“Left was the Light House,” I said. It was more of a question than a statement. Phoenix nodded slightly, but Mila raised her eyebrows. “Or a dead end,” she reminded me. “Whether or not we could make it past the walls, the only thing that would be waiting at its end is death.”
“But you haven’t tried?”
Mila rolled her eyes. “It’s enough we know where the Feds are. We don’t need to serve ourselves up to them on a silver platter.”
“You don’t think they knew about the mansion? How did they find Madam Revleon, then?”
Phoenix tightened his jaw. “We should’ve been more careful. We shouldn’t have let her get so comfortable. She should’ve known to keep the lights off and the curtains closed in that old house.”
“You can’t just put someone in the shadows and expect no one to find them,” I said. “You can’t expect to hide people simply by turning off the lights—it doesn’t work that way. It’s only good for so long.” I thought of Mom, and how the Caravites might be hiding her, and waited for his reaction. His face was cold, but a flash of surprise flickered across Mila’s face.
Phoenix stared at the tunnel’s worn floor. “She wasn’t in the shadows,” he said. “She was in the shadows of the shadows. The darkest part of the city’s darkest district.”
“You really like the dark, don’t you, Phoenix?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I prefer firelight.”
Mila slapped the glow stick against the tunnel’s wall. “You girls want to argue all day,” she said, “or are you ready to move?”
Phoenix stared at me firmly, his eyes unblinking. “We’re ready.”
We’d reached a dead end. Another set of metal bars ran up the wall like a ladder. I felt the air in my lungs thin here; the moisture must have been dissipating up the makeshift chimney. “Where does this go?” I asked.
Mila began climbing. “Up,” she said simply.
“South Atlantic,” said Phoenix.
I shivered, remembering the documentaries we’d watched in middle school about South Atlantic crime rates. In them, drug addicts convulsed on street corners and stores were bordered up with bulletproof glass rather than wood. The underbelly of Newla, the documentary’s host had called it.
“Don’t look down,” reminded Mila as we climbed. “Long way to fall.”
“Thanks for that,” I said. Then to Phoenix: “Is there another city district we could go to instead? Maybe one that’s a little safer? A little less sketchy?”
He laughed. “You’re crawling out of the ground from a lava tube. I think you can manage a ‘little sketchy.’” He had a point.
At the top of the chimney was a landing surrounded by concrete walls. On one side was a black square door, like the wrong side of a bank vault. Phoenix grabbed the glow stick from Mila and twisted a series of black knobs on the door. It sprang open, and the sweet smell of pomegranate incense mixed with lemon—and maybe grapefruit—burned my nose.
Phoenix crawled through the doorway, and Mila and I did the same. A circle of wide-eyed civilians stared in silent awe as we emerged into the back room of a shop covered in tie-dyed fabrics. Phoenix waved off their stares.
“As you were,” he said. “You are merely hallucinating. Excellent choice of drugs—very potent. Thank your dealer.”
The group nodded, and a guy in a pink bandana promptly fell asleep. Phoenix shut the vault door behind us and covered it with fabric. A woman in red sunglasses stared at a bag of pills she held in her hand. “We’ve gotta get more of these,” she said.
We hurried from the back room into the store’s main area. A thin layer of smoke swirled in the air as we moved past chunky lava lamps. The cashier behind the counter stared at us with wide eyes.
“Narnia,” whispered Mila in his ear. “It’s real.” He shut his eyes, nodded, and ran to join his companions. A sign over the register read, in green, yellow, and red letters: “Dredson’s Divine Herbal Incenses.”
Phoenix tossed me a pair of sunglasses and a black poncho from behind the counter, and we exited by the front door. It was nighttime, and the fluorescent streetlights were momentarily blinding after our eyes had grown accustomed to the glow stick’s soft light and the Skelewick street lamps. We kept our heads down and merged with the crowds that hurried along the cobbled sidewalks.
On the next street corner, a man groaned and rocked himself back and forth, his arms across his chest and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. I looked away. “Is it always like this—busy?”
Phoenix shook his head. “There’s a car show this weekend, and that’s where we’re headed.”
“A car show in South Atlantic?”
“Mostly stolen,” he said. “Which is why we’re here: no better place for us to get a car. They’ve already made fake plates for them to put them in the show. If one goes missing again… well, it’s not exactly like the new owners can file a police report.”
Phoenix always seemed to be one step ahead.
We moved along, following Phoenix, and soon came upon a series of white canvas tents towering over a street blocked off with orange cones. I wondered how far our sunglasses and ponchos would get us, and simultaneously prayed that most of the city’s cops were still back at the Morier Mansion fighting the fire. Phoenix slipped a guard at the gates several bills, and we pushed through into the crowded tents.
“Pick a car,” said Phoenix.
I pointed to a yellow one on a pedestal, with windshields that slid open in lieu of doors.
“Too high-profile,” he said, shaking his head. “Try another. On the floor, preferably.”
I pointed to a black jeep in the corner. Its window tint was the same shade as its paint. The car was largely a shadow under the tent’s bursting fluorescent lights. Phoenix liked shadows.
“Not bad,” he said, turning to Mila. “You see it, Meels?”
Meels had already started toward it, and we pushed through the crowd after her. When we arrived at the jeep, I heard a clank and saw the metal boot attached to the car’s front wheel roll off. Phoenix hopped in the passenger side, and I climbed in the back.
Mila adjusted a mirror and glanced back at me from the driver’s seat. “Ready?” she asked, and the car’s engine roared. I felt a twinge of pride in my chest as its lights flickered on—glad to have been of some use to the group for once.
I shook my head. These two were not my friends; they were murderers. I should have felt no pride in being “of use” to them.
The jeep surged forward, carving a path through the crowd. People ran screaming as we tore through the white tent, swerving around both cars and civilians. There was a concession stand at one end of the tent, and Mila aimed the jeep right for it. Workers dove screaming from the stand as we slammed directly into it.
Mila held her foot on the gas and the engine groaned. Finally, the wooden stand splintered into pieces us as we roared ahead.
A bit farther on sat a stack of metal boxes that flashed and hummed, and Mila crashed right into it. Sparks flew like bolts of lightning, and the jeep moaned loudly as its engine died. I saw bundles of sparking wire hanging along the car’s edge, and then the tent’s lights flickered and went dead. It seemed we’d crashed into its main power supply. I guessed this was why Mila didn’t usually drive.
“Get out,” said Phoenix. The airbag hung limply in front of his face. “Now, Kai.”
Mila’s head lay smashed against the steering wheel. I pushed open the door and climbed out, dodging the sparking wires and twisted metal as I fled. Phoenix quickly joined me, Mila’s limp body dangling from his arms.