I clench my jaw. “What do you mean?”
“Do not play stupid now,” Cipher growls. “We both know who I am talking about.”
“The woman?”
“Vesper,” Cipher corrects, surprising me. “It is important that she survives.”
“Why?” I ask, swallowing thickly. The system is mostly hands off, but he picks and chooses his favorites. Clearly, this woman, Vesper, is his newest one. But I don’t understand why. What is it about her?
“That I cannot tell you,” Cipher replies, remaining cryptic despite asking for something so dangerous, it could get me killed. I don’t leave New Babel anymore. I made my home and I’ll stay here until my life is done. Whenever that may be. I’d just prefer it later than sooner. I’d made a promise . . .
“What’s in it for me?” I ask. “If I help her get the Bone Breaker back.”
Cipher chuckles. “Ever the opportunist I see. Very well.” He pauses. “Perhaps, we can discuss your little problem if you help keep her alive.”
I shake my head. “She ain’t gonna survive. She’s currently on her way to rescue a fucking Bone Breaker from the sewer rats. We both know how fucking stupid that is. She’s clearly lacking all her brain cells. Why save her?”
“I cannot explain in a way that you will understand,” Cipher answers. “But I cannot change empathy. Only direct it, and she is a . . . stubborn human.”
“Why direct her at all?” I ask, standing. “This is very out of character for you.”
Cipher chuckles. “I once did it for you. I assume it has not been so long that you have forgotten?”
“Look where that got us,” I point out, shaking my head. But I grab my sword and slide it home.
“Indeed.”
I sigh. “I don’t care about the problem anymore,” I admit. It’s been so long now without it, I don’t even remember what it feels like to be whole. “Just make sure I can continue to live here without interference.”
“You will care,” Cipher laughs, his tone mocking. “Once you get to know her.”
I roll my eyes. “Just tell me which direction she went,” I growl. “The faster I get her out of this mess, the faster I can go back to my life.”
Cipher’s chuckle is my only answer, and somehow, that feels more foreboding than looking at a trip down into the Kingdom of Rats and Roaches.
CHAPTER43
LOCKE
The pounding in my head is a constant hammer against my skull that begins long before I start moving. My dreams are filled with various hammers swinging at me, Cipher mocking me for being weak against them, and Vesper standing off in the distance yelling at me to stop playing around. That’s how I know it’s a dream.
Vesper would never let me fight alone.
The first attempt at opening my eyes is a failure. Not only does it refuse the order, but my eyelid feels so heavy, I wonder if I’d glued them together somehow. With my second attempt, I manage to crack them open and immediately close them again. There isn’t much light coming into wherever I am, but there’s enough to make the pounding in my skull even harsher. Beneath my hands, I slowly become aware of the coldness emanating from the floor. There’s grit there, small bits biting into my face where I lay with my cheek against it. The cold takes longer to penetrate my face, mostly because of how hot I’m running. As I run my hand along the floor, it feels dirtier and dirtier with each movement. I stop moving, uncertain of the type of unmentionables I’m rubbing onto my body. I grunt at the pain in my head, at the feeling of my skin tight on my body, and try my hardest to open my eyes again.
It feels like I have to fight for an hour before I can finally squint at my surroundings, and once I do, I realize that I don’t know where the fuck I am. The floor is, in fact, metal, and covered with enough grim and dirt to make me yearn for a hot shower in a safehouse. It’s caked up on my clothing, and when I wipe at my face, my hand comes away black.Great, I grunt to myself.
It takes me a few minutes more to realize that I’m surrounded by metal bars.
And that I’m not alone here.
I whirl at the sound of a sniff and find myself looking at other players all huddled together on the other side of the cage. “What the fuck?”
I count six of us, but as I peer out of the cage I’m in, I spy more metal boxes filled with people, at least a dozen of them. I assume they’re all players, all people like me just trying to get away from the sweltering shithole of Dross.
“Where the fuck are we?” I ask the nearest player. He leans his head back against the bars and looks at me, but doesn’t answer. “What’s the matter? You can’t speak?” I growl.
“He doesn’t have a tongue,” another player answers instead. A woman. “He can’t answer you.”
