Spellhacke- M. K. England Page 0,46

nerves and half to keep anyone from Nellie’s from recognizing me in this horrible half-assed disguise.

Davon slides in after me, and when the pod’s nav system asks, “Where can I take you this evening?” he gives me an expectant look.

“Junction station twenty-nine,” I say, then sit back and fasten my seat belt.

“Junction station twenty-nine is unavailable at this time,” the pod responds.

“Get us as close as you can on the southern side of the station, then, please.”

“Acknowledged. Please prepare for acceleration.”

Once we’re both settled, the pod takes off, rising into the air and weaving itself back into the light nighttime traffic.

Davon gives me all of thirty seconds before he pounces. “Okay, we’re in. These things are forbidden by law to have any kind of recording devices, so you’re out of excuses. I’m worried about you, Dizzy. Spill.”

I look down at my lap and fiddle with a loose string at the bottom of my new-old shirt. I’ve done my best to keep Davon mostly separate from my friends, for a lot of reasons. The others like him just fine, mostly because he can semi-control me and because he sometimes bought us takeout. He’s older than us, which means he has his own apartment outside the orphan district anyway. Natural separation. But he also knows me better than the others, a product of our growing up as neighbors, cousins closer than siblings. And despite that, he actually thinks well of me. It’s been nice, having someone who cares unconditionally, who I can always go to when things with the others were rough. When I still had others.

So I’ve never wanted him to know about our side gig. I’ve lied for two years, let him think I was a better person than I really am, let him think I got my extra money doing longer shifts for Mr. Ailiano. In reality, I quit the tech shop a year ago to focus on siphoning and fixing ware on a freelance basis. I’ll have to spoil his opinion of me. Maybe even throw away the job at MMC he promised me, if he’s mad enough. That job offer is all I have going for me in Kyrkarta. Davon’s all I have left, now that my friends have ditched me for good.

Nothing for it, though. I have to know what happened on the job today. What went wrong. And I need someone watching my back while I search.

I take a deep breath and begin.

“You know that big disaster at the junction station earlier today?” I ask. Obvious; of course he does. I barrel on. “That was me.”

Davon frowns, his brows knitted together. “What . . . I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

I glare at him, focusing all my anger and frustration and helplessness into beaming the information straight into his brain so we don’t have to play this game, so I don’t actually have to say—

“I did it. I was responsible for the junction station explosion. Jaesin, Remi, Ania, and I, we’ve been running a side business for two years, siphoning maz from MMC’s pipes and selling it off, or taking orders from clients for specific amounts and strains. That’s how I’ve really been paying for my tech and food.”

I close my eyes and wait. Davon’s silence is heavy with the weight of his disapproval, his horror, and it presses down on me in a way I haven’t felt since . . .

Since I was seven. Since my mother was alive.

To my horror, my eyes grow hot and stinging again, and I open them to find Davon blurry through a sheen of tears.

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” I say, my voice thick with the aching in my chest and throat. “I don’t even know what happened! That’s what I need to find out tonight. I know it wasn’t just us. We’ve done this a hundred times and I’ve never seen anything like that. Never. Something went wrong.”

But you opened the valve more, you tried to rush the job, you took an order for a kind of maz you knew nothing about, a little voice in the back of my brain tells me. I shut my eyes again and grit my teeth. “It may have been us that did it, but it wasn’t our fault. I’ll never believe it. I can’t.”

A faint rustling sound, then a hand on my knee, warm and gentle.

“Honestly, Diz, I’m not actually surprised about the siphoning thing,” Davon says, his voice low and calm. “I did wonder where the money