Free Fallen by Susan Kaye Quinn Page A

distance between us in three long strides.
    She’s dressed in the gray silk pajamas Kolek gave her the first night. “Lirium—”
    I cut her off by taking her in my arms and kissing her. Her small frame fits against me, and her arms slip around my neck. I pull her tight, one hand at her back, the other behind her head, holding her as my lips make demands.
    Her mouth opens, welcoming me in. I deepen our kiss and press her against the door. She starts to transfer, giving me a hit through her fingers clutching at my shoulders. I slide my hand under her pajamas, finding bare skin at the small of her back, and cycle the energy to her again. 
    I pause our kiss for a second, just long enough to say, “Hello,” then kiss her again. She smiles against my lips, and I may have ruined it by making her laugh. I pull back.
    “Hello yourself,” she says.
    “I’m really glad to see you.” I’m a little breathless.
    “I couldn’t tell.”
    I smile, then kiss her lightly. We’ve stopped transferring, and I relax my fervent hold on her, but she’s still trapped between me and the door. The kiss was just a spontaneous reaction—I hope it was the right call, because I need her on my side. She doesn’t seem in a hurry to be elsewhere, so I think my instincts were right.
    “How did you get in here?” I ask, softly.
    She waves the swipe card. “The staff won’t figure out it’s gone until the morning.”
    I grin. “You planning on staying a while?” I’m thinking there may be more than one way to convince her to help me, and I’m definitely not averse to experimenting.
    “I was getting bored in my room,” she says.
    The idea of dragging her to bed for a while dissipates as I realize she just broke out of her room. “Wait, if you can swipe into my room with that—”
    She pushes me away, like I’m foolish to even consider it. “You can’t get out with just a swipe card, Lirium.”
    I cringe. I need to play this cool. My hand slides across the soft silk of her pajamas to bring her, gently, back into my arms. “Did you hear what happened?”
    “About you being an idiot with Kolek?” She frowns. “I thought you were getting smarter, baby. Working up to minnow.”
    I run a finger along the midnight-black hair framing her face. “Kolek has my file. Valac had it all along. He must have gotten it from Candy. She’s the one who sold us out.”
    I expect her to be shocked. She’s not.
    I draw back, the cozy space between us disappearing. “You knew.”
    She tilts her head to one side, resigned. “I didn’t know. But I heavily suspected.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Because it didn’t matter!” Her eyes flash, but then she clenches them shut, leans her head back against the door, and bangs it twice, lightly. “I’m sorry I got you in this mess. I should never have gone to your—”
    She stops herself and holds perfectly still.
    “What?” I ask, instantly suspicious.
    She opens her eyes, but looks away. “I wish I hadn’t gone to your apartment that night. You would never have gotten wrapped up in all this.”
    My suspicion hardens into a knot of dread in my stomach. “What aren’t you telling me?”
    Ophelia shrugs her arms up, folding them across her chest. She’s still only a couple of inches away, but she’s retreating inside herself, putting a barrier between us.
    “Ophelia,” I say low and quiet. “Tell me.”
    She draws in a breath and lets it out slow. “I knew something was up with Candy. I’d been doing medical transfers, hanging out in the hospital a lot. Too much. Enough to see some things that I shouldn’t have seen.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like debt collectors coming to the pediatric ward when there shouldn’t be any. Like nurses who talk to debt collectors instead of running the other direction or avoiding us whenever possible.”
    “You saw the kids they were transferring out?” My mouth hangs open now. I should have realized Ophelia would know about the illegal life