“For the moment,” I tell her. “My name’s Margaret.”
“I’m Tix,” she says. “Margaret is a nice name, but a weird name. Like your clothes. Why are you so weird?”
“Well, I’m from Earth.”
“Earth! No fuzkin’ way. That’s so cool!”
She is currently dressed in an old sack and some reclaimed fabric from a takeaway hoarding. The tight fabric over her breasts reads: TOOTS. She can not be much older than I am, but she seems lost somehow.
“What do you think of Megaris?” She takes a seat next to me and takes my drink as well. I let her have it. I get the impression that she is thirsty and probably quite hungry. I use the electric menu to order an extra portion of fried potatoes. Humans of all kinds love fried potatoes.
“It’s amazing. On Earth, almost none of this is possible. We have very primitive versions of it all.”
“MARGARET!”
I freeze like a deer in the headlights as Tusk comes barreling through the crowd. I have no idea how he found me, but he must have gotten information from somewhere. He is shouting my name, tossing people out of his way. They ragdoll around him in a tangle of flailing limbs, crying out in misery and confusion.
“I have to go inside,” I tell her. “I have to get out…”
She glances at him with narrowed eyes. “That korabi looking for you?”
“Yes. He is. I don’t want him to find me.”
“I got you, girl,” she says. “Come with me.”
I follow her because it feels like the only choice. I do not want to be apprehended by Tusk and dragged back to the palace. Krush and Jax, Rath and Lyric, they understand me. Tusk doesn’t get it. He still thinks that being a big, violent brute is the way to get what he wants.
“He’s following us!” She dashes between alleys and behind vehicles. I slide over the hood of one of them with assassin speed and am on my feet in an instant. Glancing over my shoulder, I see Tusk barrel into the side of the vehicle, flipping it over.
“FUZK!” Tix gaps. “Who the hell is she?”
“His name’s Tusk, and he’s an augmented korabi. He’s also the father of my baby.”
KABOOM! Something explodes behind us. I don’t know what the hell Tusk has run into, but I suppose it was flammable.
“Why’s he after you?”
“I don’t know!” We slam ourselves against the side of a building and stay very still. Chaos is still unfolding behind us, but we can hear sirens, which means the authorities are doing something about him. I peer around the corner of the wall to see him flailing beneath a net which crackles yellow and green whenever it touches his skin. It seems to have stopped him from moving, but it has not stopped him from raging.
“What are you doing!?” Tusk is raging at the Megarean police. “Don’t you know who I am!? I am TUSK!”
“Sir, you have done four point two billion bux in damage in the last twenty minutes. We have been authorized by King Krush to stop you.”
“Oh, HAVE YOU!?” Tusk growls. “The same King Krush whose excuse for a fortress is still crumbling in the middle of Megaris? The Krush who attacked the palace?”
“King Krush, father of Christopher.”
“CHRISTOPHER!” Tusk roars the name furiously.
I shrink away, afraid. I recognize this kind of rage. He has been drinking. He has lost his senses. He has come bumbling down here like any stupid human male might to reclaim me. He’s like a caveman, but alien.
Then he trips and falls over, still fighting with the net. Now he just looks silly. My fear melts away. He’s not Mark. I might still remember my fear from my marriage, but that doesn’t make Tusk him. Mark would never have let me go in the first place. He would have killed me before he let me choose anyone, or anything else.
“Tusk, why are you here?”
He looks up at me through the tangle of mesh.
“I’m here for you, Margaret.”
I would laugh at how pathetic he looks, but I still remember what he is capable of doing if and when he feels disrespected.
“I had one big angry man in my life before,” I tell him as he jerks beneath the electrified net. “I don’t want another.”
“You are pregnant!”
“And you are a maniac!”
“YOU ARE HAVING MY BABY!”
“I am having MY baby!” I shout back. I’ve never shouted before, not this way. Not at an angry male who thinks he has rights to the contents of my uterus. I find it very enjoyable.
“YEAH!” Tix joins in by kicking him. It is an unfortunate decision. The current arcs through her and sends her twisting and jerking all over the pavement.
“Ow, fuzkin fuck!” she curses, scrambling up. “That was a bad decision.”
I barely know this woman, but she makes me smile. She’s immediately on my side for no reason at all. I look at her properly for the first time. At first, she was just one of the many strange persons milling about the place. Now she’s a friend, and as my friend I notice that she has a shock of pink hair, bright blue eyes, and a broad smile. Her face is angular and vaguely pixie-like.