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The crack of her whip was an assault on his ears, a challenge to his authority that grated on his nerves and set his teeth on edge. Dark lips curled in a sneer, he turned his attention to his alley's most notorious patron. Legs encased in shining leather, from the six-inch heels to the skintight black patent wrapped round her thighs. Black corset, laced tight, just another method of modifying her already perfectly engineered form. Jet hair tossed over her shoulder, crimson lipstick - haughty, demanding, keeping up the facade though they both knew she had come to beg at his feet.
He rolled his eyes, very deliberately looking away as she stepped before him and cracked the whip again. A child playacting, a common harlot dressed up in leathers filched from a dominatrix. They both knew perfectly well who was in control of the situation - and it wasn't Amber Sweet.
Amber Fucking Sweet. Plastic princess of the GeneCo empire, spending daddy's money on the blessed sweet sacrament of this back-alley priest, funding her addiction on the blood and death of others. Poor bastards. She paid him well.
He slid the vial into the gun usually worn at his hip, its tip gleaming with murderous intent, eager as all little pricks are to be buried within warm flesh. Many had already fallen to his needle tonight - the casualties of addiction lay around the alley like so many ecstatic corpses, warm and breathing but dead to the world. He polished the needle with a rag that could have passed for clean... Maybe. It mattered little, anyway. Amber Sweet was about ninety percent synthetic - no disease known to man would stick to that sleek, artificial frame.
"A hit!" She demanded impatiently, stiletto heel clicking with a sharp staccato as she stamped one irritable boot down on the concrete.
The Graverobber raised his brows at her, expression speaking volumes, though he didn't give her tantrum the dignity of a verbal response. Bitch, please. The gun clicked once, indicating that the vial had slid home, offering the promise of glowing blue nirvana.
He held out an expectant hand. "Bitch, pay me."
She pouted at him, full painted lips looking surprisingly childish, incongruous on such a sultry face. Like a kid playing with mommy's makeup. "You know I don't carry cash."
Shrugging, he holstered the gun. "Right. And I don't have any Z."
"I'll pay you later!" She insisted, tone wheedling.
"Okay." He tossed over his shoulder, turning on his heel. "I'll see you later."
"Where are you going? Stay here!" The princess gave orders as easily as breathing, but Graverobber hardly considered himself one of her many servants. Still, the shove she gave him convinced him to remain in the alley a moment longer - if only to put the bitch in her place.
Lean, lithe sex toy. A hand at her collarbone and a good hard shove was all it took to push her into the wall opposite. He sneered down at her, firm touch still keeping her pressed against the worn brick. "Don't touch me, Amber." He snarled at her, pleasant expression marred by the animal's growl issuing from his painted lips.
"You sure about that?" Her tone was affected, sultry, a mockery of his own low purr, and it set his teeth on edge. Perfectly manicured hands reached up and ran teasingly down his chest, fingers combing through the fur of his showman's coat, sliding inside the cotton of his shirt to caress the surprisingly warm skin beneath. He stared at her, expression unreadable, Zydrate blue eyes unusually dark.
"We going to play this game again, Amber?" He asked, voice a rumble in his chest. His tone was almost tired. Almost.
"Why not?" She shot back, glaring.
*~*~*~*~*
Her voice came out as a high, trembling whimper, a tentative breathless plea that nevertheless echoed in the alley as if she had shouted.
"Fuck my soul."
He froze, and turned slowly around, his movements predatory as he took a step towards her. "What... Did you say?"
She quailed, biting her lip nervously, but held fast. "Fuck me."
He crossed the distance between them in an instant, bending slightly to look into those big dark eyes as he growled at her. "Kid, I don't know who you think you're talking to but I'm no Prince Charming. You'd best be damn fucking certain you know what you're asking for."
His tone was low and lethal, all silk and barbed wire, and she trembled beneath the intensity of his stare. This was not going as planned.
When she remained silent he sneered, dark painted lips curling into an animal's snarl, and he stood, moving to walk away. "That's what I thought."
"I want to be like her." She blurted out, her teeth immediately catching on her lower lip as if she could bite down on the words and call them back.
He paused again, not looking at her, speaking the words over his shoulder. "And who might that be?" Though he already knew the answer.
"Amber." A pause, pregnant with accusation. "I've seen you with her."
And there was the crux of the matter. Little Shilo Wallace, orphaned at seventeen, a virgin in every sense of the word, was jealous. Baby had a taste of the big bad world and now she wanted more. And for whatever unknown reason, in that fucked up little head of hers she had decided she wanted him. Well wasn't that interesting.
"You want to be like Amber?" He drawled, turning to look at her. "Go find a surGEN to cut you open and replace every natural part of you, till you're not human anymore. Get hooked on the glow to blot out the pain. Whore yourself out in an attempt to feel anything at all. Then come find me, and I'll show you how much like Amber you can be."
This last was delivered in a low, predatory growl; and he drew quite close to her, something dark and primal glinting in those blue eyes. She took a step back, skinny shoulderblades hitting the alley wall, and his hands went to either side, trapping her there. She licked her lips and looked up at him, dark eyes wide and oh, so innocent. The gesture seemed to infuriate him, and he pulled away abruptly, kinetic energy crackling with all that had not been done.
"Graverobber, please."
"What do you want, kid?"
She stepped away from the wall. "I've seen the way you look at her. Like you want her. Everyone does." She dropped her eyes to the alley floor, nervous in thigh-high stockings and white angel wings. Biting her lip, her eyes bright, the words came out in barely a mumble. "I've never had anyone look at me like that."
His hands on her arms, dragging her close, pressing her tiny frame against him, were almost painfully tight. "The hell you haven't."
She was forbidden fruit, you see - fresh young thing, the only apple in the city that no one had ever touched. He wanted that - wanted to feel her succulent sweet skin under his teeth, to inhale her perfume, and take a bite.
Graverobber usually got what he wanted.
Shilo Wallace got her first kiss, standing in the middle of the alley, pressed tight against the city's most notorious drug dealer. Her tiny white hands fluttered for a moment, birds caught in a snare, before a soft moan poured forth from her captured lips. Then her grip tightened, clutching onto his coat for dear life, as if without him anchoring her to the earth she would shatter and blow away like dead leaves on the wind.
As he pulled free, she clung to him desperately, tiny porcelain doll determined to hold onto her taste of the real world. Her lips brushed against his again as she spoke. "Please..." Her small frame trembled under his touch.
He shuddered, hands flexing at her hips like the compulsive grasping of a starving man reaching for the ripest fruit on the tree. Want her. Christ. She's just a kid. She stretched on tiptoe and placed a warm, inexperienced kiss at his throat, beneath his jaw, soft lips dragging in a way that was illogically beguiling. Christ. Want her.
Another whimpered please, the soft tug of tiny delicate hands in his hair, and he was undone. So sweet. So easy.
"Graverobber?" She queried, as his movements stilled. His hands on her hips spasmed, pulling her tighter against him, and her eyes slipped closed, breath coming in short pants as she was overwhelmed by the sensation - strange, enticing, and brand fucking new.
His response was strained, normally smooth baritone a ragged growl against her ear. "You're going to be the death of me, kid."
*~*~*~*~*
Innocence. It was a commodity, a rarity, a fable - unheard of, in this city, for it to be walking around in the flesh. But Shilo was innocence; embodied in spindly limbs, linen and lace, big doe eyes and skin as thin and fragile as cigarette paper. Thigh-high stockings and black leather boots, tiny skirt and ruffled blouse - nymphet clothes that would have looked obscene on any other female in the city. But Shilo was the most naive Lolita imaginable - completely unaware of her position as bait, dangling at the end of a hook.
She had come to him, after the fall, after GeneCo claimed for its own everything that had ever been important to her. He supposed it was because she knew him, he was the first face she recognized from the outside, from the world beyond her bedroom. Spectacularly unwise, amazingly misguided, but she trusted him.
But Graverobber was not a good man. Buried within his twisted black heart was a soft spot for the girl, but it was not love. No, never that. Rather, it was a covetousness, a jealousy - he viewed her with the lust a junkie has for that glowing blue vial; but her particular shade of blue was more vibrant and stunning than any he had yet seen. He wanted her for his own, because he wanted that which no other man had ever had. A collector's item. Novelty. His own to break and mark as his forever.
Like a needle through a bug.
Her hands were quivering, guileless, roaming over his back and arms as if unsure where to settle. She settled on a point vaguely aligned with his shoulderblades and clung, as if by holding tightly to his coat she could prevent herself from losing control of the situation. Of course, control was already lost - it had been from the moment he grabbed her and pulled her roughly to him.
Her mouth was sweet and soft and completely new, her hesitant lips and saccharine taste unlike anything he knew. She trembled and shook like a leaf in the wind, no longer at all certain about this reckless endeavor. But by this point it was far too late.