Free The Burn Zone by James K. Decker

to spend the money, but I needed a place to clean up and sleeping in a crash tube wasn ’ t going to cut it.
     
    When I headed inside, a small crowd of people were in the lobby, dripping rainwater as they watched a TV mounted on the wall. It showed the wreckage from inside our apartment, reflected police lights flashing in time with the ones outside the hotel window. I recognized the remains of the smashed wet bar, where police were standing and pointing toward the battered airbike. The camera panned down and zoomed in on a few shell casings that were circled with chalk.
     
    “ One? ”
     
    I looked over at the woman sitting at the check-in counter. She ’ d checked me in before but didn ’ t show any sign she recognized me. Her stringy hair was streaked with gray, and her leathery lips were pinched around a thin black cigarette.
     
    “ Yeah, ” I said, approaching the counter.
     
    “ Hourly or nightly? ”
     
    “ One night. ”
     
    “ I got two singles up on forty, no AC and no TV. ”
     
    “ Shower? ”
     
    She nodded. “ Sixty yuan. ”
     
    “ I ’ ll take it. ”
     
    She swiped my card and pushed it back to me along with the room badge.
     
    “ What the hell happened to you? ” she asked, like she ’ d noticed the scrapes and bruises for the first time.
     
    “ Long story. ”
     
    “ I ’ ll bet. ”
     
    I took the card and badge and made my way to the elevator lobby.
     
    The A.I. yammered at me as I rode it up. Something about lip injections, I think; I wasn ’ t listening. My clothes were wet and uncomfortable, and the chemicals in the rainwater made every scrape and cut itch. When the elevator finally stopped and the doors opened, I trudged down the hall feeling tired, beaten, and very alone.
     
    The hotel room offered little more than a dingy closet with a single twin bed and an end table with a plastic lamp. It had its own toilet, though, and the tiny bathroom had a standing shower stall, as promised.
     
    As the door latched behind me, I tossed my pack on the bed and peeled off my tank top. It was stained with blood and there were some holes in it, but it was going to have to do for now because I hadn ’ t thought to grab another one before I left the apartment. I kicked off my shoes and wiggled out of my pants, then hung the clothes on the curtain rod to try and dry them out a little, stopping for a minute to look out at the streets below. I could see my apartment down the street, where another police aircar cruised down from the sky lane to join the others on the ground.
     
    What am I going to do?
     
    I didn ’ t have a good answer to that at the moment. I just stared through the sheets of rain that washed down over the window, and watched the lights stream by until my stomach growled and I remembered the ration. There was no point saving it now.
     
    I unzipped the pack and found that the guards hadn ’ t looked inside, or if they had, they didn ’ t confiscate anything. One piece of good luck anyway. I grabbed the ration and carried it into the bathroom, where I turned the shower dial to a single rinse. The pipes thumped in the wall, and while the water tank filled I pulled the plastic wrapper off the ration and ate the dry crunchy puck while sitting on the toilet.
     
    As the food made its way down to my belly, the pounding in my head eased somewhat, but it didn ’ t do much to stop t h e empty ache. I felt a tickle on my cheek and wiped my eyes. Once they started, the tears wouldn ’ t seem to stop. They ’ d beaten him so bad. He was knocked out, facedown, and bleeding, but they ’ d just kept beating him. How could they do that?
     
    “ I love you like you were my own flesh and blood.... ”
     
    Dragan never said stuff like that. He just didn ’ t. He pushed. He teased. He yelled sometimes, and swore. He didn ’ t tell people he loved them, not even when he did.
     
    It had taken me so long to trust him. The thought chafed in my mind as I chewed bitter scalefly