Jac would prefer to see them burn.
But Jac was one man against the entire Torren Empire. That included Luckluster Casino, the only other casino in New Reynes as large as St. Morse. It included the profits of drug sales all across the North Side, particularly its two most popular substances: Rapture and Lullaby. It included thirty-four different pubs they’d bought and converted into smaller gambling enterprises or drug dens. It included hundreds of employees, thousands of addicts, and millions of volts.
And he was just one man.
At eleven thirty, Jac slid into a yellow phone booth and called St. Morse. He knew Levi had scheduled a meeting with Enne around now, but it wasn’t Enne he wanted to talk to.
“’Lo?” Lola answered. Her voice sounded strangely on edge.
“It’s me.”
“Is that supposed to mean something? Who is this?”
Jac choked in surprise and coughed out a puff of smoke. “It’s Jac. Why do you sound all wrung out? What’s wrong with you?”
“I just spoke to my bosses, and now we have an appointment scheduled later today,” she explained. Jac supposed her bosses meant Bryce Balfour and the two others who ran the Orphan Guild. Judging from what he’d heard about that trio, that seemed a reasonable excuse for anxiety. “Why doyousound all wrung out?” Lola asked snidely.
If Jac explained all that over the phone, he’d run out of volts to feed the call. “Can you meet me?”
“Now?Where?”
“At, um...” He gave the first cross-street he could think of in this neighborhood that wasn’t near a Torren place. “18th and Rummy.”
“Fine,” Lola huffed. “But you better not be in trouble, because I really don’t have time today to save you.”
* * *
There was a bench on the corner, just as he remembered. He sat on it, his back to the building, trying to convince himself to wait an hour before his next smoke. He stared at the line of pubs across the street, a sight that had once been the view from his cramped bedroom window for nearly eight years. From here, it was a short walk to the factory where he’d worked. Jac imagined one of the wardens walking past him on the sidewalk, not recognizing him with his dyed hair or glasses.
It made him feel powerful.
It also made him feel like a ghost.
Lola appeared across the street. Even though no cars were coming, she waited for the light to turn before she crossed over. For nearly a whole minute, Jac watched her just stand there and thought...maybe she’d gotten herself lost. But when the light finally flashed green, he realized she was actually a rule-abiding, knife-collecting fraud.
Lola sat on the bench beside him. She wore her usual top hat, but it was strange seeing her hair down, now that she no longer needed to hide it in public.
“You’re less scary with the red hair,” he commented.
She frowned. “It’s blood red.”
“It’s...cherry red.”
“Why are we here?” she asked, ignoring him and turning around to look at where the address had brought her. “Is this some kind of school?”
“It’s my old One-Way House,” Jac explained.
Because many had fled the city during the Revolution, the wigheads had started shipping in children from orphanages across much of the western coast about two decades ago, in an effort to bring workers and “community” back into New Reynes. Most of those children ended up in One-Way Houses like the building behind them.
The worst part of the One-Way Houses wasn’t the work—it was the debt. From the moment Jac arrived when he was six years old, he was given a tally. Everything he was provided had a price, and the earnings he made at the factory were supposed to pay for his necessities. But within months, the charges quickly surpassed his earnings. Once in the indenture, it was nearly impossible to work his way out. Jac finally managed it when he was thirteen, through the volts he’d earned helping Levi with his schemes.
Lola crinkled her nose and turned back around. “Well, that’s depressing.”
“I’m going to tell you a few things that you have to promise not to tell Enne,” he said. He remembered how she’d ratted him out about the teacup, but he liked to think that’d been a joke. He liked to think that he could trust her.
She sighed. “Why not?”
“Because none of this can get back to Vianca.” He rubbed his hands together. Even talking about the donna made him nervous.
