Brick woke up. He dragged himself into a sitting position, blinked around at his dimly lit surroundings, and found himself in a prison cell. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he recognized it. Maybe not the specific cell, but the bars, the bunks...the Fathoms. All prisons looked similar, with their bare-bones furnishings and monotone color palettes, but Brick could swear he was the jail where he'd rescued Athena over a year ago: the Lockdown Palace.
Someone had hauled Brick's unconscious body into the cell and unceremoniously dumped him on the floor. His head throbbed.
Images swam up through the confusion, dog-eared memories of the Fathoms that he'd run mental fingers over a hundred times. Speeding across the desert in his old truck, blowing away bandits left and right. The bowl of stars over a dry lake-bed. Mordecai's bare, sweaty back, loose dreads spilling over his shoulders, Brick's fingers gripping his hips. Bloodwing plummeting out of the clear blue sky to distract a drifter.
A brown heap on the ground. Dusty.
Everything flooded back, and Brick jumped up. When he found nobody else in the cell, he paced over to the bars and peered out. Nobody in sight: just an empty corridor with more cells on the other side. He spotted somebody lying in the bunks across the hall, apparently sleeping. From where Brick stood, all he could see was a greasy crop of white hair and the suggestion of a beard. It might have been Bool.
"Hey," Brick called.
The other prisoner lay motionless, so Brick sighed and stepped back from the bars. He scanned his cell. It was small, but he'd seen smaller. He noticed with a sinking feeling that there were four beds: two cots on either side, stacked. That would probably mean cellmates. There was a toilet. Aside from bare concrete walls, that was it. If Brick remembered correctly, most of the prison was underground, carved into a plateau, so of course there was no window. He hoped to escape before he could miss daylight.
Distracted by his evaluation of the cell, he didn't hear the door clang open at the end of the block. He did, however, take notice of bickering voices. Girls' voices.
"Boom! You see them exposed girders back there? Sloppy! I could put some bombs on those and blow this place to the moo-"
"Tina! It-quay aking-may ans-play in ont-fray of the ard-gay."
"Snoplay opee loopa! Poopee doo-day!"
There was silence while the other girl puzzled it over. "...Huh?"
"What'd I say? Was it something sexy?"
The other voice groaned, and an adult man laughed. Brick stepped up to the bars again and strained to look down the hall.
Two young girls, one pale skinned, the other dark, walked ahead of a Hyperion guard. They weren't shackled, though Brick supposed they couldn't get far if they tried to run. They wore matching outfits, too large yellow shorts and white tanktops, probably what served as undershirts for the regular prisoners.
"Big!" Tina cried when she saw him. She flung herself at the cell, and Brick hugged her through the bars. Kindle remained by the guard.
"You bastard. You welched on our deal. I didn't see you guys out at the crate, so I had to come back for you. Now look at me." She gestured down at herself. "I think these are men's underwear."
"They suit you," he said, then glanced up at the guard. He tried to pull away, but Tina clung to him tightly. "Why'd you bring kids to a place like this?"
"Wasn't my decision. Orders from the top," the guard said. He was a young man, full-faced and stubbly, with sleepy eyes that didn't meet Brick's while he talked.
"I bit him!" Tina said gleefully. "I bit Jack! He was gonna kill me, but the lady told him to put us with you instead."
"Why?" Brick asked.
Kindle answered instead. "She said it'd be funny. That you'd want to keep us safe, and it'd kill you, 'cause..." She looked away and shrugged. "Because you couldn't. But don't worry. I can take care of myself."
"Step back, please. I don't want to use this," the guard said, his hand hovering over the stick strapped to his belt- some kind of shock baton. Brick wriggled out of Tina's grip and stepped away. He didn't want the girls to get hurt, and they almost certainly would if he tried to fight now. Later, it would be different. He'd kill every Hyperion cocksucker in the place if he could. He'd learned a hard lesson about mercy.
The guard unlocked the cell with a key rather than a card or a bioscan. He pushed the two girls in, pulled the door shut, and locked it behind them, then seemed to remember that he had something tucked under his arm.
He held up the bundle. "Clothes," he explained.
"Yeah?" Brick asked.
"Sorry, long day. They're for you. I have to take what you're wearing."
He stuck the bundle of clothes against the bars and Tina grabbed them, pulled them through a piece at a time, and handed them to Brick. He gathered the clothes in one arm and gestured with the other, twirling his finger in the universal signal for 'turn around'. The girls obeyed, although Tina peeked back over his shoulder once. He stuck his tongue out at her, and she giggled before glancing away.
The guard didn't turn around. Brick wasn't surprised; That would be policy. He did notice, with some amusement, that the guard was blushing. He seemed very young.
Brick stripped out of his clothes. Whoever dragged him into the cell had already removed his belt, rings and boots, but now he relinquished his pants and sleeveless shirt as well. He'd not been wearing underwear, rarely did, and he quickly pulled on the provided briefs. He put on the undershirt, which was indeed what the girls wore, although his was considerably larger. Lastly, he stepped into the jumpsuit, but only hitched it up to his waist. He knotted the sleeves above his hips.
"Okay, I'm dressed," he said, thrusting his old clothes through the bars and into the guards waiting hands. The young guard was sloppy. Brick could have grabbed him and broken his arm, but he didn't. Instead he passed over the garments and stepped away, placing a hand on Tina's shoulder. She rested her cheek against his knuckles. "That it?"
"Yeah," the guard said. He paused. "Sorry about this. I don't...I wouldn't...never mind. That's all," he stammered, before walking away in the direction he'd come from. Kindle flipped him the bird as he disappeared from view.
When the door at the end of the hallway banged shut, both girls looked up at Brick.
"Alright, Big. Let's get cracking on the break out," Kindle asked, using Tina's nickname for him.
He snorted. "We? You can go with me, but I ain't lookin for no partners."
"You need us! No offense, but you're an idiot. I remember this one time when you threatened a helpless child in front of your boss," she said.
"I don't recall the kid being so helpless," Brick said.
"Come on! We'll be ancient by the time you figure something out." Kindle clambered up to one of the top bunks and peered down over the side. In the dim cell, lit only by the grubby florescent fixtures in the hall, her amber eyes glowed like a cat's. "But I can help you. I got mad stealth."
Tina bounced on the lower bunk. "She does! She came out of nowhere in New Haven, out of the smoke. She almost saved me."
"Almost," Brick said.
"I won't mess up this time," Kindle said, with a certainty that Brick envied.
"Put a sock in it, kid." He sighed and stretched out on the other lower bunk. He suddenly realized how much his skin hurt where the energy coils scalded him. He raised a forearm and studied the burns, wincing when he saw the welts. They'd turned deep red and purple, and had begun to ooze.
"I'll tell you about the necklace," Kindle said.
Brick sat up so fast that he banged his head against the empty bunk and fell back down on his pillow. His hand reached automatically for the necklace. But he had just changed clothes, so he knew he wouldn't find it. That necklace had been a heavy burden to lug around, but he needed it. Each trinket was a reminder of something he couldn't afford to forget, something he couldn't let his animal hide away from him. Without it, he felt unmoored.
"Big?" Tina asked.
"The necklace..." Brick said, trying to sound composed. "You said you didn't know nothin about it."
"I lied," Kindle said.
"What do you know?" Brick asked.
Kindle tsked. "Not 'til you swear to let us help."
"I'm bigger than you, kid. I'll drag it outta you with my fists."
"You're not a brute," she said, just as matter-of-factly as she'd confessed to lying, as if she knew him as anything besides a man who'd tried to steal her dead mother's necklace. But she was right. Brick didn't mind hurting people, but never animals or kids. In fact, he intended to play right into Nisha's expectations and do everything he could to keep the girls safe.
"You don't know that," he argued.
"Don't worry, he won't hurt you. He's really a shmoopy baby. A big, dopey, doofy, harmless-" Tina said.
"That's enough, Teeny," Brick growled. He covered his eyes with the back of his arm.
Keeping the girls safe would be hard enough without them poking their noses into trouble. Still, they were both orphans of Pandora, which made them more cunning and resilient than other children their age. They might actually be helpful. And if Kindle wasn't lying, if she knew anything about the origin of the key, it could lead him to Amanda. Brick sighed.
"Fine," he said.
"Alright! Let's shake on it."
Brick heard a shpt sound. He looked over to see Kindle leaning out of her bunk, hand outstretched, saliva glistening in her palm. Tina cheerfully spit in her own hand and reached up to shake with the other girl. Kindle left her hand hanging in midair, grinning at Brick expectantly.
He hesitated, then followed Tina's lead. His much larger fist completely enfolded the young girl's. It reminded him of the way he used to seal promises with Amanda, when they'd been young and happy, or mostly happy, because at least they had each other.
"We're a team now," Kindle said, rolling the word 'team' over her tongue reverently. "We got each other's backs."
"Gurl, I got your back. I got your butt too," Tina said, and groped at Kindle on the top bunk. The older girl swatted her away, laughing.
"Since we're pals now, you gonna tell me about the key?" Brick asked.
"Not yet. I need you motivated."
Brick almost argued, but suddenly he felt tired, too weary to fight about it. The wounds around his arms and back burned. They stuck to the scratchy sheets when he shifted, making him cringe. He would have to wash them, maybe have them checked out in the infirmary, but he couldn't worry about that now.
Exhaustion tugged at him, picking and pulling him down, like the curious mouths of small fish. He closed his eyes. He heard the girls chatting, but couldn't focus on the words.
Their voices lulled him to sleep.