Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(8)
I was right, and he knew it. Derry was a street kid; he’d grown up fighting. But this death, it was an important one, life-changing. And he must’ve parsed that before me, back in the alley. Layering that on top of his natural coming-down paranoia . . . It was bad.
Bad enough that I worried he’d make a mistake. Do something we’d both regret.
“I’ll get you out of there,” he said. “Don’t I always, Z?” He hadn’t let me go yet, but he would. He had to.
“Not this time,” I told him softly. “Don’t look for me. Just look after yourself.”
“I will,” he said. When I turned to go, he moved. He grabbed my arm and spun me hard toward him, and kissed me. That melted me, but then he whispered, “You have to find something to get me through. I can’t—without . . . Get it for me. Please.”
For months, I’d tried to keep him off the chems; it had worked, sometimes. But never when he was like this.
I silently reached into my pocket and pulled out the chem I’d taken from Deluca’s daughter and pressed it into his hand. “Careful,” I whispered. “I don’t know how strong it is. Hell, I don’t know what it is. Just a taste, okay? Only when you need it.”
He took in a gasping breath and pressed his forehead to mine, then kissed me again. Sweet, this time, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I might never see him again. It hurt like pulling bones out of sockets. Hearts out of chests. But neither one of us were the type to say that or let it show. He lifted his head at a whisper-whir in the clouds; the drone would be one of the quiet models, stealthy. A murder drone. And it was scanning for us. No. For me.
He didn’t let me go. I opened my hands and stepped back.
Leaning in, I kissed him fiercely, and ran.
Heart burning like Conde’s building, I kept to the rat’s maze—covered walkways, tunnels, camouflaged nets that flapped overhead. The Zone residents were always wary of drones, though mostly they were trying to protect themselves from enforcement models, not murderbots. I had military-grade heat on me, so I moved fast.
Parkview Rehabilitation Home was technically in the Paradise part of New Detroit, but barely. It was on the outskirts, within sight of the thick fences of the Zone. You could tell the difference at a glance, a sharp divide between the haves and have-nots. Money and suffocating conformity versus cheap, dirty freedom. The world was largely sparkling these days, orderly and gentrified, but most cities had an underbelly, full of those who wouldn’t—or couldn’t—follow the rules.
Even Parkview, scruffy by Paradise standards, had a cleanly manicured look, with soft grass and trimmed bushes and new paint on the old bones of the house. Sunny yellow and deep black accents on the window and door frames. It looked like luxury to someone like me who dossed in damp ruins and ate sticky, day-old ration rice from street cookers.
Luxury was a trap.
I checked the sky. No sign of the drone; it was probably circling the area near Conde’s shop, and I’d left that a mile back. I was probably okay. I hoped Derry was. He is, I told myself. Derry’s a survivor. He knows how to dodge.
Somebody had repaired the braided-wire fence where I’d cut my way out last time, and judging by the warning sign, the voltage was working again. Closer to the heart of Paradise, there was tighter security and human sentries. Here on the ragged border, we had drones, robo-patrols, and lightning gates.
At first I just hid beneath a sprawling old tree and counted, timing the sweep of the robo-patrol from inside the perimeter. Four minutes, okay. I could work with that.
When the first raindrop hit me, I swore. The deluge splashed the leaves overhead and trickled down to hit cold on my head. I pulled my gray hood up to conceal my face, tucked in my dark curls, and hoped the drone didn’t have DNA sniffing; some did, especially the newer military models.
When the next four-minute interval started, I left the tree and slid into the beating curtain of rain. The air smelled sharp with it, spiced with the earthy tang of mud, and I moved faster as the downpour started to soak through my hood. Parkview’s lights had switched on, and the house glowed warm gold in the gloom.
But I was still on the wrong side of the lightning gate.
Keeping low, I circled the property until I found the drainage ditch. Dirty water poured from the narrow pipe. It wasn’t big enough for me to crawl through, but the earth was soft and sunken. I buried all ten fingers in the soil, hauling it away in muddy scoops. Between the dark and the driving rain, it felt like I was digging my own grave. If I didn’t get inside—to the relative safety of the system—I might have to do just that.
Every four minutes, I flattened and froze. The robo-patrol wasn’t programmed for nuances, and I needed to be sent to the right facility when I was caught. I trusted Mrs. Witham enough to arrange that.
No telling how long I burrowed, but eventually I had enough room to crawl under. Probably. If I’d miscalculated, I’d fry. Best to count it down.
As soon as the bot passed, I squirmed forward, pulling myself with palms and elbows. There was a spark as I drew my feet out, and I dropped, avoiding the patrol for the last time. When the light passed, I got up and sprinted for the house.
I vaulted the steps onto the porch. It was mostly dry, though there was a leak near the corner that drizzled a silvery stream; it snaked across the concrete and under the welcome mat at the door. It was all sickeningly familiar. I hadn’t spent a lot of time at Parkview, but the smell of the place, the feel of it, was like every other rehab stop.