Page 72 of Uncontrolled

“Tell him I said dandelion, okay?”

“Dandelion?” LowLow repeats in a monotone. His wrinkled forehead sends a wobble through the crown of black x tattoos. “When you’re ready to unburden yourself of this cryptic shit, I’m all ears.”

“I say much more and you’ll have to ditch town with Ploy,” I warn, trying to straddle the gray area between joking and serious.

“Curiosity killed the cat, right?” he says as he tucks the blue-haired girl under his outstretched arm to welcome her.

The girl winks at me. “But the satisfaction brought it back,” she says.

I start a staggering path through the pedestrians on the sidewalk.

“No,” I hear LowLow say from behind me. “It wasn’t satisfaction.”

Ploy

Rocks crunch under my shoes as I take the small path that leads away from the Boxcar Camp where it’s nestled apart from the rest of the city. The muscles in my neck ache with disuse after two weeks without the tension of life in the camp. My plan was to hang alone in LowLow’s boxcar until I could investigate any spots available and claim one for myself, but the air held a violent current, a keyed up edge I learned long ago not to trust.

Then Quinn texted that Nico wanted him to collect me. Through his hints, I gathered they still intended to sell a resurrectionist.

It surprised me.

I warned Allie about the plot to steal CJ. I gave her everything I had on them. Did she and Talia set a trap? If so, I can tip her off if things go south from this end and be another ally on the inside.

Hiking my pack, I jerk on the straps to tighten them.

I come to the curb and peer down the street. No Quinn. I fish my phone from my pocket and check the time to make sure I didn’t miss a follow up text from him, but there’s nothing so I stay put.

“Hey!” The deep baritone of the call catches my attention, and then I hear a sharp, “Ploy!”

Searching, I see LowLow across the square and down near the benches by the river. Ruby is tucked under his arm with her blue spikes of hair. Her name made a lot more sense earlier this year when her hair was a deep shade of cherry. She told me once I shouldn’t let my identity depend on the things I’m saddled with by others. I’d told her to stop cribbing life advice from fortune cookies to seem more mysterious, and we’d been instant friends for the couple weeks she’d stayed in town. It’s been months since I’ve seen her. I start toward them at the same time I hear a car horn.

Instinctively, I know it’s Quinn. I hold a finger behind me, a signal to buy me a second to say hello but the horn sounds again, twice this time.

LowLow cups his hands around his mouth and shouts something I can’t decipher. Shrugging my shoulders in an over-exaggerated motion, I hesitate.

Quinn’s rusty Cutlass is sidled up to the curb. “Come on!” he yells. “I’m running late and Nico’s going to be pissed at both of us!”

Ruby and LowLow are tangled around each other as they struggle to stand. He saw me this morning, exhausted and tapped enough to give me a pass on the story, but he’ll want full details on what went down with Allie. The difference between the truth and the bits I can tell leaves too many holes, and I don’t have a believable way to fill them yet.

I hear the metallic bang of Quinn slapping the roof of the car with his open palm. “Ploy! Come on!”

Part of me wants to tell him Ploy’s not my name. Instead, I do what he says and turn from LowLow and Ruby, ignoring their calls.

“Hey!” I say to Quinn through the window. It takes everything in me to sound upbeat.

“Get in,” Quinn says. His tone is low, threating, and for a split second, I think of my father. “Now.”

I open the rear passenger side of the car. My pack makes a heavy thud as I toss it in before climbing into the front. The door groans as I close it. Quinn doesn’t acknowledge me, throwing the car into drive and swerving into traffic without a token glance to check if it’s safe.

“Jesus,” I manage, grabbing for the handle on the roof near the top of the window.

“Well, I told you we’re late,” he says. He sounds absurdly frustrated over the ten seconds it took me to get into the car.

“I’m sure Nico would like us alive, no?”

He shoots me a look I can’t quite decipher. “What are you worried about? We give your girlfriend a call and she’ll bounce on over to fix you.”

“And have Nico sell her to repay the favor? I don’t think so.”

---