Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1) by Mariana Morgan (essential reading txt) 📕

‘Tell me, how did you manage to buy yourself an Elite’s life? Ortega was a poor, disgusting Leech who had nothing.’

‘If I remember correctly, Sebastien Dalhström was an even poorer and more disgusting Leech,’ Ingram hissed.

A sharp backhand slap rewarded her for her sardonic attitude. The stinging sensation, even the taste of blood from her busted lip, was nothing compared to how the strike had made the agony coming from her abs flare up. Wagner must have noticed how she instantly paled, her eyes becoming unfocused, because he made no move to hurt her more.

He still had the PX-47 syringe in his hand, but it was just a bluff. He had no intention of using it while Ingram was so weak.

Fuck you, bitch, he howled in his mind. I don’t have time to allow you a luxurious recovery. Stop trying to fuck with me!

The hired goons that had found her among the wreckage of the lab came with a simple on and off switch, it had turned out. Unable to comprehend complex orders that had told them to capture the intruders without extensive damage, they had further aggravated her condition. Instead of attending to Ingram’s gaping wound after they had taken control of the lab, they dragged her unconscious body while her damaged armour struggled to keep her alive. It had been a while before her condition was stabilised, and it would be another ten hours or so before the basic healing was complete. Each further injury would only add more time. Even a damn slap to her face could rip the clotting mesh the drugs had created, making her bleed out.

And the bitch knows it. She is goading me, almost as if she wants to bleed into unconsciousness and gain time. Is she expecting a rescue attempt?

‘Yes, Leech Sebastien Dalhström was a pathetic little piece of shit, but he had something you didn’t,’ Wagner said, trying desperately to take the initiative away from her. ‘He was determined to dig his way out of the shithole he was born into. He lived with only one goal in mind. To make sure Louis Wagner was born one day. Dalhström served his function.’

Ingram looked at him, her face twisting in pure disgust as she realised the extent of Wagner’s deviations. He hated the Leech he had once been so much he had actually developed some sort of split-personality disorder, rejecting his past.

‘And if it wasn’t for you, no one would have known,’ Wagner continued, grabbing Ingram’s chin roughly, yanking the woman’s head up. He knew he should resist manhandling her, but it just wasn’t in his nature. With his other hand he grabbed her breast roughly. ‘You told that cunt, Moretti, about my past, didn’t you? You knew it would get me thinking about who still lived to tie me back to it. Get me distracted. Paranoid maybe. And if Moretti knows, so does Colonel fucking Larsen and the rest of your pathetic entourage.’

For a moment it became impossible for Ingram to focus on Wagner’s words, and it had nothing to do with her injuries. Her mind took her back to Roc de Chere and Gonzalez asking Eloise about her knowledge of Wagner’s Leech past. The scan of her nervous system, as expected, had shown no traces of nano-hell conditioning. The brief, puzzling inconsistency had been quickly pushed aside amidst the preparations, but Ingram knew Gonzalez would do his best to get to the bottom of it as soon as he had time. She regretted not telling him the truth about Wagner from the beginning. Maybe she truly was more of a Leech than she had ever wanted to believe; she saw her and Wagner’s past as a private Leech thing that should never be discussed with the Elite. All this time it had seemed irrelevant, but it hadn’t been her decision to make. Now it was too late.

‘… but I did it. I killed everyone who might recognise me.’ Her mind focused on Wagner again. ‘I sanitised the rot. And I will do it again.’ His grip on her chin intensified, smashing the back of her head into the chair. ‘I really did believe that Ortega died of her wounds, just like the official record says. How did you survive? Some pathetic wannabe saviour doctor betraying the Elite by letting scum like you in? Falling for your feminine charms? You never had any other skills to offer, did you?’

Ingram knew he was trying to anger her, make her irrational. He was hoping she would lose control and talk, involuntarily letting information slip. He wanted her unstable. But even with that knowledge it was hard to resist getting furious. He was getting too close to the truth, and he knew it.

As Molina Ortega she had had plenty of skills, not just as an excellent pilot who had delivered the final blow ending the Freedom Wars, but none of that had ever mattered. The best she had been able to arrange for herself in her Leech past had come down to whom she had offered her sexual services to. It had always come down to that.

And once upon a time that person had been one Leech Sergeant Sebastien Dalhström. He had offered to smuggle her back into a weapons factory when the first bootcamp had turned out to be too much for a seventeen-year-old Molina Ortega. He had offered to find her a job there and make sure her files never showed that she had failed.

Normally those Leeches who failed or tried to drop out of their bootcamp or basic training either died where they stood or found their way into labs to slowly wither away during various technically illegal experiments. Neither of those fates had appealed to Molina.

She had been young and stupid when she first enlisted. Naively she thought that after growing up in the slums she could handle anything, but that had been only the wishful thinking of a little girl. Quickly, she had realised that she wouldn’t last