Page 108 of Stars in Umbra
He wasn’t sure he deserved her trust.
He inhaled and let the silence stretch, gathering the storm in his chest into something manageable. His hands flexed at his sides.
He met her eyes through the Faraday veil.
‘I don’t even know where to start,’ he said, voice hoarse.
Rina arched a brow, her expression unreadable. ‘Try the beginning.’
A rueful smile tugged at his mouth. ‘That’s the problem. I only remember fragments of my childhood, even my mother’s death. I have gaps in my memory.’
She blinked at that, a flicker of surprise. But she said nothing.
Mo took a step closer to the transparent wall, his hands clasped behind him, like a soldier reporting the truth.
‘When I was a kid, on the streets of LeCythi, I was wild, used my powers to steal and beat the shit out of my enemies. Someone took notice when I was around fifteen. I was placed in a youth off the streets program and trained to become a soldier. Later, when they thought I was ready for missions, they implanted the node and activated me.’
He tapped the back of his skull.
‘With a neural controller. It’s buried deep into the cortex, and it’s set to wake at a trigger. One hidden under layers of code that even I can’t attempt to break. I don’t have the know-how.’
Rina inhaled.
He paused, throat tight. ‘I woke up on a beach. Dunia. On the shore of one of your lake provinces, half dead. The only clues I had were a sub-dermal microchip that didn’t ping to any public network and instincts built for war. A young woman fed me, which -.’
He stopped talking at her gasp.
‘That wasyou,’ she whispered. ‘The young man I found in the barn after I came back from walking my horse. I think I helped you, and then you vanished, and for years I thought it was a dream.’
Mo’s breath caught in his chest, a warmth filtering through his core.
‘You fed me, took care of my wounds. Of course,’ he rasped. ‘I remember you, now, I didn’t recall you all this time, not consciously. Yet you seemed so familiar to me. Maybe that’s why I am so drawn to you, why I keep orbiting back to you.’
Rina’s expression flickered with yearning, surprise, then focus.
He exhaled and shifted, lowering his voice.
‘Go on,’ she encouraged.
‘After that, I slipped into the system and built a new life in the shadows. ‘I think they put me to work. I became a muscle-for-hire, then a courier, eventually a major in the Six Flaco mercenary group. The killing came with ease. I was good at it. Too good. I evolved into one of their top assassins. They wiped memories after every mission, I believe. Most of it, except a few fragments, lingered beyond the neural controller. What I remembered gave me nightmares, though. I hated what I saw, what I thought I had done.’
He swallowed the bitterness gathering in his throat.
‘In my day work, I transformed into a renowned gun dealer and security expert. They called me a phantom in some circles, a revenant in others. I worked for a dozen cartels and warlords, most of whom I later buried. Eventually, I caught the eye of someone in the Riders’ outer network and joined the guard staff. Thought maybe I could keep my head down. Start over.’
‘And?’ Rina prompted.
Mo sliced his eyes away for a moment. ‘Then I got activated on a few more missions.’
Her body went rigid.
‘The latest one, however, went too far; it was too cruel a kill order.’
‘On who?’
He took an inhale, his throat working. With a growl, he pushed his sinewed fingers through his hair, reluctance written all over his face.
‘Please, Mo, tell me, you can trust me.’
