Patience was never my virtue. “We’re gonna burn down here, so hurry up and ask.”
“They’re looking for the key to the storage.”
“They who?”
“Men of Earth.”
“I thought you were one of them.”
“Nope. I work alone. I joined them because their work aligned with mine.”
“What’s your work?”
“Sienna. That’s my girl, and I want her back.” Sienna was one of the pairs here. He continued, “Beast by the name Torrent took her one day, then came back into the community looking for her, so I knew she must’ve run away. I went looking for her.”
“I found her looting from a jewelry store. I brought her here. If you want her back, why didn’t you just take her instead of Patty?”
“Until the pickup, nobody knew the location of this place. Sienna didn’t come out, and Patty didn’t name any girls in here. By the time I got here, they’d taken her. This one”—he pointed to the floor—“forced her into the truck and shipped her off. Not every girl wants to serve those men. Sienna would never agree to it unless forced. So where’s the key to the storage place? Men of Earth want those supplies, and I need to know how to follow them now that I broke my cover.”
“I’ll tell you outside.”
“You’ll tell me now. Drop the knife too. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”
I gripped the knife and said, “It’s in the House of Mayhem the Barbarian.” His eyebrows gathered. He looked confused. I continued, “Street G, Zone Two of New City, House of Mayhem the Barbarian. Your turn. Where are the pairs?” I wanted him to hurry along and tell me. Smoke burned my eyes, and I’d suffocate if I stayed here.
“They’re shipped to Texas.”
“Where in Texas?”
“I don’t know, but I know there’re more girls already up there.”
“What girls?”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his thumb. “Girls like you. Young and willing to bed men. They’re rounding them up.”
He wasn’t gonna give up any more information. I saw the resolve in his eyes. I recognized a man who wouldn’t mind dealing his own hand. I recognized his desperation. Sienna meant the world to him, and she’d been taken away first by the beast, then by Men of Earth.
Vice had rescued me out of the tub, and now he set me free. I’d make my own choices. I was free to do whatever I wanted, and I chose to live. I wanted to tell Vice where in Texas that damn safe house was so they could raid that shit too, but then again, if the women wanted to go there, so be it. Men of Earth was some sort of a fanatic group, and even though I didn’t know about Hitler, I knew fanaticism had ruined our planet.
I wanted to go home and think on what I’d learned from him and Patty. This guy was in my way. “Well, that’s fine, bro, you do what you want, but I’m leaving.”
I showed him the knife in my hand. “If you try to stop me, I’ll gut you.”
He stayed in the kitchen.
I left it all behind me and took to the sky. I balanced my skater in the air, high winds whipping through my hair. Below me, Cake and Deco exploded. Farther down, on the side of the road, Paulina sat and cried. An older woman hugged her and patted her back while the sirens blared in the distance. The firefighters approached, and it seemed as if the entire city gathered around the wide perimeter to watch. Fire didn’t catch in this city often. Beast City was considered the safest place on Earth. I didn’t linger to see if the man had come out.
My shelter burned away.
The girls, apart from Sienna—and even that was hearsay—didn’t want my help. If what Patty had told me was true, they’d happily end up in another community, perhaps even one worse than mine. I didn’t know if I was crazy to want to return to Vice or if they were to want Men of Earth. In the end, everyone had their own path.
I slid left, tapped the fuel sensor on my skater, and propelled it home, where I’d wait for Vice and tell him everything. Maybe they’d go out on a mission and retrieve the pairs even if they’d rather be with those men. I didn’t know, but I’d tell him what I knew. I didn’t know what would happen with them.
Chapter Eleven
Vice
I twisted Jamie’s right leg and winced at the arrow sticking out of his thigh. He cleared his throat. “Get on with it, bro, I can’t stand the stench.”
Down here, underneath the sanctuary, the air stank of Dewlyn’s parents’ decomposing bodies. About two feet away, worms swarmed over them, and with our sensitive noses, our stomachs were rising. I wrinkled my nose and pressed around Jamie’s wound, ready to break off the arrow. “Don’t cry,” I said.