Page 50

EON

I was still staring at Maddox in disbelief.

Were we really getting out of here? I’d blown that door off with more power than I’d ever unleashed before.

With Cy by my side, it hadn’t felt dangerous—it had felt easy.

My fingers twitched, but I pressed my Flux back down, containing it. It was almost…disappointing.

“Figured you two were fucked once you’d been inside for more than thirty minutes,” Maddox said, nodding toward Akira. “Luckily, someone showed me the back door.”

“Shit, Akira, you could’ve let me in that way!” Cy protested, waving his hand.

“You said you had a deal to make. I didn’t know you were up to some shit.” Akira crossed his arms. Of course Cy wouldn’t have told him what we were really up to. That would’ve required trust. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“You do that, and you’re done with the Kitsune,” Cy warned, serious now. “Best case, hamonjo. Worst? They kill you.”

Akira’s lips pressed into a flat line. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve wanted out for a while. Ever since Hinokawa-san got in bed with the Church, nothing’s felt right.”

“You got a plan?” Cy asked.

“I was hoping…maybe I could go with you.”

Lightning flashed in Cy’s eyes. Guilt? Sadness? I couldn’t tell. In truth, I think it was something I’d never understand. I’d never been part of anything like that. Not quite family, but more than just a crew. There were bonds there—some probably thicker than blood.

For me, it had always been just me and Mom against the world. That had been enough. But this? This was something else. They’d bled together. Maybe even killed together. And I didn’t know what that meant.

“It doesn’t work like that, kid,” Cy said quietly. “I can’t get you into POM any more than Hinokawa could.”

“But you—”

“Trust me. The price is higher than you can pay.”

Akira’s face fell, but he waved us forward without hesitation. He was still going to help us. A good kid.

I doubled back and grabbed our smashed Vysors before following. Akira led us down a few winding corridors, weaving through the underground maze the Den had been built into.

Cy walked beside him, arm slung around his shoulder. “I’ve got a safe house. You can go there. I’ll come by once this job is done. We’ll figure something out, okay?”

I dropped back, feeling like I was intruding. Maddox came up beside me.

“You okay?” He still hadn’t taken his finger off the trigger of his assault rifle. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was ex-NSPD.

“Yeah. Cy…he kept me safe.”

Maddox grunted. “That’s what partners do.”

“We are not partners.”

He gave me a look I didn’t like at all. “You’re on a job together. You’re partners. You think in the NSPD we always got paired with our favorite person? Fuck no. But it didn’t matter. Whoever you were with, you had their back. That’s just how it works.”

I paused, thinking about Taos and the rebels. Would they have done the same?

“That some kind of cop honor code?”

“Call it what you want.” He was done talking.

“So it was just the job,” I mumbled.

Maddox didn’t respond. He just nudged me forward with the butt of his rifle through a narrow crawlspace—and I liked that even less than the thoughts swirling through my mind.

We reached a door, and Akira pressed his palm to the security panel. It slid open with a soft click . We were deep in the sewers now, not even close to safe, but it didn’t feel so suffocating.

Cy gave Akira another swift, man-style, one-armed hug. Akira darted out of sight, and Cy motioned for Maddox and me to follow.

“You know the way?” I asked.

He nodded. I didn’t doubt him.

We climbed through tunnels and conduit channels for what felt like hours, the darkness oppressive as it wrapped around the narrow beams of light from Cy and Maddox’s flashlights. The silence was worse.

Eventually we reached a ladder that had seen better days—half-rusted, barely holding on.

“One at a time. Maddox first. I’ll come up last.”

Maddox just grunted, slinging his rifle over his back and starting to climb. I watched his very toned ass as he went up.

I looked back down, and Cy was grinning. “Perv.”

I rolled my eyes. “So how did you leave the Kitsune and join POM, if it’s impossible to do?”

His smile faded. “Walked through hell and survived.”

“Wow, could you be more cryptic?”

His eyes flashed with anger, but he let out a long sigh, and I felt the pulse of Flux fade. “You remember about ten years ago, the Kitsune ruled Magenta. No other gang dared mess with them. And then—poof—they almost completely vanished overnight.”

“Wasn’t it the flood? I heard they built their Den in the old underground, destabilized the structure and caused a catastrophic collapse, flooding the place.”

His expression darkened. “That’s a nice, clean story, isn’t it?

But nah. Back in ’75, the Kitsune allied with POM.

Ran a bunch of synthetics straight out of their labs and onto the streets.

Win-win situation. Kitsune had the hottest drugs in circulation—couldn’t sell it fast enough.

POM offloaded surplus, got a nice little boost to quarterly profits, and tested their shit on the wider population for free. ”

My brow furrowed, but he didn’t stop. “The money was too good. Kitsune grew, expanded their territory. I would know—I helped them do it. But they got greedy, tried to take a bigger cut. POM didn't like that. Cut them down to size real quick.”

“How do you know that?”

He didn’t justify my question with a response.

“That’s why there aren’t many guys your age in the gang now.”

He sighed. “Yeah. Almost an entire generation gone. No soldiers meant the higher-ups couldn’t hold their territory. Took them ten years to claw their way back.”

“Your generation…but not you?”

“No. Never me.”

I could feel there was more—something deeper he wasn’t saying—but something had shifted between us today. I didn’t want to push it. Not yet, anyway.

“Good thing, or I wouldn’t have anyone who could keep up with me.”

His lip curled. “Careful, doll. That almost sounded like a compliment.”

“Maybe it was.”

Before he could respond, Maddox called that it was clear for me to climb. I grabbed the rusted rungs and glanced down at Cy.

“Don’t you dare watch my ass while I climb.”

“Don’t dish it if you can’t take it.”

He was grinning—and goddamnit, so was I.