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She flips her hand in a nonchalant gesture and stretches her arms out in front of her. I’m reminded of how tall Kaede is, how her shoulders line up with mine. “Fact of the matter is, Razor pays me. Sometimes I even get to fly. But I’m here for the money, kid, and as long as I keep getting my cash, I’ll do whatever I can to help stitch the United States back together. If that means letting the Republic collapse, fine. If it means the goddy Colonies taking over, fine. Get this war over and the US thing going. Get people living normal lives again. That’s what I care about.”
I can’t help feeling a little amused. Even though Kaede tries to seem uncommitted, I can tell that she’s proud to be a Patriot. “Well, Tess seems to like you well enough,” I reply. “So I guess you must be all right.”
Kaede laughs in earnest. “Gotta admit, she’s a sweet one. I’m glad I didn’t kill her in that Skiz duel. You’ll see—there’s not a single Patriot who doesn’t like her. Don’t forget to show some love to your little friend now and then, okay? I know you’ve got the hots for June, but Tess is head over heels mad for you. In case you couldn’t tell.”
That makes my smile fade a little. “I guess I just never really thought about her like that,” I murmur.
“With her past, she deserves some love, yeah?”
I put my hand out and stop Kaede. “She told you about her past?”
Kaede glances back at me. “She’s never told you her stories, has she?” she says, genuinely bewildered.
“I could never get them out of her. She always sidestepped it, and after a while I just gave up trying.”
Kaede sobers. “She probably doesn’t want you to feel sorry for her,” she finally says. “She was the youngest of five. She was nine at the time, I think. Parents couldn’t afford to feed all of them, so one night they locked her out of the house and never let her back in. She said she pounded on the door for days.”
I can’t say I’m surprised to hear this. The Republic’s so lazy when it comes to dealing with street orphans that none of us ever got a second glance—my family’s love was all I had to hang on to in my early street years. Apparently, Tess didn’t even have that. No wonder she was so clingy when I first met her. I must have been the only person in the world who cared about her.
“I didn’t know,” I whisper.
“Well, now you do,” Kaede replies. “Stick by her—you two are a good match, y’know.” It makes her snicker. “Both so damn optimistic. I’ve never met such a sunshine-and-rainbows pair of slum sector cons.”
I don’t respond. She’s right, obviously—I’d never dwelled on the thought, but Tess and I are a good match. She understands intimately where I came from. She can cheer me up on my darkest days. It’s as if she came from a perfectly happy home instead of what Kaede just told me. I feel a relaxing warmth at the thought, realizing suddenly how much I’m anticipating meeting up with Tess again. Where she goes, I go, and vice versa. Peas in a pod.
Then there’s June.
Even the thought of her name makes it hard for me to breathe. I’m almost embarrassed by my reaction. Are June and I a good match? No. It’s the first word to pop into my mind.
And yet, still.
Our conversation fizzles out. Sometimes I glance back over my shoulder, half hoping to see a hint of light, half hoping I don’t. No light means that the tunnel doesn’t run right under all the gratings in the city, visible to those walking by above. The ground also feels slanted. We’re traveling deeper and deeper underground. I force myself to breathe evenly as the walls narrow, closing in around me. Goddy tunnel. What I wouldn’t give to be back in the open.
It takes forever, but finally I feel Kaede come to an abrupt halt. The echo of our boots in the water sounds different now—I think we’ve stopped in front of a solid structure of some sort. Maybe a wall. “This used to be a rest bunker for fugitives,” she mutters. “Near the back of this bunker the tunnel continues on, right over to the Colonies.” Kaede tries opening the door with a small lever at one side, and when that fails, she taps her knuckles softly against it in a complicated series of ten or eleven taps. “Rocket,” she calls out. We wait, shivering.
Nothing. Then, a dim little rectangle in the wall slides open, and a pair of yellow-brown eyes blinks at us. “Hi, Kaede. Airship was right on time, yeah?” the girl behind the wall says before narrowing her eyes at me. “Who’s your friend?”
“Day,” Kaede replies. “Now you better stop all this crap and let me in. I’m freezing.”
“All right, all right. Just checking.” The eyes search me up and down. I’m surprised she can see much of anything in this darkness. Finally, the little rectangle slides shut. I hear a few beeps and a second voice. The wall slides open to reveal a narrow corridor with a door at its other end. Before either of us make a move, three people step forward from behind the wall and point guns right at our heads.
“Get in,” one of them barks at us. It’s the girl who just opened the wall’s peephole. We do as she says. The wall closes behind us. “This week’s code?” she adds, cracking her gum loudly.
“Alexander Hamilton,” Kaede replies impatiently.
Now the three guns are pointed at me instead of Kaede. “Day, eh?” the girl says. She blows a quick bubble. “You sure about that?”
It takes me a moment to realize that her second question is addressed to Kaede instead of me. Kaede sighs in exasperation and smacks the girl’s arm. “Yes, it’s him. So knock it off.”
