There is no peace written on his face. In fact, the whole room reeks of mistakes and regret. I don’t need to add mine, so I back away and head to Wilbert’s room. How can Cy face her, knowing what happened back then? Meanwhile, the person he seems to hate, Micah, is the one who’s willing to risk his life to help me right now. The one who already gave his life to Aureus, for Ana.
Wilbert’s room is bright and cheerful. Callie sleeps soundly on a fluffy dog bed in the corner and Wilbert’s curled up under a blanket on the couch. For once, he’s not working. A black-and-white movie plays on one of the twenty screens in his room.
“Casablanca?”
“What can I say? I’m a romantic.” He grins. “Wanna watch? I’m taking a study break.”
I return the smile, trying to be as natural as possible. “Actually, I can’t sleep. I want to get some air.”
“Oh. You want me to unlock the tower for you?”
“I want to borrow the char.” I sit down next to him on the couch.
“Oh, Zelia. I can’t do that. It’s . . . I’ll get in so much trouble.”
“No you won’t. I’ll be back quick as a flash.”
“I can’t.” Wilbert looks genuinely torn. “Marka told me you might do this. She took the keys.”
What? I steady myself and force some serenity onto my face. “Well, don’t you have a spare key?”
“No.”
“Oh, Wilbert.” The façade of coolness disappears in an instant. I can’t believe I’ve failed before even getting out of Carus. Dad would say I told you so. And now my chance to see Dyl again is gone.
I cover my face with my hands and start bawling. Of course, Wilbert must be thinking, Damn, she really wants some air. I can’t even tell him why I’m so upset.
“I don’t have a spare key.” He pats my knee. “But . . .” He gets up and walks to Callie’s bed. Wilbert shoves one hand into the mattress of the bed and Callie wakes up with a yelp, as only a rat-sized pig can. Wilbert continues to violate the bedding. He pulls out something shiny and dangling. “. . . I do have a spare char.” He wiggles the key. I suck up my sniffles in one big breath and stare at him, wiping the tears away.
“What?”
“I said, I’ve got another char. Marka doesn’t know it works. She let me get it for spare parts, but I’ve been putting it back together.”
“Wilbert!” I clap my hands together.
“Go on. You can take her out for her maiden voyage. I get the feeling you don’t want me along for the ride.”
I make a lunge for the key but he holds it back. “Promise me you’ll stay off the main roads AND—”
I yank the key away from his hand. “Oh Wilbert, you are the best!” I give each of his heads a big smooch and they turn pink in response. “I’ll be safe. I promise.” I read the imprint on the key. There is a little family crest with a running horse in the middle. The word Porsche runs over the crest.
“Is it fast?” I ask.
Wilbert puts on his most rakish smile and winks.
“Do I have two heads?”
CHAPTER 18
NO ONE IS ON THE NARROW STREET I take. I see a few magpods whizz by on a main road in the distance.
The closer I get, the more my resolve becomes distilled, shedding off everything but the one thing that matters—bringing Dyl home. By five a.m., I’m at the west junkyards. It’s enclosed by an enormous plasma fence, and just my luck, the main magpod entrance is closed to anything larger than a person. I park the char around the other side of the wall. The main lights of the city won’t come on until six, so everything is still dim save for a few green safety lights on each street corner.
I squeeze inside the gate, where the two electronic guard booths blink blandly at my arrival. They don’t care about people coming in. The gate isn’t wide enough to steal anything larger than a handful of junk.
I can already imagine squeezing back through with Dyl, hugging her so tightly and just never letting go. It’s actually going to happen. I’ve got a million thank-you’s ready to hand to Micah.
I trek past two enormous piles of tin and steel, and turn my holo on to call Micah, but nothing happens.
“Time,” I ask, and the holo flashes back at me.
5:05 a.m.
I’m almost half an hour early. I’m not sure where to go, so I head for the center of the junkyard. The eastern horizon begins to glow faintly pink. The agriplane always gets the sun first; on the ground, we settle for the second helping of all things golden, so the light comes painfully slow and never gets stronger than a tepid, pale lemon anywhere. A few garbage sparrows twitter nearby.
I reach for my holo to call Micah, when I hear something.
“Shhh.”
I stop moving, the crunch of my feet on the road stopping abruptly. That wasn’t a bird. Who’s shushing me? I listen, wishing the warbling sparrows would shut up. There it is again, so quiet that I can hardly make out the words.
“Shhh. Just wait.”
“I want to go, Micah. You promised me.”
“We’ll go soon.”
I slowly creep around a pile of broken rectangular wall screens, bleeding wires out the sides of their cracked shells. It’s still quite dark, and I’m camouflaged by my usual depressing color scheme, so they don’t see me.
What I see, peeking around the corner, snatches the very air right out of my lungs.
Dyl and Micah sit side by side on a discarded sofa covered in shredded bits of gold jacquard fabric. His arm is wrapped around her thin shoulders, his fingers stroke her neck in a manner that’s deliberately sensual.
“How soon?” Dyl’s eyes are sunken and her hair is braided in a crooked rope that hangs over her shoulder. She looks even tinier than when I saw her at the club, and her face has aged, with angles where the soft curves used to be. Micah caresses her cheek with his hand, his lips grazing her earlobe, bare without her holo stud.
Dyl kisses him with a hunger that takes me by complete surprise. I cover my mouth, stifling a gasp. Micah leans into her and clutches her head, immersing himself in the kiss completely.
I am sick. My knees quiver, and nausea infects my whole body. I can feel the scream/betrayal/disgust tear out of my throat all at once.
“Dyl!”
I rush forward and they break apart. When Dyl sees me, she pushes Micah away to stand up. She’s so unsteady that she wobbles on her first footstep and falls on the hard road.
“Oh my god!” I shriek, and run to her. Her elbow and knees bleed from abrasions while her hand goes to my arm to steady herself.
“Zel? It’s really you?” Dyl can barely focus on me. What have they done to her?
“Come on, I’m taking you with me,” I say, trying to pull her up. I search around for Micah, but he’s gone. I’m sure I didn’t scare him off. His rapid disappearance sickens me with fear.
“This is bad, bad, bad,” I grunt, trying to heave Dyl to her feet. She can barely stand, she’s so weak.
“I can’t!” Dyl gasps, crumpling back down to the gravel road. I’m too small to carry her. I need help. I can’t do this alone.
“Come on. You have to!”
“Oh, Zelia.” Her eyes are gigantic in her face, her cheeks colorless. “I’m not strong enough. You have to go. Please, Zel.” Dyl starts crying in earnest, her words raspy and faint. “Go!”
I don’t know what to do. Dawn is breaking, darkness isn’t going to hide me, or us, any longer.
Voices invade the silence.
“They’re coming, they’re coming!” Dyl cries. Her hands press against my shoulders, pushing harder and harder, with every bit of life she has. “Please go!” she bawls.