Spellhacke- M. K. England Page 0,47

was coming from, and with your and Remi’s particular skill sets, it’s a natural choice. And I know how Remi feels about MMC.”

I do my breathing exercise, slow in through the nose, counting until I feel like I can open my eyes without shattering. Davon looks at me with such simple understanding that my heart aches with gratitude. I love Jaesin, Remi, and Ania, but Davon is my family. The only family I have left. I lift my hand, hesitate, hover . . . then slowly lay it over Davon’s where it rests on my knee and squeeze it tight.

“You don’t hate me?” I ask, though it comes out as a whisper.

He turns his hand over under mine and laces our fingers together.

“I could never hate you, Diz. You know I’ve always got your back. Just the two of us against the rest of the world, remember?”

The pod dips toward the ground, and my stomach swoops along with it. He doesn’t hate me yet, but we’ll be on the ground soon, near the site of the junction station disaster, where hundreds, maybe thousands got ill today, where some even died. Looking at the reality might be harder than he thinks.

Or maybe . . . maybe this is what family is supposed to be. You just . . . count on each other. Forgive. Love.

I close my eyes and rest my forehead on his shoulder, letting myself have this one tiny indulgence.

“I wish you’d been my brother for real,” I whisper, a near-silent confession.

He rests his cheek on the crown of my head, and I feel him smile. “Why can’t cousin mean just as much? Why does a certain mix of blood get to decide?”

And that, more than anything, loosens the knot in my chest, makes me think that maybe, just maybe, things might be okay soon.

The pod comes to rest on the ground and beeps its cheerful acknowledgment. “We have arrived at your destination. The charge is fourteen credits. May I charge this to your primary account?”

“Authorized,” Davon says, and opens the door to climb out.

I sit there, frozen in my seat.

The pod beeps again.

“Thank you for choosing RidePod,” it says, gently chiding. “Have a pleasant evening.”

I don’t budge.

“This pod will be leaving in one minute. Additional charges may apply.”

Davon’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Diz, it’s okay. I’ll be right here with you. I know it’s hard. I know.”

He does know. We were neighbors most of our early lives, right up until the spellplague hit when I was seven and he was eleven. We’d been home with the same baby-sitter, playing video games on Davon’s couch, when the time our parents usually came home passed unnoticed. Ten minutes, and our babysitter had gotten huffy. Twenty, and they’d tried to call my dad, then my mom, then Davon’s moms. Nothing.

Thirty minutes, and the babysitter finally thought to turn on the news to see if there’d been something to affect the traffic.

It was the first-ever coverage of the spellplague, though they weren’t calling it that yet. They were mostly calling it the West City Epidemic, a disease that was wiping out people by the hundreds, then thousands, all in the factory and mining areas or the bridges district. The areas where most of the parents in our neighborhood worked, headquarters of the biggest employers in the entire city. Those who were near ground zero of the epidemic died almost instantly. My dad. Many more died within hours. Davon’s moms. And an unlucky few managed to hang on for days, weeks, or months, only to die at home, in front of their children, with no one around to help.

My mom.

There aren’t many plague cases still around. The mortality rate was so high, and no one can figure out why the ones who survived did. MMC managed to keep new cases from occurring with its maz scrubbing tech, and they contracted with the city to research the new disease, too. There aren’t many people left for researchers to study, though. Remi is one of the few, and they’re required to submit to extensive testing and questioning during their clinic visits to give scientists even the barest amount of data. So far, the research has turned up some techniques for keeping the illness at bay, but not for curing it. Of course, the hope was that there wouldn’t be any new infections.

No one knows why the maz turned toxic after the big quake. But it did, and it killed off half the adults in