Free Entangled by Amy Rose Capetta

hurt more than pulling her own teeth. That guitar was the one thing that had kept her from losing herself in the wilds of the Noise. If she wanted to find Xan, she had to leave it behind.
    Far above her head, a chip of the spaceport’s glass dome opened up into the dark. The ship—Renna—blinked all of her little black eyes open.
    Cade snapped the case shut. Opened it again. Took in that deep red like a drink. No. Like a blood transfusion.
    A scream reached across the spaceport and found Cade. The sort of wild scream that went straight past the higher functions of her brain and buried itself in the ancient parts.
    Had the Unmakers caught up? Would they attack her? Here?
    Cade’s body was a chant.
    Heart, muscle, blood.
    No, no, no.
    And she started transmitting to Xan without meaning to. It was the second time that had happened. When her emotions ramped up and her heart ran fast and tight, the connection snapped on—like a built-in failsafe. Cade sent everything she was feeling, thinking, seeing, straight to him.
    She ran up the walkway. The scream died down and she was a step from the door, thinking the sound had been some mistake, thinking she had made it.
    A hand clamped tight over her mouth, and another slid around her waist. Three more arms on her, in different places. Over a shoulder, around a thigh. Then she heard the voice, thick and slurping.
    â€œYou can’t leave, girlie. You’d miss me too much.”

 
    Â 
    CHAPTER 6
    ENTANGLED QUANTUM SYSTEMS: Cannot be fully described without considering both systems
    Cade put an elbow to Mr. Smithjoneswhite’s soft middle. A few of his hands trickled off like dirty water, but he stuffed a set of fingers into her mouth just as she was about to call for Lee. Pain shot from the root of Cade’s gone-tooth and came out as the crudest form of sound. Mr. Smithjoneswhite’s hand soaked up the screams.
    â€œThis is a nice skin,” he said, breathing warm down the neck of her Saea outfit. “You look almost like a woman. Doesn’t matter to me what flavor so long as it’s not human.” More fingers on her. More breath. “Too bad I know the truth. One scream from you and everyone in the spaceport will know it, too.”
    Cade bit his hand and when he snatched it back, her teeth went into her own lip—puffed it up with the bright taste of blood.
    â€œYou won’t do that,” Cade said. “Get me arrested. You want me to come back to the club.” She’d figured it out by this point. He must have put a tracer on her, or had one of the bouncers do it, or the bartender.
    â€œIt’s cute, girlie, watching you try to figure me out. Maybe I just want to see you pinned for breach of contract.”
    Cade scrabbled back against Mr. Smithjoneswhite, pressed her heels down, but got no purchase. “It’s not Saturday. I never missed a show.”
    â€œBut I have you booked,” he said. “Every Saturday for the rest of your life.”
    Cade’s voice rose against the spaceport’s din. “You wrote that contract and signed it for me.”
    â€œYes.” Mr. Smithjoneswhite let out a low, blurry chuckle. “And if I remember right, you thanked me.”
    Renna started to shiver, then shake. She rose an inch above the ground and blinked one eye, right in front of Cade. The ship was waiting to take off. The gap in the glass dome wouldn’t be open for long.
    Now that Cade knew Xan needed her, she couldn’t get stuck on Andana. Mattering to someone was like having a favorite song. If you’d never heard it, you wouldn’t be able to miss it. But once you knew it was out there, there was no distance you wouldn’t travel to hear it again.
    â€œLet me go,” she whispered.
    Fingers tightened on her neck, ridged her arms, pressed their prints white and all over.
    â€œYou don’t want me to.”
    Cade felt a rush coming from the edges of her mind to the