We speed off toward South Falls. He seems comfortable enough on a bike, shifting gears with his foot like he’s done it a thousand times. Before we reach the industrial district, he turns onto the highway that leads out of Sterling Falls.
I flip my visor up to yell, “Where are we going?”
He glances back with a wide grin. “You’ll see!”
I sigh. It only takes a minute of squinting into the wind for me to flick the visor back into place. We ride almost to the very edge of Sterling Falls.
There, just before the town line, is an unmanned toll scanner. It’s a small outpost installed by my brother and his friends, meant to collect license plates and bill accordingly. It also tracks who enters, if anyone bothers to use such technology.
He kills the engine and coasts the last hundred yards, sticking his legs out wide until we’ve slowed enough for him to drop his heels.
He sets down the kickstand and hops off, practically skipping toward the scanner. It by itself isn’t anything special… it’s the building farther off the road, which houses the generator and computer system, that matters.
I tear my helmet off and set it down, tempted to just slide forward and ride away.
But also…
“What are you doing?” I shout.
He laughs. His sudden kick to the scanner shouldn’t surprise me, but I flinch at thecrackof hard plastic giving way. He slams his heel into it again, his laugh morphing into a wild cackle.
“Try it, Artemis!”
I cross my arms. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He pauses, pouting in my direction. “Live a little, would you? You’re back from the dead. That’s cause for celebration.”
I scoff.
“Plus.” He drops his foot and faces me. “I heard you burned down Kade’s house.”
“I didn’t.”
He tsks. “Liar, liar, pants on…”
A match and book appears in his hands like a magic trick. He strikes the match along the side, and a flame bursts into existence.
“Fire,” he finishes.
I scowl.
He blows out the match and drops it. “Don’t worry, dear Artemis. I approve of the act.”
There are a lot of things wrong with this picture. Like how I even trusted him enough to get on the back of the bike, to let him bring me out here…
We’re surrounded by trees. A few miles southeast lies the westernmost edge of the harbor, but that’s about it as far as civilization goes. Sterling Falls is isolated, well and truly.
It never seemed like a bad thing, though. Not until right now.
“Kade has moved into Madness,” Gabriel informs me. “Temporarily, he assures me. Who knows what that means? Real estate in Sterling Falls is taking a plunge… he could get something cheap. But have you seen him? He’s so particular.”
I follow him toward the building, drifting in his wake as if I’m tethered to him. He kneels at the door and inserts picks. His micromovements are efficient, and soon he has it open.
We enter.
I’ve never been in here—I’m not sure what I was expecting. But there’s a desk, and a handwritten log of people who have been in here, a single monitor. Against the wall are rows of machines. Computer processing whatever. Like straight out of a spy movie. The generator in another corner, protected by a metal cage, hums.
There’s a light switch. I reach for it, and the fluorescent tube overhead buzzes and flickers on.
