“Yes there is.” Danae nodded sharply. “That’s what me and Ev’s diversion’s for. If you hear a great big crash, just try to go the opposite direction.”
“A crash?” Regan stared at her, heart speeding up.
“Yeah, I don’t think you’ll miss it. Probably be some other noise too. Screams, if we’re lucky. Theirs.”
“Danae…” Rose said quietly. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to make a big boom of my own. I just hope Finn doesn’t expect this cab back in one piece.”
“Let’s go.” Zilch made to open the door, but Evelyn put a hand on their shoulder.
“One last step,” she said, picking a large purse up from off the car floor and opening it. “Ladies, put on your finest.”
“Makeup?” Regan wasn’t so much incredulous as completely nonplussed.
“Armor.” Danae shot him a grin as she flipped down the sun-shade, opened the mirror. “Happy Halloween.”
“Didn’t bring masks tonight, so we go for unrecognizable… and scary.” Evelyn smirked, and smacked her lips together to even out the thick coat of firetruck-red lipstick, then turned her attention to layering on the and black eyeliner. Then she rubbed at her eyes to smear everything she’d done, gleefully transforming from her colorful default into some kind of monster clown in the driver’s seat. In front of her, Danae was doing the same, drawing what looked like blood coming out of her mouth in red lipstick.
“You go for scary.” Rose said, taking a deep breath. The thorns that covered her arms and chest grew further out, lengthening until her skin was covered in long, deadly barbs. “I can do scary without any makeup.”
Regan shook his head. He couldn’t understand how they could be so cool. It was almost more like a slumber party. They chatted and did their makeup, as if they weren’t all about to plunge into a war zone. Whatever helped you stay alive, he thought.
“Okay,” Evelyn said after everyone was properly transformed. “Now let’s move.”
Regan hung back for a second while Rose gave Danae and Evelyn quick goodbye kisses. Zilch made an immediate beeline for the detention center back entry, and Rose hurried after, suddenly worried that they might rush ahead before they were all together.
“Careful,” she called over her shoulder—then she was off.
“You too,” Danae returned, rolling down the window and sticking her head out. She watched Rose follow Zilch inside, and didn’t look away until she disappeared. Then she noticed Regan still nearby, frill rising and falling as he took deep breaths, apparently gearing up before what promised to be a high-stress rescue. “Hey! Lizard man!”
“Hm?” He turned to look with an expression of dizzied confusion. Or maybe some kind of realization, something that momentarily knocked him out of the present. But whatever it was passed quickly, and he focused on her.
“You doing all right?”
“Yeah! Yeah, I’m good.”
“Glad to hear it. Stay focused, okay? Remember, panic’s a guy, and we just punch him in the face.” Danae searched his eyes for any sign of that strange flash of disorientation from a moment before, but they were clear, and he met hers as he nodded.
“That’s right,” he smiled, some of the tension in his own face fading. “Feels good.”
“And we watch each others’ backs. Watch her back,” she emphasized. “Rose is tough, but she’s not a fighter. Not this kind anyway.”
“Got it. I got her.”
“Good. She’s definitely got you. We all do.” She gave him a grin and a salute. “See you on the other side.”
Regan gave her a shaky nod back, turned, and disappeared. Except where the other two had simply found a back driveway and an unlocked door, he did it into thin air.
“Nice trick,” Danae murmured as she slid back into the driver’s seat, smile fading as fast as Regan did. “Glad he’s on our side.”
“She’ll be okay,” Evelyn said in a low voice. “It’s been a long time, but she knows how this goes.”
“Mm-hmm. And I mean what I said, our flower girl’s tough.”
“So are we. I’ll be waiting for the sounds of chaos, dear, so do what you do best. This is going to be fun.” Evelyn got out and ran to the dark shadow of the building, hiding and ready.
“Yeah. Fun.” Danae kept her smile on until she was alone—then gritted her teeth in a snarl. She threw the cab into gear, steering it straight at the side entrance of the interrogation complex. There was a long-dead fire hydrant and a generator box on the side of the building—if the impact didn’t destroy it, she’d bring the cab to life like raising the mechanical dead, and do it all over again.
Danae took a slow, deep breath, pushed all her fear into the backseat, and slammed her foot down on the accelerator.
Finn wasn’t sure if he’d been laying there in the brightness and heat for hours or seconds or years. He’d always imagined the cells as cold and dark, like medieval dungeons deep underground. But this awful brightness, this sickening shock and stabbing pain, the terrible light—this was a nightmare, worse than anything he could have dreamed up. Every inch of him was pain.
Then the lights went out.
He gasped and raised his head, blinking rapidly at the amber-green afterglow. The entire building shook, something had crashed into it or exploded and it wasn’t him. Had the power gone out? Was someone actually trying to reach him, was Zilch… but no. He couldn’t trust anything, this was all wrong, this had to be another trick to get him to talk.
He scooted backwards, skin raw and covered in blisters, and pressed his back against the still-hot wall, staring up into the darkness. He’d never made anything of his life—how could he? The moment he felt anything but happy or neutral, anyone he touched went up in flames. Except Zilch.
Tears rolled down his face. Finn’s only surprise was that he still had any left.
Then a crack appeared, beaming white light. It widened into a doorway, a tall, sharp figure silhouetted against the glare. Circles of purple and green still danced in front of Finn’s eyes, but he saw the figure move closer. He closed his eyes and waited for the bang and the silence.
“Finn.”
He gasped at the unusual, familiar, wonderful voice, and opened his eyes. He struggled to get to his feet, but the moment the soles of his ruined feet touched the blazing floor he let out a strangled cry of agony and toppled over—until a pair of thin, strong, open arms caught him.
Zilch slowly dropped to their knees, lowering the both of them to the floor as Regan and Rose stood in the doorway and watched both ends of the hall. Finn threw his arms around their neck, sobbing—but before that, Zilch caught a good enough look at Finn to wish they’d gotten here sooner. The disposable paper clothes he wore were scorched black, swaths of his skin were blistered red and white, and he burned with fever. Zilch very carefully wrapped their long arms around him, eyes narrowed to glinting slits.
And now Rose hurried in and joined them on the floor, reaching for a thick, succulent plant that looped around her metal leg and snapping it in two. “Here, aloe.” She gently applied the clear gel that came out to a vicious burn on Finn’s chest. He didn’t answer, just clung even tighter to Zilch. “These are burns, what—”
“It’s a hot cell,” Regan said, sounding faraway. He wasn’t looking at her, or at Finn—his eyes slid anywhere but his shaking, damaged form—but at the curving, white cell, its door, the visible hallway, “The floor and walls are electrified and heated. Extreme heat and electrical currents encourage cooperation. We should go. Now.”
“Soon.” Zilch’s eyes flicked up at him, held steady for a moment, then back down to Finn, whose eyes were open. But he didn’t seem to see any of them any better than when they’d been squeezed tightly shut. They were dry; he seemed to have run out of tears, and now he wasn’t looking anywhere at all. “Almost home, Finn.”
At the sound of their voice, however, he sharply looked up. Silently, he buried his face in their shoulder and didn’t look up.
“Listen, can we do any of this and move at the same time?” Regan’s head whipped around from where he half-leaned out the doorway. “I’m sorry, I know he’s hurting, but we have to go, right now—”
“Working as fast as I can,” Rose continued extracting precious aloe out of her friendly vines. She’d been ready to calm Finn down from a panic and break through a terrified fog, but there hadn’t been a need. Not with Zilch here, she thought with a little surprise and a lot of warmth. Still, Rose didn’t like the look she’d caught in the young man’s eyes, that emptiness. Something here had shaken the life out of him. “We both are.”
“Okay, just—we don’t want to be here when anyone else is. This is—this is not a good place. Nothing good happens here.”
“I’m glad you’re remembering things, Regan…” Rose suppressed a shiver as she finished with the worst of Finn’s burns she could easily reach. “I’m just sorry it’s this.”
Zilch picked Finn up easily then, holding him gently to their hollow chest. “Leaving now,” he whispered, rising up with Rose and moving toward the door where Regan waited. “Sleep.”
“And we’ll get out…” Finn whispered now. He couldn’t help writhing in pain just a little; the slightest touch or pressure against his damaged skin was agony. “We’ll go where it’s safe, right?”
“Away from here,” Zilch promised. “Where you can feel anything.”
“Okay.” A long, awful shudder went through Finn’ body, and he went limp. He hung like a broken rag doll in Zilch’s arms, head resting on their shoulder. The moment his eyes slipped shut, Zilch lifted their hooded head to look up at Rose and Regan, and any softness in their own bright eyes disappeared, replaced by something grim and hard.
“Now. Fast.” They started to head back the way they’d come on long-limbed strides that got faster and faster with every step, but Rose caught one of their trailing piece of black clothing as they passed.
“Wait!” She had to run a few clanking steps of her own after Zilch to catch up; even with her hanging on, it seemed to take a moment for them to realize she was there, and finally stop. “We should go out the back, away from Danae’s big crash.”
Zilch froze, staring down one end of the hall, then turned in place to face the identical other end. “I don’t know this building.”
“I do.” Both of them turned to look at Regan. Rose wore an expression of mixed relief and increasing worry, and Zilch had reverted back to their default blank-eyed mask that even he had trouble reading. “Follow me.”
Regan flat-out ran down the hallway in the opposite direction as Zilch had gone before, away from where they’d come in, anywhere they’d been before, and anything he should have known. Somehow, he knew without question this was absolutely the right decision, just as he knew that staying in that cell or anything like it for a single second was the wrong one, and always would be. Whether anyone followed him or not, this was the direction he needed to go. But after just a few tense seconds, he heard footsteps behind him and smiled.
❈
Two minutes before Finn’s door opened, Danae gritted her teeth and threw herself out the driver’s-side door. She hit the pavement and rolled, covering her head and neck, and hunkered down as a thunderous impact shook the ground. Through the smoke and dust she spotted the cab, nose-deep in the building’s wall. She army-crawled over and smacked the side, sent it a message: fix yourself up, and be ready to roll.
She dashed to the generator box (grateful to Zilch for bringing her the sneakers she’d asked for), and placed her hands on its warm, humming surface; detonation in T-minus 3, 2, 1—
Danae threw herself into the air and felt the rush of searing air behind her, letting the blast’s momentum catapult her out of danger. She scrambled behind another parked car and peeked out as the dust cleared, and saw just how bad it was.
They were surrounded—the craters left by Finn’ explosions littered the street like monster potholes. The entire wall the taxi had hit caved in, covering the street with brick and mortar dust. Black smoke poured out from between the cracks in the street, and Danae suddenly thought maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to undermine the area’s already shaky foundation—but she couldn’t think about that now, she had to get her friends out safe.
Eye in the Sky had seen her and now soldiers were gathering. They appeared frighteningly quickly, as they always did, pouring from around corners and from shadows. Clumps of black body-armored figures hunched together, drawing weapons and reorganizing into formations amid the explosions. A wall formed around the perimeter—one of huge, ballistic riot shields, bulletproof plastic and gas masks—and started moving toward the wreckage of the taxi, and where Danae hid.
With every step, the shields crashed down on the ground, all together in a thunderous drumbeat, a practiced military rhythm made for intimidation. It worked.
Crash, crash, crash.
The beat grew louder, faster; Danae shuddered. Everyone in Parole knew that sound, and what it meant was coming. She was more familiar with it than most, and it only made her more afraid. She gritted her teeth, forcing her brain to take the next step, figure out what the hell happened now.
Then, the click of stilettos on cement, a counterpoint to the riot-shield smashes, and Evelyn emerged from the shadows like stepping from the wings of her stage. She climbed onto the hood of the crashed taxi, then the roof, her red-mouthed grin flashing. Always, Evelyn’s full glory sent a thrill jolting through Danae; she was a razor-edged, glorious pirate queen in the midst of a gale with her fist in the air—and she took no prisoners.
And all around, an audience of black gas masks and assault rifles bristled, barrels snapped to point at her, garbled voices babbled over radios for her to stand down—and she put her hands up. One mascara’d eye flicked toward Danae, then down to the ground, and winked. Danae grinned back—then looked down to follow Evelyn’s unspoken direction. She smiled, and picked up the object she hadn’t seen but might have stepped on: a police megaphone.
“Thank you all for coming out tonight!” Evelyn called, hands behind her head. “Enjoy the show!”
Danae pulled her arm back, wound up like a pitcher, and launched her surprise secret weapon toward Evelyn. Then she plugged her ears and got down on the ground. The megaphone arced toward Evelyn, whipping end over end in midair—until her hand shot out and grabbed it. She raised it to her mouth, red lips stretched wide over bared teeth. She took a deep breath—
The sonic blast shook the pavement like a mortar bomb. Hurricane winds tore at the ragged buildings, and her banshee shriek became an air raid siren from Hell. Riot shields fell, stalks of wheat under the scythe of her scream, while commandos in body armor clapped their hands against their helmets, some even collapsing to the ground. Street lights slanted like they’d been hit by a tornado, and cars skidded across the asphalt, alarms wailing.
While the street became a war zone, Danae crouched behind a pile of rubble with her fingers jammed in her ears. Evelyn had been aiming away from her, but she still caught a backdraft of sonic asskicking, and her head was starting to spin. She quickly dug into a pocket and jammed a pair of self-designed earplugs into her ears, telling them to filter out the frequency of Evelyn’s shriek, but let her hear any other danger.
Once she could think again, the adrenaline flooded back—but more than that. Joy. The thrill, the giddy rush of action alongside Evelyn. She giggled out loud before clapping her hand over her mouth. It had been so long since she’d played like this. It was exhilarating, it was fun. Adrenaline had always been her drug of choice.
But, even as the intoxicating headiness threatened to take over, Danae stayed focused. She had a job to do, and she would not let her friends down. She waved at Evelyn, who sat on the hood of the taxi, legs dangling, happily blowing out glass windows and picking off dizzy commandos with her focused screams. Danae slipped around the blasted corner, still barely able to keep her maniacal excitement in check. If the others were smart at all, they
wouldn’t come out the same way they’d gone in. There was a prisoner loading bay around the back, she’d try there first.
Once she was clear of the explosions and the echoes of Evelyn’s violent song, Danae doubled over against a wall, and laughed so hard she almost threw up.
❈
Regan led the small group down a hallway that seemed familiar, hoping they were heading the right way and not deeper into the compound. Zilch bent awkwardly double over Finn, as if protecting him from driving hail, or just further pain. “You sure this is the way?”
“Sure hope so. I mean—yes!” They rounded the corner, and burst through one last set of heavy metal doors, into a wide driveway. At its end, someone peeked out from around a corner and waved: Danae, flushed and sweaty and grinning from ear to ear. She mouthed something and beckoned them on, practically bouncing with glee. Rose, relief flooding her face, signaled to Danae to wait a moment and turned around as Zilch rushed forward with Finn. Then she stopped as Regan’s entire body went rigid, every muscle locking.
“Regan, are you all right?” He didn’t answer, and she took a step closer. She couldn’t tell if he was even still breathing. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t hear her. He couldn’t turn to answer, or move. All he could do was stare. Someone was in the doorway they’d just come out, leaning heavily against the side, panting with effort and pain. A skinny white kid with knobby knees, a mop of curly blonde hair, and dark circles under his eyes. Barefoot and vulnerable and wrapped in scorched paper like Finn.
Regan knew him. It had only been a few nights, but it already seemed like a lifetime. His fingertips twitched with the muscle memory of balled fists, slamming him against a brick wall, the smell of blood. He even remembered his name. Cairus. Cai.
The young man—Cairus—stared, bright blue eyes boring a hole in Regan as if he was the only other person in the world, widening until the whites stood out all around and his face twisted into a grimace of horror, or maybe pain.
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