Page 102 of Pride
Parker glared at him. “So what’s your deal?”
“He means, thank you for helping him out of jail,” she added quickly.
Parker cleared his throat and folded his arms, but gave a short curt nod.
“Don’t mention it.” Axel exhaled. “Look, my deal is that in a moment of weakness I signed up for something I shouldn’t have and have been regretting it ever since.”
Parker’s voice turned hard. “And that means we should just trust you?”
Alice thwacked him on the chest. “He helped you get out of jail. Have a little faith.”
“No, it’s okay,” Axel said to her. “I get it. I wouldn’t trust me either. All I can say is I’m the only one who can take you to Despair. So you’re stuck with me.”
“Daisy,” Parker corrected.
Axel stared at him and then nodded. For some reason, this made Parker tense and narrow his eyes.
“Why are you doing this?” he pressed.
Lines etched around Axel’s eyes and bracketed his mouth before he answered. “When I first heard about this replication offer from the Syndicate, it seemed too good to be true. I mean, a chance to cheat death? Who wouldn’t want that? And the fact the recruiter was hot didn’t hurt things.”
“You better not be talking about my sister,” Parker warned.
Axel ignored him. He’d made it sound like the choice was no big deal, but Alice knew there was more to it.
She lifted her chin. “You should tell Parker why you’re really doing this.”
Axel’s eyes darted nervously to Parker. He hesitated. So Alice spoke first.
“He’s protecting his little sister,” she said.
Parker’s eyes whipped to Alice’s. “We all have shit going on. Doesn’t mean we join a radical terrorist cell intent on taking down the world.”
“I made a bad choice,” Axel agreed. “And I’m trying to fix it.”
“Are you sure you’re not doing this for revenge?” Parker leaned forward and bared his sharp teeth. “I mean, suddenly you’re helping us when your boss has failed to hold up his end of the bargain. What’s to say you don’t betray us the moment you get a better offer?”
“We don’t have time to debate.” Alice tugged Parker. “Let’s go and find Daisy.”
He looked like he trusted Axel about as far as he could throw him, but nodded. They were running out of time. Alice felt it in her bones. The rain came down harder, and the water running from the drain had increased.
“First, we need to get through the grate,” Axel said. “I didn’t realize it was rusted shut. The only other way into this system was via Syndicate Tower and I wouldn’t want to go there. Too much trouble with other members of the Faithful still guarding. If we can get in here, we have about a thirty-minute walk.”
While Alice and Axel searched the grate for weak spots, Parker simply grabbed two bars, tensed until his muscles bulged obscenely in his shirt, and pulled. Metal creaked. Groaned. The rust crumbled, and he opened the grate, heedless of the gushing water flooding his designer shoes.
“Let’s go,” Parker said.
Together they followed Axel further into the system. The tunnel walls were made from a combination of bricks and concrete pipe. Cobwebs and moss covered everything. Critters crawled. The smell made Alice want to puke, but she kept going. The water wasn’t so bad with the fresh rain.
As they walked deeper into underground Cardinal City, Parker became increasingly agitated. They came to an intersection, and he put his hand on a metal vent-like contraption on the wall, next to some smaller pipes and an old lever, pausing to think.
“What?” she whispered, hardly able to see in the dark. Axel was the only one with a torch.
“It’s a sluice gate,” Parker explained. “We’ve passed a few already. They stop or allow the flow of water.”
“Is there water on the other side?”
“I can hear it.” He nodded grimly. “We need to be careful. Despite what you may think, these sewers aren’t safe. There are multiple layers and levels of pipes and tunnels. The city has over thirty-five-hundred miles of pipes, and not all of them are walkable like this one. Some of them old. Some of them new. If anyone activates the sluice gates, this can be flooded, especially on a day like this.”
