Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(17)

“Nope.” I was only half listening to him; I could still hear Gloria’s raised voice from downstairs, and it twisted my stomach into a knot. I wanted to get away from it, but where was there to go?

“Everybody has a price,” he said without looking at me.

“Yeah?” I forced my attention away from the confrontation downstairs. “What’s yours?”

“That depends. For what?”

“Oh, I dunno. An hour in a cheap motel.”

He shot me a look. “With you? Not enough money in the world.”

He said something after that, but I didn’t hear it. It was as though a glass capsule of boiling acid broke inside my head. Before I knew what I was doing, my cane swung in a swift arc and struck the side of Teo’s head.





9


My swing wasn’t hard enough to seriously hurt Teo, but it was more than enough to throw me off balance and send me toppling to the floor by way of the beanbag chair. Even with all those little plastic beans to absorb the shock, it felt like every pin and nail and plate that held my shattered bones together suddenly jarred loose and sent me back to pieces.

“Shit, you okay?” I heard Teo say somewhere over me.

A few moments went by before I could speak. I lay half propped up on my side, staring down. I’d twisted my ankle hard enough to break the suction suspension on my BK prosthetic.

“My leg came off,” I said, staring at it.

“I see that. Do you need—”

“And my elbow’s bleeding.”

He knelt next to me, smelling of hair product and stale ciga-rette smoke, sitting me up with careful hands. It had been a year since I had a hug, so I sort of turned it into one.

“You dumb shit,” he said. “Why did you hit me? Now I have to report you.”

“Please don’t.”

“Don’t move; I’ll be right back.” He tried to pull away. “Let go, you nut job; I’m not reporting you this minute, I’m getting something for your elbow.” He eased me onto the beanbag chair and hurried out, returning with a wet washcloth.

I grabbed his arm. “Please don’t report me.”

He pulled free, then handed me the cloth. “I have to; it’s the rules.”

“I don’t want to go back to the hospital. I’ve got nowhere else to go. Please.”

“I’ll tell her I provoked you. And I’m sorry about that, I only meant—”

“I know what you meant, just shut up now please.” I adjusted the silicone sheath on my shin and slid it back into the suspension, but the seal was sloppy.

“No, you shut up,” Teo said. “Even if you were Inaya West, I wouldn’t touch you. Among other things, if I molested a newbie, Caryl would have Elliott rip out my entrails.”

“Who’s Elliott? The black guy?”

“Wow.” He blinked at me. “Racist much?”

“How was that racist?”

“If you have to ask . . . But no, Elliott is Caryl’s, uh—” He looked at me and seemed to think better of it. “I dunno if she wants me talking about that yet. You’ll meet him later.”

I held the washcloth against my elbow, watching Teo irritably rub his head where I’d hit him. My brain sort of flatlined; I lost track of what we were talking about.

“You okay?” he said, his hand still in his hair. “I was about to show you the viscount’s file.”

“What’s the point, if I’m fired?”

“You’re not fired,” he snapped, leaning down to rummage through his desk. His hair stuck straight out where he’d been rubbing it. “I’ll tell her I like you.”

“You’ll tell her you do?”

He ignored me. “Look at this.” He handed me a folder neatly labeled RIVENHOLT. It hardly seemed to belong in the mess of his room. Inside the folder were some sort of forms, filled out in careful block print with information that mostly made no sense to me. I wasn’t really looking at the words anyway, because the photograph clipped to them was the kind of thing that captures attention.

I remembered him now, though like Teo, I couldn’t remember his character’s name in Accolade. He looked to be in his early thirties, with aristocratic cheekbones and a generous mouth. His hair was nearly as pale as his skin and fell in waves just to his collar. It was his eyes that I couldn’t stop staring at, though: almond shaped, fog gray, their chill softened by tawny lashes.

“God,” I heard myself say.

“I know, right?” said Teo scathingly. “Must be nice to be able to design your own face.”

It was hard to reconcile Rivenholt’s distant expression with the feelings he had poured into his drawings. “What’s he like?” I asked. “Have you met him?”

“Once or twice. Your basic aristocrat stereotype. Thinks he’s better than everyone, vain about his appearance, doesn’t like humans touching him.”

“There are reasons besides snobbery that someone might not like to be touched.”

“Either way, when we find him, my boot is going to touch his ass.” He hesitated, then turned to fix me with a grave look. “You know that’s a joke, right? I play by the rules, even if Mr. Pretty Boy thinks he’s above them.”