“You got a plan?” Cy asked.
“I was hoping…maybe I could go with you.”
Lightning flashed in Cy’s eyes. Guilt? Sadness? I couldn’t tell. In truth, I think it was something I’d never understand. I’d never been part of anything like that. Not quite family, but more than just a crew. There were bonds there—some probably thicker than blood.
For me, it had always been just me and Mom against the world. That had been enough. But this? This was something else. They’d bled together. Maybe even killed together. And I didn’t know what that meant.
“It doesn’t work like that, kid,” Cy said quietly. “I can’t get you into POM any more than Hinokawa could.”
“But you—”
“Trust me. The price is higher than you can pay.”
Akira’s face fell, but he waved us forward without hesitation. He was still going to help us. A good kid.
I doubled back and grabbed our smashed Vysors before following. Akira led us down a few winding corridors, weaving through the underground maze the Den had been built into.
Cy walked beside him, arm slung around his shoulder. “I’ve got a safe house. You can go there. I’ll come by once this job is done. We’ll figure something out, okay?”
I dropped back, feeling like I was intruding. Maddox came up beside me.
“You okay?” He still hadn’t taken his finger off the trigger of his assault rifle. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was ex-NSPD.
“Yeah. Cy…he kept me safe.”
Maddox grunted. “That’s what partners do.”
“We are not partners.”
He gave me a look I didn’t like at all. “You’re on a job together. You’re partners. You think in the NSPD we always got paired with our favorite person? Fuck no. But it didn’t matter.Whoever you were with, you had their back. That’s just how it works.”
I paused, thinking about Taos and the rebels. Would they have done the same?
“That some kind of cop honor code?”
“Call it what you want.” He was done talking.
“So it was just the job,” I mumbled.
Maddox didn’t respond. He just nudged me forward with the butt of his rifle through a narrow crawlspace—and I liked that even less than the thoughts swirling through my mind.
We reached a door, and Akira pressed his palm to the security panel. It slid open with a softclick. We were deep in the sewers now, not even close to safe, but it didn’t feel so suffocating.
Cy gave Akira another swift, man-style, one-armed hug. Akira darted out of sight, and Cy motioned for Maddox and me to follow.
“You know the way?” I asked.
He nodded. I didn’t doubt him.
We climbed through tunnels and conduit channels for what felt like hours, the darkness oppressive as it wrapped around the narrow beams of light from Cy and Maddox’s flashlights. The silence was worse.
Eventually we reached a ladder that had seen better days—half-rusted, barely holding on.
“One at a time. Maddox first. I’ll come up last.”
Maddox just grunted, slinging his rifle over his back and starting to climb. I watched his very toned ass as he went up.
I looked back down, and Cy was grinning. “Perv.”
