“He’s going to be volcanic.”
“I know.”
“You planning to stop him?”
I look at the broken display case, the ruined pastries, the boarded window, and the mural my grandmother painted when she still believed Halo was becoming better instead of worse.
Then I think of Kauss’s hands wrapped around a coffee mug like it might break from disappointment. Kauss fixing Mr. Eddison’s compad. Kauss standing over me in the alley, terrifying and careful. Kauss nearly smiling when I teased him.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I’m going to try.”
Darlene’s mouth tightens. “He may not let you.”
“He will.”
“You sound sure.”
“I’m not.” I draw a shaky breath. “But I have to try because if he goes out there and kills them for this, then Ron wins twice.”
Darlene looks toward the rear door as if she expects Kauss’s shadow to appear there any second.
“He ain’t gonna like mercy tonight,” she says.
“No,” I whisper. “But maybe he’ll hear me anyway.”
The lights flicker again, and the bakery settles around us with a wounded creak. I pick up the broom because my hands need something to hold besides fear. Outside, Halo keeps breathing in rain and neon and threat.
Inside, Sweet Tooth is broken.
Not dead.
Broken is not dead.
I keep sweeping until the sound of bristles over glass is the only thing holding me together.
CHAPTER 8
KAUSS
The tunnels beneath Vedder City carry bad news faster than the holonet.
It comes through the old drainage system in whispers, footsteps, coughing voices, and the sharp change in the air when someone runs who has forgotten how to run for any reason except fear. Down here, the city smells stripped of all lies. Wet concrete sweats brine through its seams. Mold grows black along the service channels. Old metal tastes like blood on the back of the tongue. The runoff water crawls through shallow troughs with a soft, constant hiss, and every sound from above reaches us distorted through layers of street, pipe, and ruined infrastructure.
I am crouched beside the east access ladder, tightening a replacement bracket with a scavenged torque tool, when Al Simmons comes limping out of the dark with one hand braced against the wall and panic in his artificial eye.
That is when I know.
Before he speaks, before the name leaves him, before the tunnel seems to narrow around my shoulders, I know.
“Kauss,” he says.
I stand too quickly. The bracket snaps in my hand.
Al stops several paces away, breathing hard. His coat is soaked through, and his gray beard drips onto the front of his shirt. He has come fast despite his bad knee. For Al, that means something terrible enough to override pain, pride, and the lazy fatalism he wears like armor.
“Say it,” I tell him.
He swallows. “Sweet Tooth.”
