Luzia patted Dania’s hand reassuringly. “If Ms. Armenta here will help you do the food run, I will think on it. We’ll have to do something, I know. Can’t go on like we are.”
●●●
An hour later, Lilah prepared to leave the shelter of the boarded-up townhouse, Dania next to her. She checked her gun and her knives and adjusted the straps on her jumpbag. Erik had finally warmed up to some of the other kids and was currently playing with them in a back bedroom. Luzia had fed him some sweet bread rolls and won him over forever. It made Lilah terribly nervous to leave him here, but she didn’t have much option. Taking Erik back into the streets was never going to work. Doing the food run with Dania would help their benefactor, but it would also hopefully give her the chance to find someone neutral she could pay to let her send a comm. Luzia of course couldn’t even dream of having such luxuries as a flipcom or a terminal in the house.
“We have to go down the main street for a block, and then we’ll cut through two alleys and come up to the back entrance,” Dania explained. “We’ll have to climb a two-meter wall in the middle, but there are places to stick your feet. Can you do that?” Lilah refrained from rolling her eyes. Instead, she nodded solemnly.
Dania checked the eye slit next to the door. “OK. We’re clear.”
Lilah pulled the bolt on the door and slid it open. Dania darted through and kept watch on the street while Lilah pulled the heavy door closed. She waited until she heard one of the younger kids slide the bolt into place, and then turned to see Dania already setting down the street at a trot. There were quite a few pedestrians. More than she would have expected this far into the zone. It was the morning “foot brigade,” as she’d called it. These were the residents of the zone, usually recent immigrants, who’d not been able to find housing elsewhere in the city but who held jobs. No mass transportation came into the zone, so they would have to walk out in the morning. With all the numbers, it was both the safest time to travel and the time one was most likely to get a pocket picked—or a satchel of groceries snatched. The Vincze’s crew members would be patrolling the streets, ostensibly assuring protection to the residents of the block. As she tried to mimic Dania’s deft weaving through the crowd, Lilah wondered if the Vincze crew was at least capable of keeping serious assaults from happening. Obviously they weren’t doing anything to stop petty mugging of young teens.
Dania pulled farther ahead, but she didn’t look back at all. Lilah lengthened her stride, trying to catch up to her young guide. By the time Dania reached the end of the block, Lilah was only a pace behind her. They turned into the alley together, Lilah drawing her gun now that they were off the main street.
The alley was dark with shadows, but it appeared empty. Other than a few cats fighting over some kind of rodent carcass (Lilah averted her eyes), there was no sign of life. The alley ended in the tall block wall that Dania had warned her about. The blocks had shifted, and there were uneven ledges and cracks all over the place. Dania leaped straight up and grabbed the tiny lip of a protruding block, catching a toe in a crumbling hole. From there she found one more toe hold and then pulled herself up and over the top of the wall.
Lilah took a deep breath and then sprinted at the wall. She leaped up, caught the top of the wall, and scrabbled up the side by pulling with all her arms’ strength. She flailed for a minute and then her toe caught one of the jagged edges. She pushed off, swinging one leg over the top, followed by the other. She dropped down to the ground, a bit off-balance, and staggered dizzily. Dania was still on the move. How had anyone ever stolen from her in the first place? She never slowed for a second!
Dashing after Dania, Lilah caught up when her paused at the mouth of the second alley.
“See there?” Dania whispered. Lilah followed Dania’s pointed finger and saw the line forming at the large window. “It’s not too long yet,” Dania said, setting off at a trot again. When they reached the line, another five people had materialized from the other end of the alley, joining the queue as well. It was mostly made up of middle-aged adults or older, though there were a few teenagers like Dania. They were all probably hoping to buy their food and get it home before heading off to whatever jobs they held.
At the window Dania let them scan the chip hanging from the chain that Luzia had locked around her neck. It would be nearly impossible to steal from her (without beheading her anyway), and it was the household’s proof that they had paid the graft due to the Vincze boss. The scanner chirped agreeably, and the boy at the window took Dania’s order. They haggled a bit on a price—Dania was actually pretty good at that, Lilah noted in approval. Once the deal was finalized, Dania counted out the precious coins (no cash cards used here), and then the boy brought four bulging bags to the counter.
“You try to carry all this yourself?” Lilah asked disapprovingly, as she hoisted two of them off the counter.
“Not normally, no. But Nonna Luzia asked me to get as much as I could while we have your help.” Dania pulled an empty rucksack from her jumpbag and tossed it at Lilah, then started to stow some of the more valuable items in her jumpbag. Lilah packed her own jumpbag as full as she could handle it and then put the rest of the supplies into the rucksack. While she worked she scanned the line of people waiting to purchase food. It was growing by the minute. Surely one of these people had a flipcom. But who to ask? Probably not anyone who’d already gotten their food. They’d think she was trying to pull a scam so she could run off with their food.
Who was she kidding? They might think that even before they received their order.
Still, by the time she and Dania had found a way to carry all of the food, she had to find someone.
“We’ll go home by the main avenue,” Dania pronounced, her eyes shifting nervously all around them. “We’ve got to vary our path, you know.” Lilah nodded absently. She had just spotted a likely mark. A younger man, probably in his twenties, was speaking into a flipcom. He was young and strong enough that he would probably not see her as a threat. But by the look of his filthy, worn clothing and thin frame, he was probably hungry enough and willing to earn a few coins.
“Wait just a second,” Lilah said softly, with a wave at Dania. Dania frowned, her forehead wrinkling, but Lilah ignored her. Instead, she casually walked down the line until she reached her target. “Excuse me?” she asked politely.
The man jerked in her direction, jumping a little. Good, she thought. Not the hyperaware, vigilant type. He probably wouldn’t be so paranoid that her mere offer put ten-meter barriers in his mind.
“I’ll pay you a deuce to let me borrow your flipcom,” she proposed quickly, before he could even open his mouth to tell her off.
“Wha—what?” he asked, visibly taken aback.
“I just need to send a quick comm. Thirty seconds tops, right here in front of you. Take it or leave it.”
His eyes narrowed. “A quarter.” Lilah snorted. A quarter senine was probably a week’s pay for this kid.
“A diezmo,” she countered. “Final offer.”
He hesitated, and she turned away. “Wait!” he hissed. She turned back and raised her eyebrows.
“Done,” he said. “Show me the cash.” Suddenly, Dania darted forward and grabbed her arm, yanking Lilah away before she could pull out a coin. Lilah raised her eyebrows at the young girl.
“What is the problem?” she murmured. “I need to make a comm.”
Dania shook her head. “Not from him. You can’t trust him.” Lilah grimaced. She couldn’t trust anybody in this wasteland. But how could she explain that to Dania? She glanced back and saw the young man eyeing her hungrily. Her spine tingled. Fine. She would trust Dania on this one.
“Never mind,” she said hastily to the man. His eyes darkened, but he didn’t stop her as she followed Dania away.
Dania scurried down the row of people waiting in the food line until she came to a much younger boy. He was mayb
e twelve. “Give me the money,” she muttered to Lilah. Lilah pulled a diezmo piece from her pouch and handed it to Dania, who sidled up to the boy and whispered in his ear. He looked skeptically from her to Lilah, but Lilah caught the swift pass of a tiny flipcom from his palm to Dania’s. There was a golden flash as the diezmo disappeared into his belt. Dania jerked her head at Lilah and they slipped into a tiny alcove of shadows behind a stack of crates just a few steps away.
“Hurry,” Dania urged. Lilah didn’t need to be told twice. This was a terrible spot to linger. They could easily be boxed in and trapped. She studied the flipcom. It was the most basic model she had ever seen, with a tiny screen the size of her thumbnail, and no holo capabilities. It took her a minute to figure out how to even make a comm. Behind her, Dania shifted from foot to foot, eager to be gone. In a minute Lilah was going to be trying to find her own way back to Luzia’s. Biting her lip, she coded in Jimmy’s number. Luckily, before going out with Zane for the ransom trade, she’d memorized it. Just in case.
Extra prep never hurt, and more than once it had saved her.
She opted to send him a voice comm. She didn’t know where he was or who he was with, and she didn’t want to be overheard when he answered. The drawback to live comms.
“Jimmy, it’s Rainbow Glimmer. QS traitor tried to kill me already. Need pickup at Luzia’s, Vincze block. EJD safe with me. Please hurry—and be careful who you trust,” she warned ominously. Switching off the comm, she handed it back to Dania, who was staring at her speculatively. “Thanks.”
They slipped back out from behind the crates, and within seconds Dania had returned the flipcom to its owner and was hurrying back down the alley. Lilah hoisted her jumpbag as high on her shoulder as she could and jogged after her. Now they just had to make it back to Luzia’s house without being attacked.
With her luck, that wasn’t going to happen. She pulled out her gun and held it ready. It will be worth it as long as we make it back alive, she thought grimly. Preferably still carrying the food.
40. Shiz
When Zane finally struggled back to consciousness, the pain in his gut was so intense that he almost blacked out again. Something had to have ruptured. He tried to take a deep breath and then winced as his ribs groaned in protest. There was a tiny squeak behind him and quiet scuffling. He froze, realizing that he wasn’t alone. Rats, maybe? Rats had turned out to be talented stowaways. But the thought of rats creeping up on him motivated him to push himself into a full sitting position using his still-manacled hands. He gritted his teeth, exhaling at the wave of agony that spiked from his stomach all the way down his legs, and tried to focus on his surroundings. He was in a small storage room of some kind, barely longer than his stretched-out body would be. There was one door with no inside latch or release that he could see, though it did have a thumblock. A pile of four crates was stacked in the corner, and oddly enough there was a standalone toilet in the corner, but there was nothing else. The ceiling had ventilation grates and a tiny emergency globe casting its faint red light across the room. At least there was some light. But he clearly wasn’t on a ship anymore. The bare concrete floor proved that. Had the kidnappers succeeded in their plan, then? Had they turned him over to the mystery boss named Shiz?
Zane pushed himself to his feet and then staggered against the wall, his head swimming violently from the effects of back-to-back tranks. He swore involuntarily, and there was another squeak from behind the crates. Glancing around, he couldn’t see anything he could use to swat rodents with, so he was just going to have to stomp on anything that came close. At least he was still wearing his heavy boots. Peaking warily behind the crates, he sucked in a breath. Of course! How could he have forgotten?
A little girl with the wild ringlets stared up at him with wide, frightened eyes. She had pressed herself backward into the wall as if she were planning to force her way right through the atoms by sheer willpower. He dug desperately through his memory, trying to remember her name. Some kind of jewel—or a plant? Then suddenly he remembered what Lilah had called her.
“Berry?” he asked, trying to make his voice sound as kind and nonthreatening as possible. The little girl just stared up at him.
“Your name is Berry, right? I’m a . . . friend of your mom and dad.” He smiled awkwardly, trying to cover up his own nervousness. Surely Jimmy and Jenna never would have mentioned Zane to their children. But he was a friend, even if they didn’t return the sentiment.
“Are you all right? Have you been hurt?” Still no response from the girl. She continued to stare at him, though occasionally her eyes darted to the door. It made Zane wonder if it was possible to get out and Berry knew that. Or if she was afraid of who else might come in. He slowly lowered himself to his knees, trying not to jar his midsection. His whole body groaned in protest, but now he was closer to her level.
“It’s OK,” he reassured. “I’m going to help you get home.”
How old was she? Five? Six? Surely old enough that she could talk. If she wasn’t too traumatized by everything she’d already been through, he reminded himself. He slid his back up against the wall, leaving plenty of room for Berry to come out from behind the crates. Maybe he should just keep talking to her.
“I think your brother got away,” he told her. “He was with another of your mom’s friends, Lilah Armenta. Do you know Lilah?” Still no response from Berry, though she seemed to be listening to every word. He studied her thoughtfully. Could she help him? At the very least, she might know something about where they were if she had been awake when they were moved to this room. Then he sighed. It wouldn’t matter if she knew exactly where they had been taken and memorized the face of every single one of their captors if she wouldn’t speak to him. Somehow he was going to have to get her to trust him.
“Will the door open if you press the thumblock?” Zane asked finally. “Can we get out of this room?” Berry just looked at him silently. Zane was about to give up and leave her in peace while he checked the door himself when she scrambled awkwardly to her feet. She edged around him, trying to keep as much distance between them as possible, and then slipped over to the door. Stretching upward, she pressed her thumb to the reader. The door beeped but didn’t slide open. Zane smothered his disappointment. He hadn’t really expected them to leave their prisoners in an unlocked storage room. Berry gave him a pointed look and a tiny shrug and then retreated to the far side of the storage room, keeping on her feet. Zane swiveled to face her again, suppressing a groan of pain.
“Berry, I promise I am not going to hurt you. I just want to help you get home to your family.” She still didn’t answer, but he decided to keep up a running commentary anyway. “I hear you live in Tarentino Bay. Is it nice there? I’ve never been.” He grudgingly dragged himself to his feet again, wincing at the stabbing pain in his lower abdomen. He used one hand to steady himself against the wall and made a slow circuit around the room, checking the walls for any sign of concealed panels or latches or switches. “I’m from Omphalos,” he told Berry pleasantly. “It’s pretty far from your home, with a lot more people. Lots of tall buildings and transports.” Berry edged away as he made his way along the wall in her direction, and she was still watched him warily. But she wasn’t screaming or crying, and that at least was better than the response he had gotten from her little brother. Hopefully Lilah was faring better with the kid.
“Does Mrs. Smitz live with you?” he asked conversationally, as he reached the toilet and prodded around the base with a boot toe. “I knew her when she lived in Omphalos with your Uncle Jaxon. They lived on the same floor as me, though I didn’t see them often. Your uncle was not fond of visitors back then.” He continued his one-sided conversation, though he often paused, giving her the space to speak if she wanted to.
By the time he made his way around the entire room and confirmed that there was neither another way out of the room nor anything that could be used as a weapon (the crates w
ere too heavy to even shift and impossible to open without tools), Berry seemed to be relaxing slightly. When he slid back into a sitting position on the floor with a grunt, his back against the wall, she dropped to the floor directly across from him, almost within reach. Zane started to explain about how he had first met Jimmy when they were children on Terra and occasionally spent time with him later when Zane had traveled back to Terra again to attend university. This seemed to pique Berry’s interest, so he continued to ramble about the fun things that he had done with Jimmy over the years (though slightly edited for a child’s ears). The pain was getting worse, and he was finding it hard to concentrate, and before long he was even recounting the first time he had met Jenna and how he thought he had stumbled into a dream.
“She was so beautiful, I wasn’t sure she was real,” he murmured. “Then as I got to know her, I learned she was kind and smart and hardworking too. You’re lucky to have her as a mom.” Berry cocked her head at him, but still didn’t say anything.
The exhaustion and the pain were dragging him under. “So beautiful,” he mumbled. “We’ve got to get you all home, Berry. For your mother’s sake.” Then his eyes closed and he drifted off, unable to fight sleep off any longer.
●●●
Zane slept long enough that he woke with his legs completely asleep and his neck protesting painfully. He glanced down in surprise to find that while he was sleeping, Berry had curled up next to him. Her head was pressed into his side and one small arm draped across his stomach. She was breathing deeply with her eyes closed. Unexpected warmth spread through his chest at the sight of the sleeping child. He had managed to gain her trust. His gut still throbbed, but the pain faded into the background. A fierce desire to protect Berry at all costs swept through him. She needed him, and he would not fail her.
Rift (Roran Curse Book 3) Page 35
