Project Gemini (WATTYS 2016 WINNER!)

Chapter Eleven - Run, Pariah, Run.

The stolen piece of skin floated on its own, no aura attached to it, no name, but all Eva knew that was the jar held a piece of evidence. Something that could solve everything. Something that the Chancellor and Kingsley would be able to pin to the case, and she'd be damned if she left here without it.

"You ran into a real nasty piece of work here, slick," the surgeon finally muttered under her breath. "I hope you're ready for a big bill."

"Money isn't a problem."

I'm not paying.

"In that case, be prepared to spend a while here. You need blood and you need antibiotics before that biter of a wound gets infected." The surgical light moved, brightening as the halogen bulb warmed Eva's neck and shoulder. "Do you have anyone to contact?"

"I . . ." Eva stiffened. She wasn't planning on hanging around. "No," she said firmly. "Just do the stitches and I'll go."

"Not even a handler?"

"A what?"

The surgeon tutted. "T brings in the strays, the ones that the brothel—."

"You've got the wrong idea," Eva said, her voice shaking. "I'm not like that."

"Well—" the needle scoured deep again, "—you certainly smell like it."

"I'm just passing through." Eva clenched her fists, a ripple of energy moving through her hands. "Not staying for long."

"Then that'll be four hundred pounds, plus tax."

"Sod off!" Eva cried, before hushing her voice. "Seriously?"

The light strengthened, her skin turned pink from the heat as the light blinded everything to a white haze. "Four hundred, and let's say add on tax. My personal service charge—or whatever the hell you want to call it—of another hundred quid." She paused. "Unless you want to buy something?"

She shook her head, trying to look anywhere that the light wasn't but the glare reflected off the buffed metal cabinets and shone hard in her eyes. The surgeon's chair creaked as the slivering thread in her skin paused for a second, the clatter of medical instruments knocking together in a kidney dish before the air rustled by her head. Eva tried to suppress the shiver that rolled over her skin as her hairs raised. Her gut twisted into a knot.

"Or . . ." the surgeon drawled, "you could always sell something."

Hell to the no.

"I'm not into—."

"Our trade? There's a shortage, a gap in the market that might just fit you," the surgeon said. "But such a pity, people would pay a pretty price for skin like yours. Sometimes the talents that come with it too."

The surgeon's fingers moved down her arm, caressing her skin almost, moving to her wrist. Eva kept her teeth gritted shut.

"And that status, that remarkable ink . . ."

She darted to cover her V tattoo but the surgeon was faster, the thread of the stitches twinged as the surgeon snatched both of her wrists in one clammy hand. A stab of a needle jolted against her shoulder as she thrust up with her hips, throwing the woman's grip away from her.

Move!

Rolling Eva threw herself from the operating table, survival mode kicking in. Her chin collided solid with the metal grill, her wounded arm dead to the pain as her teeth snapped together and failed to absorb the blow.

The floor squelched under her weight, the uneven metal lined with wet cardboard stinking of piss and blood beneath her of those who'd been here before. She scrabbled about madly, but only nothingness met her touch. The rest of the world nothing but a blinding blur of white as the halogen light bulb flickered above her, any second now she waited for the pop of it shattering as she crawled.