Beckie.

  The music thumped behind Beckie’s skull as she emerged from the staircase, bypassing the pair of goons standing sentry, both of whom gnced at her without saying a word.

  Somehow, that just made it all feel that much worse…

  The borderline apologetic and amused expressions that they offered now took on a sembnce of far more weight than she’d otherwise given credence. They weren't friendly, they weren't sympathetic to her debt and its previously looming collection.

  They knew.

  Fuck! To hear Tish talk about it, everyone knew…

  She paused, not three steps away from the nearest guard, whirling around on the man who offered an entirely forced smile that was, what? Meant to make it look like he was her pal? Her compatriot?

  O-okay, Beckie didn't exactly know his name—Kirt or—Matt or, ugh, it didn't matter… Either way, everything about his posture was practically radiating that oh so frustrating smugness. That very same, wherein one could tell that the other person was keeping a fairly substantial secret, but oh so badly wanted to gossip about it like a couple of old men sitting at the park and pying checkers.

  Everyone knew…

  Everyone except her.

  Or, that was to say, she was the st to apparently be told that she’d been fucking—no… No! Beckie was not going to lose her shit over this. Not yet anyway.

  And while the young woman wanted to stomp up to the now slightly confused mook, mainly so she could dent his skull with her knuckles, Beckie reeled her fring fury back into the cooking pot where it could boil until she unleashed it.

  Taking a breath, she forced her legs to take another step, likewise swinging her torso back around until she was left staring at the semi-distant front entrance.

  It was right there.

  Only a short three dozen or so steps away.

  She could reach it within a minute.

  She could do exactly as Chris had told her.

  Hell, Beckie could just leave right now and say fuck it! Say fuck ‘all’ of it!

  She could be on a ship as soon as midnight if she was lucky, not as a passenger, but as a deckhand. The pay would be shit, the contract to ensure she didn't piss off at the next port they stopped by even shittier, but, Beckie would be—free, in retive terms.

  Not free in the sense she could leave that sort of life at the drop of a hat, but it would have been her own decision to make that call, not anybody else's.

  Heck! Maybe, she could even talk to Cire about it.

  Sure, she already owed the other woman a good deal, but if Beckie had to choose between two sets of crazy, then—mmhmm… w-well, she wasn't enthusiastic about it…

  Truth be told, ‘Cire’ scared the absolute shit out of her.

  Yeah, she seemed like she was on her side, and seemed like she was friendly, yet something about the other girl had always made her nervous… as though, despite what they'd already gone through, the other women might still murder her before getting what she wanted, simply to ensure there was nobody around to share her secrets.

  Beckie…

  Beckie just didn't know…

  She had trust issues!

  Major ones!

  But that was as much nature as it was nurture… She just—didn't know… couldn't know… the other girl was hiding far more than she let on. And while they both got along somewhat well—Beckie couldn't shake the feeling that the woman was a ‘monster’ hiding in sheep's clothing…

  Beck knew the type.

  Real ‘dark sector’ bullshit. Heck, the phrase ‘bcksite federal agent’ felt like it could be stamped on her Trinity damned head… But at least the ‘supposed’ Ptinum mile hacker wouldn't be predisposed towards hateful tendencies like Mason would unapologetically be.

  He’d broken it off, it was true, but their retionship had been long since over before that had ever happened. No, they’d been at the stage of ‘true’ toxicity, where every night was a fight, and every morning an exhausting slew of awkwardness in an attempt to avoid one another; more, by that point, they’d been actively trying to hurt each other wherever they could.

  The result?

  While Mason had done his best to get under her skin, Beckie had simply been the far better combatant in this regard.

  It just came with the territory of being attractive and not unwilling to use that fact… And while the glorified ‘underboss’ was a decent looking young guy who took care of himself, Beckie had pretty much had a gangbang lined up the night he’d decided to cheat on her to, in his words, ‘teach her a lesson.’

  As it happened, when he’d sent her the video of himself plowing some young hooker as though he were trying to prove a point that he could have anyone he wanted, Beckie had sent him a livestream of her having a train run on herself in an act of sheer vindictive enthusiasm.

  Not her best decision to date in life, but Beckie wasn't exactly ‘known’ for her wisdom when her blood had the kettle whistling.

  It was then that she truly realized the extent of what Chris might have been trying to say.

  Rebecca had options.

  She could leave.

  She could run away.

  Sure, the syndicate would probably hunt her, but the republic was a fucking big pce.

  She could go to Mars.

  She could go to Titan!

  Beckie could, if she honestly tried, go to any number of humanities colonies or core cities, and the best part was that there was truly nothing tying her down.

  “Make a deal with the hacker to hitch a ride in my head somehow, then take a ship to fuck butt nowhere… Use her to sneak by any indentured contracts they might force me to sign, and both of us can be at the edge of civilization where nobody would find us…”

  “It—could work…

  And, it was honestly an intriguing thought, an attractive one, even.

  For as much as Luna-C was the crowning jewel of the republic, Beckie lived in its gutter-infested shadow. There was nothing shining about her life, nor where she’d grown up. In fact, she suspected that she could drop in at any distant and industrial starport without noticing much of a difference.

  What did she have to lose?

  Her apartment?

  Ha! What a joke that was…

  Beckie hadn't even paid first and st to get the pce, merely just stopped by the ndlord's pce a few times a month for a quickie, just to keep herself on his good side and her rent down as low as it could go.

  And, truth be told, and sad as it was to say, Beckie really didn't have anything else to her name…

  Only her cybernetics, a bank account that was perpetually overdrafted, and her friends, abandoned and avoided as she was as of te…

  The young woman bit her lip, her form nearly swaying as she almost tilted towards the doors.

  Towards freedom

  Towards a life where she wasn't an over glorified whore and—

  “Beckie!” A familiar and excessively cheerful voice called out, his words drawing with a lip curling sther of faux camaraderie and—affection…

  Slowly, her eyes still lingering on the far door, Rebecca turned until she was forced to gnce in the direction the voice had called to her, its resonance within her seething disdain causing it to cut through the heavy sm of bring techno.

  Mason.

  He was sitting at the bar, far from his usual spot, surrounded by the cadre of sycophants who all uded themselves as though they were the operation's top hitsquad.

  The tall, square-jawed and bombastic Jeremy, currently sitting backwards and without a shirt, gave her an amused wave with a shot-filled hand as his bare chest gleamed with silver and technological tracers.

  Slimy Oliver, his perpetually greased hair just as shiny and slicked as ever, his likewise tall but much thinner frame contrasting against his friend's bulky size, a cruel and, horrifically, even perversely crooked grin sending a chill down her spine as to the reason ‘why’ he was looking at her as he was…

  And finally, there was the ringleader…

  Not truly handsome, not really unattractive. Confidant, well put together, impeccably dressed in his shirtless bzer, white scks, and sockless moccasins.

  That ever-familiar ‘sparkle’ of ambition and humor in his gaze that had first so thoroughly captivated her attention when they were teenagers, now looked far more cruel and sadistic than it ever had…

  In truth, Mason wasn't a terrible person… quite the contrary, in fact. Most of the lower ranks liked him, loved him even, which was why he got away with so much. Yet, he suffered from an entirely disastrous combination of cowardice and indecision, which, for his chosen profession, wasn't at all helpful for his dreams.

  The problem was precisely that: Mason was a romantic.

  One who would much rather talk about his grand pns and schemes than actually execute in the wake of so many failures.

  In theory, the trio was one of the Syndicate's ‘fixer teams’

  A team of highly trained and highly talented individuals who were packing enough cyberware to put down the average person who’d run afoul of the gang.

  In reality? Pete only slipped his son the small few contracts he felt he could handle, keeping Mason within the rosy bubble he’d since adapted to because, honestly, when it came to syndicate business, it was all Mason was really good for.

  Yet, the young man knew how to talk, and he knew how to charm. So, anyone who wasn't wise to his ways often found themselves caught up in his own aggrandised world, sucked in like he was a bzing star, his magnetism and gravity too hard to resist until he eventually disillusioned you of his own greatness.

  Just as she, upon a time, had been.

  Gncing back, Beckie eyed the door, again wondering if she could just walk away. Leave, at least until they forced her back here, kicking and screaming against her fate…

  It would be—so easy to just walk away…

  “Beck! Have you seen a ghost or something? Cmon, sit down and have a drink with us, we’ve got big news!” Mason called again, his voice practically expectant with anticipation.

  The asshole had been waiting for her.

  Had moved to sit where he and the others could ‘watch’ as she came up from the basement and snapped the trap shut.

  It was at this point that Beckie honestly found herself contemptive as to the ck of a familiar ‘voice’ in her head. Not her conscience, but rather, the individual who was riding along and undoubtedly watching.

  Where was her ‘guardian angel’ stopping her from making a rash decision?

  Where were the words of warning?

  The offer to—do something about all of this?

  Beckie had thought the girl cared about her…

  Or was it more that the other woman was eager to see what would happen? Hungry to watch the show, as if she were watching reality television…

  Indeed, the diminutive terror seemed to thrive on chaos, but…

  Oh well! Beckie probably wouldn't have listened to reason anyway.

  At this point, nothing short of forcing her to walk away would change her mind.

  There was just something so—insufferably arrogant about the way Mason grinned at her, in the way his goons grinned at her.

  Like they were untouchable.

  Like they could do anything they wanted.

  Like they could own her…

  It was too much.

  It was too—urgh! Too much! And Beckie knew what she wanted. Knew what she’d wanted for some time now…

  To see Mason get what he oh so deserved…

  Beckie's hands flexed as she turned away from the exit, a cloud of hateful darkness yering across her golden gaze as she righted herself and took an unhurried step toward her ex-lover.

  Freedom was all well and fine, but had anyone who’d ever chosen it over revenge wondered how good it would feel to ‘juice’ the skull of someone you hated with all your body and heart? All while frothing at the mouth and watching the light leave their eyes?

  Probably not.

  And Beckie, truly, hadn't ever been one to make good decisions…