I was a mess when we arrived on the roof of the Rock™ Cola Bottling Company. Kel and Margot were waiting, laser-focused on my approach. I felt sick, but tried my best to look somehow less sweaty and shaky. A thick, sweet smell hung in the air.
Kel led us down to a spacious Squelch, rage blazing in her eyes. I wondered if maybe I had made a mistake. The expression behind her mask was harsher and more distant than when I’d first met her. That made sense; I hadn’t disappointed her that first night. She immediately began pacing.
“You willfully, and with forethought, risked the employment and good standing of each member of this team,” she rasped. Her use of chilly Legalese, combined with the fact she still had her mask on, made me shrink away. She stopped moving.
“You know that though, don’t you? That’s why you chose not to show up. You realized the gravity of what you’d done.”
My lip was trembling. I put my hand there to stop it. I felt like I was five years old.
Margot and Henri hung by the door, motionless, watching.
“Speth,” Kel said, jerking her mask off, “I’ve lost team members before to the temptation to steal, but it was always something of real value, or meaning, like a book. What you did makes no sense!”
I couldn’t explain it. I hated feeling like my actions were beyond my control.
“If you are ever going to speak, let it be now, because I need you to explain yourself.”
Her eyes fixed on me, cool and dark. She waited. I swallowed from habit—and from fear. I had so much I wished I could say, so many questions I wanted to ask. But how could I waste my breath on something so petty? I didn’t understand it myself. I wanted to know where Beecher’s grandmother had been taken, and how Kel could live every day in a world she knew was so completely wrong. I wanted to explain about Saretha, and Carol Amanda Harving, and how the Cuff stood between my family and freedom.
I searched for some gesture I could make that would at least tell Kel I was sorry. My shame burned twice as hot knowing I still had to take Henri’s device, no matter what came next.
The room was perfectly still, perfectly silent. Kel waited, unmoving as stone.
“My Lord, this is uncomfortable,” Margot said. Henri looked at her, horrified. Kel still did not move.
What if I explained it all? What if I begged for their help? I wanted to so badly, it felt like I might burst. Kel could find a way. She could get Saretha to Carol Amanda Harving’s apartment. Maybe Henri could carry her. Margot could take Sam. It wouldn’t all be left up to me. But despite everything I wanted, I was not going to explain. No. I was sorry for it, but I would not speak. If I could control nothing else, I could control this.
Kel took out her Pad. She began furiously tapping at it. “I’m not going to make you promise this time. Vague gestures could mean anything. Instead, I’m going to make you a promise—if you steal from our sponsors or our targets, I won’t just end your employment. I will sue so badly you’ll wish Silas Rog was prosecuting.”
“Damn,” Henri said, breathless. Margot shushed him with a finger to her lips.
“If you can’t handle that, fine—when the door opens, leave and never come back. Don’t look for us, don’t contact us, together or individually.” She ran her hand over her head, like it would cool her down. “I’m not asking if you understand.”
She opened up her bag and started laying out bottles of moisturizing cream. Her lecture was over. Without looking at her Pad, she waved it and said, “I’ll clear you when we’re tethered again.”
I wiped my eyes. Some ugly part of myself picked her logic apart like a Lawyer, so I could promise to do as she asked. Did she choose her words carefully, or not carefully enough? I would never steal from a sponsor or a target again. That was exactly what she had asked. I would not repeat my mistake. Henri’s little blue device wouldn’t be plucked from a target’s home. It didn’t belong to a sponsor. It sat in a loophole between her words. I didn’t know if that would matter to her in the end, or if she would care to work out the difference. In my mute protest, I would not be able to explain, nor did it matter. Though she didn’t know it, she’d left me no choice but to stay. Whether I wanted to be part of the group or not, I needed Henri’s device to free Saretha.
I knelt down and began to help Kel plan our Placement. I felt her body ease its tension by a hair, and I felt rotten for it. But I was back in the group for as long as I could last.