Curio (46 page)

“Shh.” He held one finger up toward her lips then crooked it toward the front room. “Haimon.”

Her pale eyes lost all hint of color in the darkness, and the pupils stood out against gray rings. She fixed him with a depthless stare.

“He's going to help us. Why are you leaving?”

Heat flushed his cheeks. He hoped she couldn't see in the darkness. “I'm done with this, Marina. I'm done living here, working in the mine, waiting in ration lines.”

Her wide mouth formed an O, but then a flash lit her eyes. “You don't know what you're saying. You don't know how lucky you are to have your name on a ration list, to know there will be a bottle of potion for you every day.”

Her voice rose as she spoke. Whit scanned the opening between the rooms, but no movement indicated Haimon had woken. He faced Marina again and cupped her shoulders with his hands.
She
had no idea what it was like to live without the freedom of a simple touch like this. For a moment, he just stared into her eyes.

“I can get potion. You and the refugees need my help, and I'm not going to continue down here in the quarters now that I know what you face every day.”

“Please, Whit.” She stepped closer, placing her hands on his sides. “Play by the rules, like Steinar. He was careful.”

“He was different,” Whit hissed. Steinar hadn't needed any potion. Day after day, he delivered all of his ration to the outpost. But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.

“You're different.” Marina's voice was so quiet he almost didn't hear the words.

“What?”

“You're different.
And
stupid. Everyone else spends their life avoiding punishment, but you're about to go find it, aren't you?”

He clenched his teeth against a growl. After a moment, he trusted himself to speak. “Let me do what needs to be done.”

“Let me go with you.”

“No.”

“Why?” Her high-pitched voice, muted though it was, lent a childish tone to the word. It was frustrating and cute and enticing all at once.

He pulled her into him, dipping his head low to cover her lips with his. A squeak escaped her throat, but then she was all fire and motion. He couldn't keep up, couldn't catch his breath as Marina's mouth joined with his, moving like some ravenous animal's.

She pulled away too soon, and yet he gasped for breath as though he'd been underwater.

“You're stupid,” she whispered again, then she tucked her wild head into his chest.

He'd lost too much time. Rosy light skimmed the snow-covered peaks behind him. Every time Whit looked back, the glow had spread farther down the mountainside. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, fingers closing around the jewelry and odds and ends he'd taken from Haward's.

They hadn't parked the truck far, so why did his steps drag? Why did it feel like hooks sank into his shoulders, hauling him back toward the shop?

He put Marina's face—her lips—out of his mind and went to work starting the truck. After what felt like ages, it fired up. He rumbled through the business center of the Foothills Quarter and past a few sleepy neighborhoods to the road circling the quarters like a great wagon wheel. Alternating tremors of excitement and alarm slammed through his system. Driving over the empty dirt road in a stolen vehicle felt
like kissing Marina in the yard of the morality hall with a dozen Chemists looking on. He hunched low over the steering wheel and squinted into the rising sun. Far off in the plains, other delivery trucks would be heading into the city, bearing produce from the greenhouses.

He needed to complete this errand, make it back in time to pick up his ration—the last authorized ration he'd ever receive—then drive the truck to the outpost with Marina before his absence at the mine was noted. His mother could honestly say she didn't know where he was. It was better that way. He'd visit her, check in, and she would never again pour potion from her own bottle into his.

As Whit exited the boundary road into the southern quarter, he ran a finger beneath his collar. The wide streets and sprawling buildings of the southern communities left him exposed. The watchtower rose in the distance, marking the end of Mercury City limits, though Chemist influence extended far into the wilderness surrounding the metropolis, maybe even as far as the West Coast.

He had the urge to drive straight for that dark pillar jutting up into the sky. What would he find? A gate? A wall? Surely a swarm of deputies, most of them potion heads who bought their supply from the southern dealers. But what lay beyond the final outpost of Chemist civilization?

A smile tugged Whit's lips, but he shook the daydream off and pulled the truck behind a deserted factory and left it. When he reached the main streets of the Southern Quarter on foot, people had begun trickling from doors. At first he only saw a few: Women with ratty hair and faded red clothes. Bony men who shuffled along with determined faces.

No one looked at Whit. He kept his hands in his pockets, lowered his head, and tried to recall the way Maverick had taken him yesterday. He remembered a few landmarks from
their trip to Cagey's, but it didn't help that everything after their arrival was a blur.

A line formed outside a dispensary as workers unloaded crates of ration from a black truck at the side of the building. Whit crossed to the other side of the street but kept an eye on the operation. Only two deputies oversaw the procedure, with no chug boat patrols in sight. Perhaps robbing a ration delivery in one of the outlying communities wasn't such an impossible feat. With enough backup, you could subdue the deputies and be off with the contents of the truck before the Chemists heard a whisper of it in their central tower.

He put thoughts of the raid aside. There'd be enough time to join that cause after he proved himself a part of Marina's world.

The crumbling boarding house ahead looked familiar, and Whit checked for unwanted eyes before he jogged to the entrance. Residents filed out of the glass doors, exchanging no greetings.

Whit waited until a woman wearing a red shawl over a dressing gown exited the building then he stepped inside. The smell choked him—garbage and human waste. His eyes stung, but he shuffled down the stairs and followed the hall to the door marked 3.

He rapped on the door and waited. And waited.

A tread behind the door sent a jolt of apprehension through him. He glanced to each end of the hall just before the door of number 3 opened.

Cagey stood in a greasy suit, a smile stretching his scarred and saggy skin.

“Back so soon?”

Whit gulped as the three little words slid inside him, planting doubt. He squared his shoulders.

“I have a proposition for you.”

The man leaned out of his door, surveying the hallway much as Whit had. Satisfied, he motioned Whit inside.

Again a force repelled him from Cagey's quarters, but Whit stepped into the room. The sagging couch drew his eye, and Maverick appeared in his memory as real as if he still slouched in the seat.

Cagey lifted one slender arc of an eyebrow. “I didn't expect to see you here—well, not till you gave the twins the slip, anyway.”

“Maverick was taken.” Whit cut right to it. “Yesterday, on our way back.”

Cagey clucked. “I'm sorry to hear that. I am.”

Whit brushed off the useless words. “I want to take his place.”

Silence.

With effort, Whit forced his eyes off their circuit round the room and onto the wrinkled face.

“And what is it you imagine Maverick did for me?”

“I know he bought ration from you. You were one of their suppliers.”

“And how do you suppose Maverick managed to pay me?”

“I can pay.” Whit clutched the stash in his pocket.

“Sure you can pay
now
. A good boy like you probably has a stash hidden in his room. But what about tomorrow? Next week? What about when your back is shredded and you're afraid to look out your window much less come down here for a visit?” Cagey moved toward the passage leading to the back of his chambers. “Go home, boy. This isn't the life you want.”

Whit fished a handful of jewelry out of his pocket and held it in front of him. Cagey caught the movement and stopped, his head turned so that he faced the wall but spoke to Whit.

“Ah, now we come to it. Cagey's mix got to you.” He pivoted back, a grin stretched over his face. “You don't care about the refugees. You're not looking to be a supplier to the poor, suffering mountain folk.”

His tone brought bile to Whit's throat.

The dealer's beady eyes flicked to the contents of Whit's hand. “Oh, I'll sell to you, my boy, but I'll be needing more than that if you want the same arrangement Maverick had.”

Whit fumbled in his other pocket. How much did a couple bottles of Cagey's mix cost? “I can get more.”

“No, no, no. Trust me, you can't get enough.” Cagey moistened his lips and stepped closer. His voice dropped a level. “But if you want to play hero and maybe get tanked on the side, then there is something you can trade for my potion.”

Whit's mouth went dry as paper. He could only lift his eyebrow in a silent question.

“Maverick sold for me. A day's work and he went home, pockets clinking with potion bottles. Simple enough.”

Cagey leaned back, giving Whit a long look. “All right, I'll give you a chance. Now, let's see what's in those pockets of yours.”

Whit cursed all the way back to the Foothills Quarter. The satchel of rations tucked beneath the truck seat did nothing to lift his mood.

He didn't want to sell potion for Cagey. He wanted his own supply. He wanted the connections Maverick had. And he wanted the numbness that erased the events of the last two weeks, and his life up until then.

Another delivery truck approached, horn blaring. Whit jerked the wheel, swerving too far to the right. The tires bumped along the gravel at the side of the road. He forced his attention back to the road. More vehicles were out now, ration trucks with the purple Chemist logo and delivery wagons coming up from the greenhouses. Though the increased traffic made his truck less conspicuous, he shrank from the window whenever another driver looked over.

This was his life now. Running, hiding. Dealing ration.

He turned into the Foothills Quarter and took a route to Colfax, intending to pull into the alley behind Haward's and park the truck. A thrum vibrated in his chest and throat. His heartbeat exploded. He peered out the window, his head whipping this way and that in the cab. Then he froze.

The chug boat churned overhead. Whit's mouth went dry. The deputy vessel swooped down in front of the truck. Green steam clouded his windshield and swirled into the cab.

Whit coughed. His eyes watered with a mixture of noxious fumes and dread.

But the craft didn't swivel to accost him, and instead floated forward. Whit gulped a breath, his grip tight on the steering wheel.

Why were they creeping down Colfax as though they didn't want to be seen?

He scanned the street. Where were the business owners coming to open their shops? Static from the chug boat engine leaked through the cab windows and zinged over his skin. The patrol vehicle drifted toward the corner, deputies braced against the craft's low sides and clutching their clotters in ready positions.

Whit examined the street ahead, zeroing in on Haward's Mercantile. As long as Marina was inside, she was probably safe.

He cranked the wheel, easing the truck onto a gravel path that connected Colfax with the alley behind the storefronts. When the door of Haward's swung open, he cranked the brake. The tires spun out and the contents of the cab flew forward, papers scattering and empty biscuit tins rolling beneath his feet. Even the canvas bag with potion bottles stored in individual pockets slid out from beneath the seat. Whit ignored the mess, his eyes on the two figures standing in front of Olan's store.

One of them, Haimon, eyed Whit's truck stalled in the middle of the turn. The other, the rangy Chemist, Adante, stared in the direction of the stealthy chug boat.