Free Rebel Souls by D.L. Jackson Page B

chance sometime during the night, a fight would break out and most likely over the women. The good establishments in the city fostered a calm atmosphere.
    Here, they fostered anything but.
    In the Nexian club, they didn’t care about love and relationships. They wanted to line their pockets and do it by disarming the patrons. Sometimes they even added chemicals to the booze to strengthen the result and make their prey more compliant. The best place to sit was near an exit, close to fresh air and a quick escape, where she should wait for her contact. Brodie taught her about survival, and she’d taken the lesson seriously.
    The hairs on her neck prickled. A predator watched. Ava turned around, looking toward the rear door and then over to a table next to it. Her gaze landed on the man who watched her as intently as she’d studied the room. She blinked once, twice, and grabbed Seth’s arm to keep from dropping to the floor as her knees went soft.
     
    ***
     
    Ten years before….
     
    Brodie escorted Ava down the walk. “Hurry. I don’t want to be late.”
    “Where are we going?” Two months after her birthday, her uncle made port in New Xiera again, and as expected, Brodie showed up at the ship the moment her uncle left, let himself into her room and roused her from another nap. As always, his timing was impeccable. Ava blinked the sleep from her eyes, not quite awake and a tad on the grumpy side. Not knowing where they were going made her even crankier.
    What surprise did he have for her today? It wasn’t a holiday, Nexian or Terran—nothing special to celebrate. Still, Brodie moved with a sense of urgency, nearly taking her off her feet with his brisk stride. “Slow down,” she huffed. “I’m not used to the gravity here.”
    “We need to get there.”
    “And there is…?”
    “The Blue District. The debutants are on parade.”
    Why would Brodie drag her to that? It was the last thing she wanted to see or be reminded of. That part of her life had died with her parents. Still, Brodie seemed determined to revive the heritage that had long since moved past resuscitation. “Is this really necessary?”
    “Yes.” He sped up, and Ava stumbled.
    The debutants parade happened once a year on Nexis. Some of the wealthier residents of the Blue District had adopted it, bringing the distasteful practice to the beautiful world. The women were nothing more than stock strutted before eligible bachelors. Banners floated over their heads in the most expensive silks, announcing the position and ranks of their households. The grooms would stand on the curb, looking for the right woman to breed heirs for their estates, tossing credits at the procession’s feet.
    The women, some as young as fifteen, had shed their aristocratic white dresses in favor of brilliant jewel tones and would be escorted down the street, some by force, until a reasonable price was offered. The more prestige the woman’s family carried, the more money and rank she’d bring to the household, so putting on a show was a must. Every second of their lives they were prepared for this moment. A woman who brought less than her expected worth, or failed to garner an offer, would bring shame to her family and risked exile or worse.
    So the pretty maids held their heads up, marched with grace, and each tried to outdo the other. The dresses were outrageously extravagant, and the jewels worn by just one debutant could feed the poor district for at least a year. “Pretty birds,” Ava’s mother once called them, “blown off course by circumstance, struggling to stay alive in the eye of the storm.”
    Once an acceptable offer was made, the woman’s guardian would pocket the credit, a digital contract would be sealed on the spot with the thumb impression of both male parties, and the woman would be handed over to her new husband.
    “The whore’s parade,” Ava mumbled, remembering too well the stories her mother told her of it, and the poor Nexian women