Tracer, page 10
“Sure.”
“Two beers, and a couple of the house sandwiches, please,” Darcy finished. Ellen grunted and moved off into the crowd. The guard laughed. “That’s her in a good mood, if you can believe it.”
Trace found herself grinning, despite being on guard in this strange, chaotic place. It was hard not to like Lieutenant Darcy Jones. But then she forced the smile away, reminded herself not to trust Darcy.
Not to trust anyone. Just like Mackie had taught her.
EIGHTEEN
“So, what’s PH City like?”
Trace heard the question that Darcy had asked over the increasing din in the bar but took a long moment to answer. She was savoring the final bites of her sandwich, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what was in it, didn’t really care—it tasted so much better than the gruel President Bell served to her employees.
Perhaps not literal gruel, Trace allowed, but compared to what she was eating right now . . . ? Not much better. And she knew that people in the lower levels of PH City suffered through even worse food. It simply wasn’t a priority for the president.
“It’s a wonderful place to live,” Trace said, and then realized she was just parroting Bell’s propaganda from the radio and cursed herself for doing so. She knew it wasn’t true, at least not most of the time. “I mean . . . it’s fine,” she admitted, putting what was left of the sandwich she had practically inhaled back down onto the metal plate. She took a swig of beer—not enjoying the taste yet, but not hating it as much as when she’d had her first sip minutes earlier. She’d taken off her trench coat when the food arrived, and it currently hung on the back of her chair. “Nothing like this. We don’t—” She almost finished with waste our oil like you do, but instead commented, “We don’t have all the amenities that you do. This place is pretty incredible.”
Darcy smiled at the compliment—an affectation that was almost contagious. Trace took another bite, felt herself relax further. The sensation felt amazing, and totally bizarre.
“Yeah, I guess we have it pretty good,” the younger woman said, looking around appraisingly. “I mean, this used to be a dumping ground for a city called Las Vegas. People played games there. For credits, I think . . . ? I don’t know. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But based on what they teach us, it was apparently a lot of fun. And people came from all around the world to see the lights. Which is part of the reason Chancellor Stewart puts so much effort into keeping Apex City lit up like it is. He says it’s in honor of our past. Which I think is pretty great.”
Trace grunted at the sentiment. Sounded like its own version of propaganda to her. But she liked Darcy too much to get into politics. She took a big gulp of beer, then another. It was tasting better and better the more she drank it. She might even get a second one.
“You got family back in PH City?” Darcy asked, and Trace sat back, considered the question. Thought about her first set of parents out in the garbage heaps. Then Bell. And Mackie. And Gunnar.
“Not really,” was all she said.
“Oh,” Darcy murmured, then pressed on, clearly determined to fill the awkward silence between them. “Well, I was raised by my mom. We were super close. Just . . . you know . . . best friends from day one. My dad, whoever he was, took off right after she told him she was pregnant, so we really relied on each other. She really, really took care of me. And I tried to do the same for her. Then she got sick. She’s been gone about a year. And I . . . I really miss her, you know?”
Trace found her mind turning to Mackie, his final moments. It was too much for her, so she pushed it all away, just nodded. Took another sip of beer.
“My girlfriend has made it a lot easier,” Darcy continued. “She’s helped me process my grief. It helps to have someone to talk to.”
“I’m sure,” was all Trace was able to manage.
“So . . . Puente Hills,” the guard said. “That was the garbage depository for Los Angeles, right?”
Trace blinked at the question. Maybe it was the young guard talking about her loved ones, or the conversation switching back to Tracer, but she felt her defenses going back up. She didn’t mind talking about the logistics of Apex City—its lights and its origins, and whatever else this likable young woman wanted to brag about—but she sensed the conversation was heading in a direction that made Trace increasingly uncomfortable.
“That’s what I’ve been told,” she responded.
“And they made movies and shows there and people traveled from all over the world to go there, too,” Darcy continued, oblivious to her dinner companion’s growing discomfort. “Have you ever gone to the LA ruins? I’ve only been to the Vegas ruins once—part of my training—but it was very cool. Scary. But cool.”
The mention of “shows” made Trace think about Brisby, and she wondered how he was feeling, if he was already fixing the city’s broken pyrolysis machine—or had already done so and was waiting for Trace to come back so he could get home to his wife and daughter. Suddenly, similar to how she’d felt after the hot shower, the food and the beer and the raucous barroom seemed excessive and indulgent, and the rest of her walls went up.
“Thank you for all of this,” Trace said, her tone clipped. “But I think it’s time to leave.”
Darcy blinked, clearly confused. “Um. Yeah, of course. Whatever you want. Let me just get—”
At that moment, a figure pushed through a small cluster of people in front of them and made a beeline for their table.
Captain Janus.
Wearing his still-crisp uniform and sporting the same nasty look on his pinched face. A small glass of brown liquid was clutched tightly in his right hand. Tracer instinctively reached for her SIG Pro but cursed when she remembered it had been confiscated. By the very asshole who was aggressively approaching.
“Jones!” he shouted, two of his guards materializing out of what seemed like thin air and flanking him as he reached the corner where they sat. “What the fuck!”
“Captain!” Darcy said, abruptly standing and saluting at the same time, her knees almost knocking the table over as she did so. Trace remained seated, coolly scanning the room for potential weapons and exits. The three men were all big, clearly schooled in violence based on the way they were standing, but there were only three of them. Mackie had taught her to take on twice as many.
Still, she had come here on a mission—she couldn’t afford to compromise what was expected of her by President Bell. So, she breathed slowly through her nose, told herself not to get involved, no matter what happened.
“I thought you were supposed to radio me as soon as our guest left the holding area,” he growled.
Holding area? Trace thought. Interesting.
“I know, sir, but Tracer was famished, and I knew you would call me as soon as Mr. Frost was—”
“And are you drinking on the job, and doing so while going rogue with an important guest of the chancellor’s?”
Darcy’s eyes shot down to the alcohol grasped in her commanding officer’s hand, and her face contorted in confusion. “I thought we were allowed to—”
“That was your first mistake,” Janus hissed, voice slurring slightly, taking a step closer and pointing a meaty finger directly into his subordinate’s face. “You didn’t think. You dumb little bitch.”
Trace took a deep breath, leaned into what she had been trained to do when emotions threatened to take over. But then she saw the look on Darcy’s face, how all her enthusiasm from moments earlier was gone, replaced by absolute fear of her imposing boss, and she felt all her carefully curated training suddenly vanish like it had never been there in the first place.
Tracer’s fist hit the side of the man’s face with a bone-crushing impact that made everyone standing nearby flinch, while several people in the crowd oohed collectively. The large drunk man went down in a heap, and somewhere nearby, whoever was handling the music must have noticed, too, because it abruptly cut out, the multitude of conversations dying as people slowly started to realize what was happening in the corner.
“Fuck,” Tracer said quietly. She hadn’t meant to do it. Had told herself in the past she would never do it, would never let pure emotion win, no matter what. But she had been called a bitch before. So many times. And the look on Darcy’s face when Janus had said it had just been too much for Trace to bear.
To his credit, and despite clearly being extremely intoxicated, Janus was on his feet within seconds. He glared at Trace with naked hatred, and his two friends closed ranks, excited smiles curling on their cruel faces.
At that moment, the lights overhead flickered—just for a second—but Trace and Janus both looked up. No one else seemed to really notice.
Don’t say it, Trace told herself. Don’t.
“You wanna tell everyone what that means?” Trace said quietly, looking back at the stone-faced captain. “Or shall I?”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” the man ordered.
“Why don’t you shut it for me?” she responded, knowing she should stop, that she shouldn’t even have started. It was a bad habit, her impulsiveness. One that often worked in her favor.
Not tonight though, she surmised.
“You’ve made a huge mistake, girl,” he said, nothing more than a harsh whisper. “Under Apex City law, I’m not allowed to strike a guest of the chancellor—unless they hit me first.”
“Then what are you waiting for, old man?” Trace challenged, keeping her eyes directly on his.
Darcy took a half step between them, raising her arms in clear desperation. “Please, don’t. I can just take her back to her quarters and you can write me up, even report me directly to Chancellor Stewart. You don’t have to—”
With a growl, Janus shoved Darcy into the wall with one arm and threw a punch with the other. It was an impressive move, on some level, one full of considerable strength, but a terrible way to start a fight, as far as Trace was concerned. In that moment, his concentration was split between two objectives, and she used it to her full advantage.
Blocking his sloppy punch with her left forearm, she threw out a lightning-fast uppercut that connected with the big man’s chin, effecting another nasty crack and causing Janus to fall back into one of his two friends, who then fell back into a group of people at the bar. Their drinks went flying, and Trace watched as one of them splashed into the shocked-looking face of Trevor Albright, who had been grinning maniacally only seconds earlier. The yellow liquid oozed down and stained his once-pristine suit. She fought back her own smile at his outraged look.
As the two men attempted to untangle themselves from each other on the floor, the third tried to grab at Tracer. But he was even slower than his boss, so she simply stepped inside his clumsy grasp and rewarded him with a headbutt that instantly shattered his nose. He fell to the ground screaming.
Stepping back, taking in the entire situation and her surroundings in an instant, Tracer noticed several things:
Darcy had slipped away. Trace figured she was calling for backup, but it didn’t matter.
The music had started up again, louder than before, as had a series of pulsing lights, adding to the frenetic energy already suffusing the bar.
The crowd had gotten a taste of bloodlust and was pushing in, waiting excitedly and desperate to see what would happen next.
Tracer’s opponents were all on the floor, but she knew it was only a matter of seconds before they regrouped and attacked again—and perhaps with more organization this time since they now knew they weren’t dealing with an amateur.
And finally, there were multiple streaks of blood on her new shirt.
This is why I don’t wear white, she thought.
As Trace clenched her fists and glanced quickly around, she realized there was no quick or easy way out of the corner, so she readied herself to take on Janus and his goons for a second round. But as the growing crowd continued to close in, she suddenly felt a hand wrap around her upper arm and heard a voice whisper in her ear, “Come with me. I can get you out of here.”
She assumed it was Darcy, but when Trace looked, she found herself looking into the face of the man she’d seen in the doorway back in the concourse. The one with light-brown eyes and messy hair. And that same inscrutable smile.
“I’m a friend of Darcy’s,” he added as the noise in the room grew even louder. “Come on. Now or never.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Trace could see the three men gathering themselves, beginning to push through the increasing crush of drunken people. While she loved a good fight, she knew this conflict could very well compromise her mission.
And the mission always came first.
“Fine,” she conceded, grabbing her trench coat off the nearby chair. “Let’s go.”
Trace followed the man through a side door and out into a dark alleyway.
The increasing noise of the crowd and the music died away instantly as the door shut with a loud clank behind her. She blinked rapidly in the sudden darkness after the bright lights of the bar, trying to clear her senses. Darcy had warned her at the outset the beer in that particular establishment was strong, which Trace had waved off, explaining the strength of Old Joe’s moonshine. But she had apparently been a little overconfident and now found her senses swimming from the unexpected combination of alcohol and adrenaline.
“Come on,” the man said, throwing her that lopsided smile again, and walked deeper into the alley. Without looking back, he reached into the air and hoisted himself up onto a ladder that hung several feet above their heads. He began climbing into the night’s undulating shadows.
Trace watched him go, amused. This man was crazy if he thought she was going to blindly follow him into what could easily be a trap.
But . . . then again . . . there was something about him, about that stupid smile, that intrigued her. Plus, he was smaller than her, and she suspected that if he had wanted her dead, she’d be on her way to a shallow ditch out in the garbage heaps by now. Plus, he had name-dropped Darcy, which made Trace feel slightly better about the situation. Maybe the young guard was waiting wherever this man was leading. After all, Trace had started the fight, no matter how much it may have been justified, so she owed it to Darcy to try to make things right again.
Sighing and shrugging on her trench coat, Trace made her way down the alley and climbed up after her mysterious benefactor, who was now only a splotch of darkness against the roiling night sky.
When she reached the top of the ladder and climbed to the other side, Trace found herself on a large ledge. Across the cracked pavement, the man stood, holding open a door and waiting patiently for his guest to catch up. As Tracer approached, he started to move into the building, but she grabbed his upper arm, a mirror of his own action in the bar a few minutes earlier. He looked down at her fingers, then back up at her face, still showcasing that annoying smile.
“Yes . . . ?” he asked.
“Your name. I don’t follow complete strangers to unknown locations. Ever. It’s an occupational hazard.”
“Fair,” he said. “My name is Ezra. And yours is Tracer. But you prefer Trace. Now follow me. Please. I think you’re gonna want to see this.”
Ezra pulled his arm from her grasp, which she allowed, and he headed inside, toward a nearby elevator bank with blue tape crisscrossed in front of it. He hit a button, the doors opened, and he nimbly stepped through the tape and into the waiting car.
Confused but also kind of amused, Trace watched, contemplating her next move. In the few seconds since he’d introduced himself, she had read his body language, sized him up, and she knew he was no threat. This was someone who obviously didn’t know how to fight, how to handle himself in conflict. There was no question in her mind about that. Plus, she had nowhere else to go, other than the room to which she had been assigned.
The holding area.
And she figured Janus—and probably his goons—would probably be waiting there for her anyway. She literally had nothing to lose by following Ezra wherever he was attempting to lead her.
Trace entered the building, bypassed the tape the same way he had, and then entered the elevator, leaning against the wall like this was just a day like any other. Ezra stared at her appreciatively.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” she said, allowing the slightest smile to appear on her own face. “Let’s go.”
NINETEEN
Tracer couldn’t believe her eyes.
In the distance, the desert unfolded into complete darkness, flanked by the purple-black sky overhead like a pinpricked ceiling. The seemingly endless lights shone up from below, on all sides of where she stood, and just past the first wall, she saw the ring of garbage that encircled the entire city. Seen from this angle, the amount was breathtaking, dwarfing the mountains of Puente Hills, probably hiding tons and tons of hidden plastic treasure despite how much had already clearly been plundered. And beyond the second wall, through which she and Brisby had driven who knew how many hours earlier, the desert began and then extended out into what seemed like infinity. There was something unsettling and yet peaceful about her inability to find the line where the desert ended and the dark sky began.
“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
Ezra stood next to her but seemed to intentionally give her enough space so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Part of her wanted to answer his question, but it was a small part, and she felt those carefully curated walls go up again as she turned slightly to face him.
“Where’s Darcy?”
“I’m not sure. But you’re safe here. You can figure out your next move. There’s no way Janus and his goons would ever look up here. Most people think that elevator’s been out of service for months. I may have been the one to start that rumor.” Again with that little smirk.
“Who are you?” Trace asked, and then preemptively interrupted him as he opened his mouth to speak. “And don’t say Ezra. I already know that part.”
He nodded and sat down on a nearby ledge that jutted out near the door leading to the elevator. There was more than enough space for Trace to sit as well, but she resisted the urge. She wanted answers.
“Two beers, and a couple of the house sandwiches, please,” Darcy finished. Ellen grunted and moved off into the crowd. The guard laughed. “That’s her in a good mood, if you can believe it.”
Trace found herself grinning, despite being on guard in this strange, chaotic place. It was hard not to like Lieutenant Darcy Jones. But then she forced the smile away, reminded herself not to trust Darcy.
Not to trust anyone. Just like Mackie had taught her.
EIGHTEEN
“So, what’s PH City like?”
Trace heard the question that Darcy had asked over the increasing din in the bar but took a long moment to answer. She was savoring the final bites of her sandwich, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what was in it, didn’t really care—it tasted so much better than the gruel President Bell served to her employees.
Perhaps not literal gruel, Trace allowed, but compared to what she was eating right now . . . ? Not much better. And she knew that people in the lower levels of PH City suffered through even worse food. It simply wasn’t a priority for the president.
“It’s a wonderful place to live,” Trace said, and then realized she was just parroting Bell’s propaganda from the radio and cursed herself for doing so. She knew it wasn’t true, at least not most of the time. “I mean . . . it’s fine,” she admitted, putting what was left of the sandwich she had practically inhaled back down onto the metal plate. She took a swig of beer—not enjoying the taste yet, but not hating it as much as when she’d had her first sip minutes earlier. She’d taken off her trench coat when the food arrived, and it currently hung on the back of her chair. “Nothing like this. We don’t—” She almost finished with waste our oil like you do, but instead commented, “We don’t have all the amenities that you do. This place is pretty incredible.”
Darcy smiled at the compliment—an affectation that was almost contagious. Trace took another bite, felt herself relax further. The sensation felt amazing, and totally bizarre.
“Yeah, I guess we have it pretty good,” the younger woman said, looking around appraisingly. “I mean, this used to be a dumping ground for a city called Las Vegas. People played games there. For credits, I think . . . ? I don’t know. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But based on what they teach us, it was apparently a lot of fun. And people came from all around the world to see the lights. Which is part of the reason Chancellor Stewart puts so much effort into keeping Apex City lit up like it is. He says it’s in honor of our past. Which I think is pretty great.”
Trace grunted at the sentiment. Sounded like its own version of propaganda to her. But she liked Darcy too much to get into politics. She took a big gulp of beer, then another. It was tasting better and better the more she drank it. She might even get a second one.
“You got family back in PH City?” Darcy asked, and Trace sat back, considered the question. Thought about her first set of parents out in the garbage heaps. Then Bell. And Mackie. And Gunnar.
“Not really,” was all she said.
“Oh,” Darcy murmured, then pressed on, clearly determined to fill the awkward silence between them. “Well, I was raised by my mom. We were super close. Just . . . you know . . . best friends from day one. My dad, whoever he was, took off right after she told him she was pregnant, so we really relied on each other. She really, really took care of me. And I tried to do the same for her. Then she got sick. She’s been gone about a year. And I . . . I really miss her, you know?”
Trace found her mind turning to Mackie, his final moments. It was too much for her, so she pushed it all away, just nodded. Took another sip of beer.
“My girlfriend has made it a lot easier,” Darcy continued. “She’s helped me process my grief. It helps to have someone to talk to.”
“I’m sure,” was all Trace was able to manage.
“So . . . Puente Hills,” the guard said. “That was the garbage depository for Los Angeles, right?”
Trace blinked at the question. Maybe it was the young guard talking about her loved ones, or the conversation switching back to Tracer, but she felt her defenses going back up. She didn’t mind talking about the logistics of Apex City—its lights and its origins, and whatever else this likable young woman wanted to brag about—but she sensed the conversation was heading in a direction that made Trace increasingly uncomfortable.
“That’s what I’ve been told,” she responded.
“And they made movies and shows there and people traveled from all over the world to go there, too,” Darcy continued, oblivious to her dinner companion’s growing discomfort. “Have you ever gone to the LA ruins? I’ve only been to the Vegas ruins once—part of my training—but it was very cool. Scary. But cool.”
The mention of “shows” made Trace think about Brisby, and she wondered how he was feeling, if he was already fixing the city’s broken pyrolysis machine—or had already done so and was waiting for Trace to come back so he could get home to his wife and daughter. Suddenly, similar to how she’d felt after the hot shower, the food and the beer and the raucous barroom seemed excessive and indulgent, and the rest of her walls went up.
“Thank you for all of this,” Trace said, her tone clipped. “But I think it’s time to leave.”
Darcy blinked, clearly confused. “Um. Yeah, of course. Whatever you want. Let me just get—”
At that moment, a figure pushed through a small cluster of people in front of them and made a beeline for their table.
Captain Janus.
Wearing his still-crisp uniform and sporting the same nasty look on his pinched face. A small glass of brown liquid was clutched tightly in his right hand. Tracer instinctively reached for her SIG Pro but cursed when she remembered it had been confiscated. By the very asshole who was aggressively approaching.
“Jones!” he shouted, two of his guards materializing out of what seemed like thin air and flanking him as he reached the corner where they sat. “What the fuck!”
“Captain!” Darcy said, abruptly standing and saluting at the same time, her knees almost knocking the table over as she did so. Trace remained seated, coolly scanning the room for potential weapons and exits. The three men were all big, clearly schooled in violence based on the way they were standing, but there were only three of them. Mackie had taught her to take on twice as many.
Still, she had come here on a mission—she couldn’t afford to compromise what was expected of her by President Bell. So, she breathed slowly through her nose, told herself not to get involved, no matter what happened.
“I thought you were supposed to radio me as soon as our guest left the holding area,” he growled.
Holding area? Trace thought. Interesting.
“I know, sir, but Tracer was famished, and I knew you would call me as soon as Mr. Frost was—”
“And are you drinking on the job, and doing so while going rogue with an important guest of the chancellor’s?”
Darcy’s eyes shot down to the alcohol grasped in her commanding officer’s hand, and her face contorted in confusion. “I thought we were allowed to—”
“That was your first mistake,” Janus hissed, voice slurring slightly, taking a step closer and pointing a meaty finger directly into his subordinate’s face. “You didn’t think. You dumb little bitch.”
Trace took a deep breath, leaned into what she had been trained to do when emotions threatened to take over. But then she saw the look on Darcy’s face, how all her enthusiasm from moments earlier was gone, replaced by absolute fear of her imposing boss, and she felt all her carefully curated training suddenly vanish like it had never been there in the first place.
Tracer’s fist hit the side of the man’s face with a bone-crushing impact that made everyone standing nearby flinch, while several people in the crowd oohed collectively. The large drunk man went down in a heap, and somewhere nearby, whoever was handling the music must have noticed, too, because it abruptly cut out, the multitude of conversations dying as people slowly started to realize what was happening in the corner.
“Fuck,” Tracer said quietly. She hadn’t meant to do it. Had told herself in the past she would never do it, would never let pure emotion win, no matter what. But she had been called a bitch before. So many times. And the look on Darcy’s face when Janus had said it had just been too much for Trace to bear.
To his credit, and despite clearly being extremely intoxicated, Janus was on his feet within seconds. He glared at Trace with naked hatred, and his two friends closed ranks, excited smiles curling on their cruel faces.
At that moment, the lights overhead flickered—just for a second—but Trace and Janus both looked up. No one else seemed to really notice.
Don’t say it, Trace told herself. Don’t.
“You wanna tell everyone what that means?” Trace said quietly, looking back at the stone-faced captain. “Or shall I?”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” the man ordered.
“Why don’t you shut it for me?” she responded, knowing she should stop, that she shouldn’t even have started. It was a bad habit, her impulsiveness. One that often worked in her favor.
Not tonight though, she surmised.
“You’ve made a huge mistake, girl,” he said, nothing more than a harsh whisper. “Under Apex City law, I’m not allowed to strike a guest of the chancellor—unless they hit me first.”
“Then what are you waiting for, old man?” Trace challenged, keeping her eyes directly on his.
Darcy took a half step between them, raising her arms in clear desperation. “Please, don’t. I can just take her back to her quarters and you can write me up, even report me directly to Chancellor Stewart. You don’t have to—”
With a growl, Janus shoved Darcy into the wall with one arm and threw a punch with the other. It was an impressive move, on some level, one full of considerable strength, but a terrible way to start a fight, as far as Trace was concerned. In that moment, his concentration was split between two objectives, and she used it to her full advantage.
Blocking his sloppy punch with her left forearm, she threw out a lightning-fast uppercut that connected with the big man’s chin, effecting another nasty crack and causing Janus to fall back into one of his two friends, who then fell back into a group of people at the bar. Their drinks went flying, and Trace watched as one of them splashed into the shocked-looking face of Trevor Albright, who had been grinning maniacally only seconds earlier. The yellow liquid oozed down and stained his once-pristine suit. She fought back her own smile at his outraged look.
As the two men attempted to untangle themselves from each other on the floor, the third tried to grab at Tracer. But he was even slower than his boss, so she simply stepped inside his clumsy grasp and rewarded him with a headbutt that instantly shattered his nose. He fell to the ground screaming.
Stepping back, taking in the entire situation and her surroundings in an instant, Tracer noticed several things:
Darcy had slipped away. Trace figured she was calling for backup, but it didn’t matter.
The music had started up again, louder than before, as had a series of pulsing lights, adding to the frenetic energy already suffusing the bar.
The crowd had gotten a taste of bloodlust and was pushing in, waiting excitedly and desperate to see what would happen next.
Tracer’s opponents were all on the floor, but she knew it was only a matter of seconds before they regrouped and attacked again—and perhaps with more organization this time since they now knew they weren’t dealing with an amateur.
And finally, there were multiple streaks of blood on her new shirt.
This is why I don’t wear white, she thought.
As Trace clenched her fists and glanced quickly around, she realized there was no quick or easy way out of the corner, so she readied herself to take on Janus and his goons for a second round. But as the growing crowd continued to close in, she suddenly felt a hand wrap around her upper arm and heard a voice whisper in her ear, “Come with me. I can get you out of here.”
She assumed it was Darcy, but when Trace looked, she found herself looking into the face of the man she’d seen in the doorway back in the concourse. The one with light-brown eyes and messy hair. And that same inscrutable smile.
“I’m a friend of Darcy’s,” he added as the noise in the room grew even louder. “Come on. Now or never.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Trace could see the three men gathering themselves, beginning to push through the increasing crush of drunken people. While she loved a good fight, she knew this conflict could very well compromise her mission.
And the mission always came first.
“Fine,” she conceded, grabbing her trench coat off the nearby chair. “Let’s go.”
Trace followed the man through a side door and out into a dark alleyway.
The increasing noise of the crowd and the music died away instantly as the door shut with a loud clank behind her. She blinked rapidly in the sudden darkness after the bright lights of the bar, trying to clear her senses. Darcy had warned her at the outset the beer in that particular establishment was strong, which Trace had waved off, explaining the strength of Old Joe’s moonshine. But she had apparently been a little overconfident and now found her senses swimming from the unexpected combination of alcohol and adrenaline.
“Come on,” the man said, throwing her that lopsided smile again, and walked deeper into the alley. Without looking back, he reached into the air and hoisted himself up onto a ladder that hung several feet above their heads. He began climbing into the night’s undulating shadows.
Trace watched him go, amused. This man was crazy if he thought she was going to blindly follow him into what could easily be a trap.
But . . . then again . . . there was something about him, about that stupid smile, that intrigued her. Plus, he was smaller than her, and she suspected that if he had wanted her dead, she’d be on her way to a shallow ditch out in the garbage heaps by now. Plus, he had name-dropped Darcy, which made Trace feel slightly better about the situation. Maybe the young guard was waiting wherever this man was leading. After all, Trace had started the fight, no matter how much it may have been justified, so she owed it to Darcy to try to make things right again.
Sighing and shrugging on her trench coat, Trace made her way down the alley and climbed up after her mysterious benefactor, who was now only a splotch of darkness against the roiling night sky.
When she reached the top of the ladder and climbed to the other side, Trace found herself on a large ledge. Across the cracked pavement, the man stood, holding open a door and waiting patiently for his guest to catch up. As Tracer approached, he started to move into the building, but she grabbed his upper arm, a mirror of his own action in the bar a few minutes earlier. He looked down at her fingers, then back up at her face, still showcasing that annoying smile.
“Yes . . . ?” he asked.
“Your name. I don’t follow complete strangers to unknown locations. Ever. It’s an occupational hazard.”
“Fair,” he said. “My name is Ezra. And yours is Tracer. But you prefer Trace. Now follow me. Please. I think you’re gonna want to see this.”
Ezra pulled his arm from her grasp, which she allowed, and he headed inside, toward a nearby elevator bank with blue tape crisscrossed in front of it. He hit a button, the doors opened, and he nimbly stepped through the tape and into the waiting car.
Confused but also kind of amused, Trace watched, contemplating her next move. In the few seconds since he’d introduced himself, she had read his body language, sized him up, and she knew he was no threat. This was someone who obviously didn’t know how to fight, how to handle himself in conflict. There was no question in her mind about that. Plus, she had nowhere else to go, other than the room to which she had been assigned.
The holding area.
And she figured Janus—and probably his goons—would probably be waiting there for her anyway. She literally had nothing to lose by following Ezra wherever he was attempting to lead her.
Trace entered the building, bypassed the tape the same way he had, and then entered the elevator, leaning against the wall like this was just a day like any other. Ezra stared at her appreciatively.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” she said, allowing the slightest smile to appear on her own face. “Let’s go.”
NINETEEN
Tracer couldn’t believe her eyes.
In the distance, the desert unfolded into complete darkness, flanked by the purple-black sky overhead like a pinpricked ceiling. The seemingly endless lights shone up from below, on all sides of where she stood, and just past the first wall, she saw the ring of garbage that encircled the entire city. Seen from this angle, the amount was breathtaking, dwarfing the mountains of Puente Hills, probably hiding tons and tons of hidden plastic treasure despite how much had already clearly been plundered. And beyond the second wall, through which she and Brisby had driven who knew how many hours earlier, the desert began and then extended out into what seemed like infinity. There was something unsettling and yet peaceful about her inability to find the line where the desert ended and the dark sky began.
“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
Ezra stood next to her but seemed to intentionally give her enough space so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Part of her wanted to answer his question, but it was a small part, and she felt those carefully curated walls go up again as she turned slightly to face him.
“Where’s Darcy?”
“I’m not sure. But you’re safe here. You can figure out your next move. There’s no way Janus and his goons would ever look up here. Most people think that elevator’s been out of service for months. I may have been the one to start that rumor.” Again with that little smirk.
“Who are you?” Trace asked, and then preemptively interrupted him as he opened his mouth to speak. “And don’t say Ezra. I already know that part.”
He nodded and sat down on a nearby ledge that jutted out near the door leading to the elevator. There was more than enough space for Trace to sit as well, but she resisted the urge. She wanted answers.
