Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

search of something to occupy his attention. Something small and precious he could smash, perhaps, and claim it was an accident. He'd already drunk everything worth drinking and raided the kitchen twice. Sometimes eating something made his stomach feel better, and sometimes it didn't, but Brett had always been a great comfort eater. Trouble was, Finn's culinary tastes tended towards the bland, not to mention the downright boring, and Brett had his standards.
    He looked cautiously across at Rose, sitting in her chair pulled uncomfortably close beside his. Her head slowly turned, and she looked at him with her dark, unblinking eyes. She'd been looking at him a lot lately, ever since their minds had touched through the esper drug, when he'd discovered, very much to his surprise, that there was more to her than just a killer after all. God alone knew what she'd discovered about him. He was damned if he could read her expression. She was wearing the same tight-fitting red leathers she always wore, the color of drying blood all the way from her toes to her chin, all seven feet of her. She made the chair look like it had been built for a child, and even though she was sitting perfectly, almost inhumanly still, she dominated the room with her sheer presence.
    Brett studied her openly, and she let him. With her bobbed black hair, dark as the night, her deathly pale skin and savage crimson mouth, she looked like some ancient death goddess, resting from making her rounds of the battlefield, where she tore the eyes from staring faces, like some great and awful gorecrow.
    Brett was hard pressed to decide whether she was good looking. She was just too intense, too fierce, too untamed for such conventional verdicts to apply. Striking, certainly. Attractive, like a well-fashioned weapon. Even sexy, in a disturbing and frankly rather sick way. She scared Brett shitless, but then most things did, these days. He bit his lip, frowning, as he tried to put into words how he felt about her. She should horrify him, but. . .
    He realized he'd been staring at her for a long while, and she hadn't objected. She was still looking at him, calm and curious, as quietly menacing as a coiled snake. Brett swallowed uncomfortably, and sat up a little straighter in his chair.
    "So, Rose; I see you got your leathers repaired. After you took that hit in the ribs. During the riot."
    "This is another outfit," said Rose. "I have seven sets, all exactly the same. It saves me from having to waste time deciding what I'm going to wear when I get up in the morning. I have no patience for
    distractions like that. The Arena Board had a famous designer produce the original set for me. Image is everything, apparently. I didn't object. I like leather. It's practical. And it scares people. That's useful, in the Arena. Fights can be won and lost over how an opponent sees you."
    Brett was taken aback. She'd never spoken so much at one time to him before. In fact, he'd never heard her say that much to anyone before; not even Finn. If it had been anyone else, he'd have said she was confiding in him. Maybe even trying to reach out to him. He cast his mind about for something else to say.
    "They're very nice leathers. The color is so you. But don't you ever get uncomfortable in them? I mean, I used to know this girl who made educational features. For a mature, discerning audience. She wore a lot of leather outfits, and she always said they made her sweat like a pig."
    "I don't sweat," said Rose. "It's bad for the image." She paused. "That was a joke."
    Well, very nearly, thought Brett. Jesus, she'll be trying to smile next. I don't know if I could cope with that.
    "I'm glad you're here, Brett," Rose said slowly. "I wanted to talk to you. In private. This ... is difficult for me, Brett. I don't talk much to people. They don't talk much to me. I don't have much in common with people. You probably noticed. I live for the fight. For the kill. For the spurting blood, and the look in their eyes as the life goes out of them. And for years, that was all I needed, all I wanted from people. But you, Brett . . . you're different. I feel differently about you. I want... to know you. Better. And I don't know why."
    She's trying to come on to me, Brett thought incredulously. I'm not sun if she even knows what that means, but that's what she's trying to do. Brett seriously considered jumping up out of his chair and running for his life, but somehow he didn't. Partly because she'd probably