“You can do this, Gabe.” Az took a breath, let it out slowly. “You have to. Once the Bound find out about the Siders, things will only get worse. I need to get through to Eden before then. It’s been two months. I gave her space, gave her time to cool off. I’m just gonna have to talk to her face-to-face.”
“You do what you have to do, but give me a chance to talk to her first. I found something out when I was Upstairs. I don’t want her to be all pissed off when I tell her. Turns out she’s more different than we thought.”
Az thought about it for a second before he nodded. “In the meantime, I think you need to stay away from Upstairs. The more you go up there, the worse you seem to get.”
Gabe turned away. “I know,” he whispered.
CHAPTER 23
It was just after one in the morning when they left the apartment. Adam barely made it out the door before he froze. Jarrod pushed past him, got his own view of what had stopped Adam, and glanced back at her.
On the stairs sat two teenagers, staring at Eden. The one closest to her held out a handful of money.
“Little late, aren’t you?” Eden asked, forcing the surprise from her face. She turned back to Adam and Jarrod. “Wait here.”
The two Siders who’d been on the stairs followed around the corner. There was no denying that word about her was spreading.
A minute later, back at the base of the stairs, the boys fell into step behind her. She pulled the leftover cash from earlier out of her pocket, added the new bills to the stash, and handed it to Adam.
“That makes rent, right?” A steady ache throbbed deep inside the bones of her arms, the Touch she’d taken in winding its way past her elbows, across her shoulders, and up her neck. She draped her hand against the wall to keep her balance. The fingers burned, but it had nothing to do with the way her knuckles scraped across the brick. Eden blinked hard, trying to clear the sudden blur to her vision.
“Already?” He counted. “With this we’re only a hundred short,” he said. “Plus what we spend tonight.”
Jarrod sped up, pacing her. “How many have you taken since you last dosed us?”
Eden shrugged. The motion knocked her off kilter. She teetered for a split second before she steadied, focusing on the subway entrance only a couple dozen steps away. As she stepped off the curb, Jarrod grabbed her arm, spinning her around. The twirl seemed to keep going after her body stopped. She swallowed a wave of nausea.
“Eden, how many?” he growled.
“A lot, all right!” she yelled. “I don’t need a lecture, Jarrod.”
His grip tightened. “You can’t keep going like this.”
“We could move,” Adam offered up. Just that he was suggesting it made Eden wince. They already knew how it would turn out. The Siders would be there before they’d even had a chance to get settled. It’d been that way when they’d gone from the hotel to the apartment. They’d found her.
Her stomach churned, the taste of warm bile rising into her throat. She fought it back down.
“They’re showing up at night now, and you don’t think we need to talk about this? Figure something out?” Jarrod demanded.
“Isn’t that the point of what we’re doing tonight? We’ll see if it helps. You won the bet, so I’m sticking to my part of it. What else do you want from me?” she asked wearily.
As she made her way down the stairs to the platform, she glanced up to the apartment window where James watched from above. The blinds lowered.
“We’ll figure it out, Jarrod,” she promised. “Ready?” She handed him the key, her platforms clanking down the metal stairs, ending the conversation.
Two trains and a four-block walk later they could hear the thumping. Deep bass beats drew them through empty streets lined with warehouses. A smattering of mortal teens wandered in from the alleys, gathering into a stream funneled toward the same goal. Eden watched them, amused as she followed the crowd. Decked out in Day-Glo and wigs, a few had streamers hanging from their wrists and ankles, turning them into tornados of color when they spun happily. Two in the morning and the rave was just starting to gain strength.
Eden ran two fingers over her perfectly gelled hair, sliding the black waves dancing across her cheeks back into place near