The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (38 page)

A sudden warmth crept into my cheeks.  I turned sharply,
adding my plate to the stack at the end of the food line and leaving the mess
hall in agonizing silence.  I was being stupid, so stupid.  When had I ever
decided to look at Hayli and see anything but a means to an end?

Of course, I hadn’t decided.  It had just happened.

But it’ll stop there,
I told myself, slamming my head
against the wall in the storage room corridor
.  It has to.  I won’t let
myself think about her…I’ll avoid her if I have to.

And a deep, aching twinge tugged at my heart, but I closed
my ears to its complaints, because I had to.  I escaped into the large
warehouse room where I’d told Derrin Alby Durb’s name, hoping for a bit of
sanctuary among the towers of crates and boxes.  I was getting the feeling that
peace and quiet was hard to come by around here. 

But my optimism was short lived.  Only a few minutes after
I’d settled onto the crates, a few kids wandered in with a deck of Tozkorol
cards.  A little later, a whole noisy group spilled through the door and
scattered onto the empty floor in the middle of the room, shouting each other’s
names as they split into teams.  After a while, it felt like the whole motley
group of skitters had made its way into my sanctuary, including Hayli and
little Pika, and Coins and another kid about my age whom I hadn’t met yet.

I sighed and abandoned the idea of solitude, instead leaning
back and stretching out my feet so I could watch the game unfolding on the
warehouse floor.  Ten minutes later I still couldn’t make out the rules, or the
goal.  They tossed a slim brass ring between them, and every once in a while
someone would pitch it toward a spike mounted up on the wall, while everyone
else screamed and scattered and ducked out of its downward path.  Some kids
shouted and others cheered, and I hadn’t the faintest notion why. 

Finally I gave up trying to understand and let my attention
drift to the other groups.  Hayli sat up on a stack of crates across the room
from me, talking to Pika and a small, round boy with the biggest smile I’d ever
seen.  Anuk was destroying a red-faced Link over a game of Adurac in the
corner.  Everyone had someone to talk to, to be with.  And somehow, I knew I
was only lying to myself when I imagined I wanted to be alone.

After a moment I realized that I’d been watching Hayli a
little too steadily, a little too long.  I cursed myself for my idiocy, and
when she suddenly glanced at me I jerked my gaze away, flustered and
confounded.

“Shade, isn’t it?”

I started in surprise.  One of the Hole’s more glamorous
girls leaned against the wall beside me, studying me with unabashed curiosity. 
I’d seen two of them prancing about that morning, the two oldest girls in the
group.  Coins had told me at breakfast that they mostly ran special errands for
Kantian.  The way this girl dressed—in a mildly faded version of Samyr’s
day-to-day wardrobe—suggested she was likely a spy a cut above the rest of the
crew.  I imagined she had the face, and probably the attitude too, to get
whatever information she wanted from whomever she wanted.

I tucked my hands behind my head, watching the kids with
their metal hoop.  “That’s right.”

“I’m Gem,” she said.

I shot her a sidelong glance, surveying her from head to toe
as if I could glean some explanation for why she was standing there, watching
me, smiling.  Maybe it was the wrong thing to do.  Her dark eyes danced, coy.

“How are you liking life at the Hole?”

“I hardly know,” I said.  “Don’t you ever get bored?”

“I love this place,” she said, the flirtatious veneer
dropping away.  Maybe she didn’t even realize she’d been wearing it.  She
pulled herself up onto the crate beside me, watching the kids fondly.  “These
kids are my family.”

“You all think of each other as family?” I asked,
skeptical.  “There seems to be a lot of in-fighting going on here.”

She snorted.  “You’ve obviously never lived in a real
family.  We bicker, we fight, and sometimes we hate each other, but we stick
together.  Watch each other’s backs.  Stand against the world.”  Her gaze
darted to me.  “No offense, but that’s why we’ve given you such a hard time. 
It’s hard to adopt anyone in who wasn’t brought in the same way the rest of us
were.”

“As children.”

She nodded.  “Most of the kids don’t remember their birth
families.  Guess I was lucky.  I had a real family until I was about six or
seven, I guess.  Lost them in a fire.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m not the only one here with that history.  But at least
I
haven’t forgotten where I came from.”

She speared a dark glance across the room as she said it.  I
frowned and followed her gaze, and found Hayli pinioned at the end of it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She twitched her head to study me, her dark curls swinging
around her face.  “I’m not the only one who had a good start to life.  Some
people try a little too hard to fit in with the foundlings.”

“You mean Hayli.”  I stared at my hands on my thighs.  “She
came from a good family?”

“Noble born,” Gem said.  “Not that you’d ever be able to
tell.  Stars, she’s such a gam.”

“A what?” I asked, but all I could think was,
Hayli was
nobility?  Which family?

“A gam.  You know how she is.  Dressing like the boys,
acting like the boys, trying to fit in with their crew.  It’s embarrassing. 
And now she’s got Pika mimicking her.”

I frowned, feeling irked though I didn’t even know why.

“Maybe it’s her choice what kind of person she wants to be.”

“She doesn’t know what she wants to be.  That’s her whole
problem.” 

“Maybe she would be more confident if the people around her
treated her better,” I said, a dangerous edge to my voice that I didn’t intend.

“You mean me?” she asked, genuinely surprised.

I just gave her a pointed look, and she sighed.

“She’s a good kid.  I even like her.”

“But everyone else pushes her away so you do too?”

“Don’t judge me,” she snapped, getting to her feet. 
“Hayli’s odd.  She’s got secrets.  It’s hard to warm to people who keep
secrets.”

I grinned, faintly.  “If you say so.”

She didn’t have a chance to reply to that, because at that
moment Derrin came up and shooed her away with a glance.

“Can I get a word?” he asked me, and jerked his head toward
the door.

I followed him to a small office next to the warehouse.  It
was a bare, dreary room, with just a desk and a chair and not much else
besides, though I spotted a long black feather in the corner and wondered if it
had belonged to a crow. 

“I talked to Coins,” Derrin said, leaning against the desk
and folding his arms.  “Pretty quick thinking between the two of you.”

The way he frowned as he said it, I knew it wasn’t just
praise.  Something else was coming, so I didn’t reply.

A long minute dragged past, then he leaned over his knees
and said, “Trouble is, what are you going to do about it now?  What’s your
plan?”

I hooked my thumbs in my belt loops and studied the floor. 
“What did you want his name for?” I asked. 

“That’s my business, not yours.”

“So, basically, you’re trying to see if I mean to do
something that will get in the way of your plan, right?”

“Something like that,” Derrin said.  “Here’s the problem. 
If
something was supposed to happen to Alby Durb, it would have happened quiet, anonymous,
no publicity, no comment.  Most folks would likely just think he got crosswise
to a bad bullet, or rode the rails for better opportunities elsewhere.  But now
you’ve gone and told grobbing
Vanek Meed
that you are going to get rid
of his problem.  See where this gets difficult?”

I thought about that for a moment, but I couldn’t quite make
myself care about what it might mean for me.  I just kept thinking about Zip
and Tam and that poor girl Liza.  So I asked Derrin, “What happens to the
Bricks if Alby Durb is out of the picture?”

“With Alby Durb gone, the Bricks won’t have a hedge.  A
supplier basically funnels money through the crew to the coppers, to keep their
attention turned the other way, see?  Usually he does it in exchange for drugs
or goods or other services.  So, the coppers don’t have any loyalty to the
people they ignore.  Soon as that money dries up, they will sweep in and clean
house.” 

He paused as someone passed outside the door, then as the
footsteps faded I asked, “But aren’t all these buildings down here abandoned? 
Why does anyone care if people live there?”

Derrin sighed.  “The Bricks and other crews hide out in
buildings that belong to the city.  They don’t have any right to be there.  If
the coppers come down on them, they’ll have to scatter.  Find somewhere else,
or risk getting shipped to prison or to the mines.  A good supplier keeps the
coppers off, but only if the crew stays underground.  The coppers won’t stand
to have those places look like they’re being lived in by hordes of the poor, no
matter how much tainted money they get fed.”

“I see,” I said, feeling a bit overwhelmed.

“Anyway, Rivano’s been worried for some time about the poor
in the city…about the poor in the city being divided.  United, they could be so
powerful.”

“Rivano
does
have anarchist leanings, then?”

“I didn’t say that,” Derrin said.  “Just because people are
united and find strength in brotherhood doesn’t make them treasonous.”

“But he wanted them kicked out, why?  To encourage them to
get shelter here, and march to his fife?”

Derrin slanted a dark, hard look at me.  “But why would they
ever choose to do that, if they knew that one of ours was the reason they got
kicked onto the streets in the first place?”

I swallowed.  Stars, this was all so much more complicated
than I’d ever imagined.  “But they don’t have any reason to think I’m one of
yours,” I said.  “So maybe they will come to the Hole anyway.”

“Word’s already out on the street that you’ve joined ranks
with us.  The city has eyes, kid.  You can’t spend a day skadding about with
Coins and Hayli and expect no one would notice.”

“Damn,” I said.  “What can I do?  You’ve got to hold off on
whatever you were planning to do to Durb.”

“And risk Vanek Meed’s anger?”

“He’s got nothing on you, right?  Does the Clan have a
supplier?  How do you stay here in this building?”

Derrin shifted.  “The Clan owns this building.  The coppers
can’t clean us out.”

“Derrin.”  I took a step closer to him.  “You kicked me
out.  Didn’t even give me a chance to make my case.  And now you want all those
people crowding in here?”

“I don’t know what Rivano wants to do with them.  All I know
is, I see a strange mage hunting for Rivano, it gets me suspicious.  That’s
all.”

“Can’t say I blame you for that,” I said.

I kicked at the desk leg, my thoughts spilling over each
other in a flood.  Maybe I should tell Kor about all this…because surely he
would know what to do.  Or maybe he would laugh me to scorn, and tell me he
knew I’d get in over my head.  Maybe I should warn Tam and Zip that their
supplier was in danger…or maybe I should find Alby Durb himself before Derrin
or his lackeys could get to him.

“Will you give me time to think this over?” I asked Derrin. 
“I got myself into this mess.  Give me a chance to work my way out of it.”

He studied me thoughtfully a few moments.  “All right. 
You’ve got three days.  So, think fast.”

Chapter 16 — Tarik

I stopped outside the palace well within sight of the guard,
standing with my hands in my pockets and my shoulders thrown back.  It took him
only a moment to notice me; I could identify the precise moment he saw me by
how his expression turned to vinegar.  He strode down the steps and measured me
carefully.

“Back again?” he asked.

“Couldn’t stay away,” I replied.

I gave him a smile laced with venom, but he just snorted and
shook his head.  “Mr. Kor isn’t in at the moment.  You can wait here for him to
arrive.”

I glanced around as if the notion bewildered me.  We had a
fountain in the center of the circular drive—a grey monstrosity of an orb
surrounded by clawing horses.  Griff and I had sat on the lip of that fountain
often enough (and thrown each other into it more times than I could count), but
it wasn’t the most hospitable place to send a guest.  Even if that guest looked
like me.

“It’s raining,” I said.

“What else is new?”

I frowned and held out my hands.  “I’ll catch my death.”

“You can sit inside the guard post,” he said, glaring at
me.  “But no trouble from you, understood?”

I mocked a salute but he didn’t even wait to see it; he
turned and tromped up the steps, and opened the narrow door of the guard post. 
The cramped little space barely gave room for a high, narrow desk and a sitting
stool, but at least it was out of the rain and the wind.  I shoved the stool
against the wall so I could lean my back against it, and propped my filthy
boots on the desk.  The guard faced the drive, apparently determined to ignore
me.