d had longer to imagine it. I wasn’t looking forward to having to deal with her around Revik, or the b.s. that would come out of her mouth whenever she thought she could get away with it.

I hadn’t talked to her since her first attempts to communicate with me in the sellers’ room, partly because I didn’t want her figuring out who I was.

I didn’t want her knowinganythingabout me, not until I was ready to get us out of there.

We walked leisurely under the lightly-misted, virtually-enhanced walkway as it circumnavigated a lotus-shaped pool surrounded by deck chairs on one side, and a sprawling lake of crystal-blue water on the other. I couldn’t tear my eyes off the shocking turquoise hue of the lake; my eyes followed its course as it wound around nearby glass buildings, outdoor pagodas, and more snaking walkways.

The orange-eyed seer walked beside me.

One of his guards walked on my other side, the same one who’d been grabbing my ass earlier. Kat and the male seer with the high sight rank walked directly behind us, led by two more guards, one of whom drove the car on the ride over.

I continued to look around, basically ignoring the rest of them.

Like in Macau, I couldn’t entirely suppress the wave of unreality as I watched human women in bikinis turn over so that servants could rub tanning oil on their mostly-naked bodies. Men in bathing and business suits walked around the same area of deck, smiling at those same women, holding drinks with umbrellas in their hands?or briefcases, or beers, depending on why they were there.

“Can you dance?” a voice asked from next to me.

I looked over.

He’d spoken English that time.

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