Control

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.

She gives me one last, mighty shove and I lose my balance. I crawl forward to grasp Dyl’s hand so hard, I can’t feel my own fingers.

“I won’t let you go this time,” I say, trying to calm us both.

Around the bend, three figures in shadow walk toward us. I see the guy with the lizard skin from the Alucinari Rooms. A girl with white hair and dark clothes walks next to him. She was the one who came to our room at New Horizons, who numbed me up in the club. Caliga. She spins a foot-long, narrow black stick in her hand. Micah hangs back behind them, casually holding a titanium gun. There is no kindness on his face.

“You came early,” he says, and points the gun at me.

“No—”

It’s all I can say before a neat click sounds, and instantly something sharp hits my right shoulder. My hand goes there and yanks out a piece of metal. It looks like a tiny thumbtack, but even now the image of it blurs. It only takes seconds before the sedative enters my flesh, washing over me with an icy sensation that spreads quickly to my chest, neck, and legs. I sink to the ground.

The boy with the scabbed armor kicks the dirt. “Idiot. You’re not supposed to shoot her until later. Now I have to carry her.”

“Shut up, Tegg. Make loverboy carry her,” Caliga says. She fiddles with the end of her stick, and a long, sharp point emerges from the blunted end. “Why’d you make me bring this stupid thing?”

Tegg cuts in. “Who’s going to take care of the bait, then?”

“Leave her. She’s fulfilled her purpose. Worth her weight in dirt now.”

I try to get up, but my legs won’t move. Three pairs of feet in front of me kick dust into my eyes and I squint painfully, blinded by the grit. New shouts and yells come from far away. I keep my hand squeezed as tight as I can manage around Dyl’s, but her fingers go slack. She’s fainted.

“Goddammit, Kw. The whole loser army is here!”

Hex’s thunderous roar enters my ears and pounding feet crash close by. My heart expands despite the drug. That’s my loser army they’re talking about. Hex goes straight for Tegg, tackling him to the ground in a cloud of dust and brown arms and huge shoulders. Micah’s darts go whizzing through the air, and then abruptly, they stop firing.

“Step away, bitch.” I look up and see Vera standing by me, holding a rusted metal pole like a baseball bat. Her lean muscles are green and taut, ready to spring. Caliga’s confidence has rapidly shrunken. She still holds the short black stick in her hand, hesitating. She feigns a run to the left, and Vera swings her pole. Tegg lunges for it while Hex is staggering a few feet away. The pole is wrenched out of Vera’s hand.

Hex slams Tegg’s scabby body from behind, four huge bulging arms like a vise, clamping Tegg’s arms down. The pole drops, but before Vera can get it again, Caliga rushes to me and jams the black stick into my hip.

I scream, but no sound comes from my mouth. The pain in my hip is sharp and cracking, as if a bar of pure steel is being thrust into my bones and shaking me from the inside out.

I can’t do anything to resist. I don’t have enough air in my lungs to utter a single word of protest. Suddenly, the bar is yanked out, accompanied by a thud, a scream, and Caliga’s body flying several feet and skidding on the gravel.

“Home fucking run,” Vera growls, readying the pole again for another swing.

“Go, let’s go!” Caliga yells, clenching her hurt arm. More footsteps are approaching. I see the junkyard guards with syncope guns. Only now do I see Micah and Cy. Cy’s lying down, his arms red, the skin falling off them. Micah’s staggering a few feet away, his mouth a bloody mess. His broken gun lies on the ground.

“Zel!” Micah lunges toward me, and Vera blocks him with her pole. He grabs it, and instantly she lets go with a shriek, holding her shocked hands. He comes to grab my wrist, and a violent charge of electricity shoots up my arm. The agony is too much, and blackness starts to creep into my vision. I can’t reach my necklace because my hands won’t move. My mouth won’t open and there is no lungful of breath to push out my wail of pain.

“No!” someone yells. I hear Micah get pummeled, either by Vera or Hex or Cy, I have no idea anymore. Dyl’s limp hand is pulled from mine, and I scream. But I don’t. It’s my heart screaming, because I can’t breathe anymore. Shadows infect my vision completely now. My head hits the gravel.

“Shit, she’s turning purple. Cy! Get over here!”

I’m sinking fast, under warm waves of water, but there’s no water here. There’s no ocean in Neia, if you don’t count the gold fields on the agriplane. I laugh in my head, but it’s a distant sound. Someone gently moves my body, and my eyelids flutter as Cy’s wide-eyed face dips closer. His lips press against mine.

And then, darkness.