Beneath the Fallen City - A Dystopian Fantasy Romance

Chapter 3

Kayla woke up in a bad mood. Her commlink had somehow been turned off during the night, and she was running late. She'd stayed up too late last night trying to get the defunct computer terminal back up and running. Her brand of creative engineering wouldn't keep that piece of shit working for long. They would have to replace it soon. It was just one more thing that was going wrong. She'd planned to be down in the ruins first thing in the morning, and it was already approaching noon. On top of that, Veridian wasn't in camp. She didn't have a clue where he could be.

I have to go chase his ass down now too.

She hurriedly pulled on her jacket and yanked on her boots before throwing the backpack containing her tools over her shoulder. If she found him soon, they might still get some scavenging done before calling it a day. As she neared the exit, Leo came around the corner and stopped her.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"

Kayla frowned, wondering what could have agitated Leo this early. He usually saved his tirades for the end of the day. Part of her wondered if he spent the whole day thinking up new colorful insults to try to best her in their verbal sparring matches. One of these days, she was going to retaliate by giving him a hug or maybe a kiss just to throw him off balance.

Glancing around, she half hoped someone else would show up so he could yell at them instead. When no one else magically appeared, she resigned herself to her fate.

Better to get it over with and get on with my day.

"I'm going back to Sector Twelve if I can find my damn spotter. My piece-of-shit commlink got shut off and I'm running late. I doubt Carl will expect us back there so soon after they caught us." She leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. "I've got a feeling about that sector, Leo. I'm never wrong about this. Something big is down there. I'm going back."

His eyes lit up greedily, but then he shook his head.

"No. You're above ground for the next several days until you fully heal from that fall. You're not to go into the ruins until I give the word."

Kayla stared at him blankly and laughed at his outrageous demand. That's a new one. With one of his scavengers injured and another ruin rat camp near their territory, there was no way he would keep her out of the ruins. They could barely make ends meet and keep the camp functioning.

She pulled her helmet off the rack. "Right, Leo. That's cute. Now leave me alone and let me do my damn job."

Leo grabbed the helmet out of her hands and said more forcefully, "Dammit, girl, I said no. Veridian's been temporarily assigned to another scavenger. You're above ground until I say so."

Kayla's eyes widened and then narrowed, her heart pounding in her chest. V was hers. How dare he reassign him and threaten to take away the one constant in her life? When everything seemed to crumble around her, Veridian had been the person to help keep everything together. She couldn't lose him.

Her nails dug into her palms, the pain a reminder that fear was a weakness, an exploitable emotion. She forced herself to push aside her panic and focus on her anger, unwilling to show Leo how much the thought of losing Veridian scared her. Instead, she reached for an emotion she could wield and lashed out, going on the offensive.

"Where the hell do you get off breaking up my team? Veridian is my damn partner. I'm perfectly fine to go underground. I've taken worse falls before and you've never given me shit about it. I'm not some precious artifact that can't handle a few scrapes and bumps."

"It's your own damn fault," Leo snapped. "You had to get involved in Carl's business, and now he's paying me to keep you above ground. He says you were hurt the other day and if I don't keep you off schedule until he says so, he's threatened to increase his cut in future trades. You stay up here for a week and I collect a thousand credits. You go below ground, I lose much more than that."