Page 57 of Inside the Wicked

“They make and model o-okay for you, man? I-I think I might have a better?—”

“Put the sim in and start it up,” I order.

His chubby, dirty fingers fumble with the packaging and I grow antsier by the second. He does what I ask, and as soon as the screen lights up, I snatch it from him.

“Thanks,” I say, not wasting a second to open the dial. “I’ll try remember to get someone to swing by with the cash for it.”

“No-no problem,” he mutters in a state of shock.

I leave and tuck the gun out of sight under my T-shirt.

I know many people’s six-digit Xoid code, but I dial Rix’s. It only rings once before static hums down the line.

“It’s me. Get a tracker on this thing right fucking now.”

The line cuts off. It isn’t designed for two-way conversation in case someone slips up or hacks us back.

I keep walking, cutting down alleys and keeping out of sight. I’m aware I’m supposed to be dead, that there’s a chance from all the press last year with Ana that someone might recognize me. The shop was a risk, but I had no choice.

It takes ten minutes too fucking long before a black car comes down the underpass I’m waiting in.

“Dude, you’re alive!” Rix calls out the window.

I slip into the passenger seat, and he takes off.

“Aw shit, is it good to see you, man! We’ve been a wreck without you. I know you don’t like sappy, but everyone is going to lose their minds having you back, so be prepared for the waterworks. I’m even holding back myself.”

My eyes flick up to the rearview, and I spin in my seat. “Sullevan?” I snarl.

Rix says, “Fuck. Shit. Yeah, a lot of explaining to do there, but keep a lid on that rage to hear it, will you?”

My lethal glare cuts from Adam in the back seat to Rix. “Tell me he hasn’t been there,” I say, low and deadly.

“Hey, it wasnotme who brought him to the Den, all right? You can save that pissed-off-ness for Ana.”

Adam grumbles, “I never did buy into your innocent transfer grad student facade, Kaiser.”

I have to close my eyes to collect my sanity.Ana.She’s all that matters right now.

“Alistair has her locked somewhere?”

“We know. I’ve been trying to get a trace, but her phone from us goes cold at a venue that was a setup. They knew we’d come for her and planted it there. We lost two guys,” he informs me with the terrible weight of sorrow. It never gets easier no matter how many we lose, nor how well they all know the risks.

“How’d you escape?” Adam asks me.

The mere sound of his voice is a trigger to my volatility.

“Silas,” I answer. “Ana has sure been fucking busy.”

I’m torn with pride and madness and incredulity. From the moment I met her, I knew she was one to be underestimated by many, but this is a whole new level of unpredictability.

“Incredible, right? She managed to convince Silas fucking Balenheizer to collude with her right under the nose of ForthsonandLanshall. She’s damn brilliant.”

Yeah, she is.

We get to the Den, and I’m slammed with the impact of this being one of the very few places I’ve ever considered a home. The elevator doors open, and it’s the first time in what feels like days that time finally slows as I take in the place.

People speak, some start clapping, until the whole room is alive with it, and I wish they wouldn’t applaud me. Not with the new stain I harbor and the failure I am for getting caught only to rot away for three months. There’s nothing to celebrate.

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