wasn’t the best idea, but I added, “There’s more where that came from. Just let me know what you need, and I can get it.”
“Okay. Great.” She moved toward her lab station and put the blood into a small cooling unit before using an antiseptic wipe to clean off the shiny metallic surface of her worktable.
“Did you ever think that if there’s an outbreak on Starway 8, it’s to draw you there?” she asked without turning around.
Unfortunately, the thought had crossed my mind. I was trying not to let it stop me. “Bridgebane thinks I’m dead.”
“Bridgebane knows you were after large quantities of vaccines. He also knows where you grew up, because he’s the one who put you there.”
I rubbed my arms, feeling chilled. “Could anyone really do that? To children?” It was despicable.
Fiona turned, her brows lifting in question. “You know him better than I do. Could he?”
Infect thousands of kids with something awful just to draw me out on the off chance I hadn’t been squashed by the Black Widow?
My last meal churned in my stomach. “Yeah. I think he could.”
Funny how I still remembered a time when he hadn’t seemed like such a terrible person. He’d brought me toys. Played with me. Talked with Mom. Maybe it had taken a while for my father to brainwash him.
“Then going there is a bad idea,” Fiona said.
A bad idea had rarely stopped me. My only fantastic idea had gotten me caught and locked up.
“Just see what you find, and then we’ll discuss,” I said.
Fiona nodded, already setting up her most powerful microscope. “I’ll let you know if anything looks promising.” She straightened, her face brightening again. “And once the Endeavor is up and running again, we could always slip into the Fold and then get someone else to take the solution over to Starway 8. Someone no one is looking for.”
That wasn’t a bad idea. I hated sending anyone else into danger, but I also knew that a lot of rebels lived for this kind of thing—the daring deed that made them feel as though they’d accomplished something in the endless fight against the Overseer’s regime.
But who could get into the orphanage more easily and safely than I could? I knew the gigantic structure like the back of my hand and could run through the whole place blindfolded. Also, I wouldn’t get sick with whatever was raging through the children.
“Asher. Frank. Macey…” Fiona looked at me over her shoulder again. “Caeryssa’s always up for anything.”
When they weren’t out wreaking havoc, Fiona’s old friends from 17 would lie low in the Fold, popping in and out, just like we did. They were Nightchasers, too, moving food, weapons, equipment, sometimes people. Undertaking anything on a deadline was incredibly stressful, though, because you never knew if you’d find the Fold quickly, or if it would take days and days of searching. But the Fold’s random movements were part of what made it so safe, one of its inexplicable self-defense mechanisms.
“Coltin is Asher’s nephew,” I said. Coltin’s health as a young child had been really iffy, which was why Asher hadn’t adopted him. He’d wanted to, but things had been so touch and go at first that he’d known Coltin had a better chance of survival with Surral looking after him.
Surral had done the doctoring, but I’d ended up doing a lot of the rest. That was how things worked on Starway 8—the older kids stepped in when and where they were needed. I’d been helping out in the orphanage’s sick bay and had seen a young man dropping off an infant. He’d looked so devastated about it that I hadn’t been able to walk away. From the day Coltin had arrived at six weeks old to the time I’d left when he was nearly three, I’d spent more time with him than with anyone else, even Gabe. He’d just seemed to need me. I’d fed him. Rocked him. Heard his first words. Seen his first steps. It had almost been like being a mother.
“Asher could go to Starway 8, then,” Fiona said. “If a patrol stopped him and things started to get sticky, they could verify the connection—no problem.”
That was if Asher was around and easily found. And thinking about Coltin in a box full of sick people made me nervous enough to want to check on him myself. He was healthy enough now, but his breathing was always a bit labored, even when he was just sitting still and listening to