The City Within

Chapter 1-2

Lenorie stood, her little mouth pressed into a rigid line. “Your mother said you would turn me down at first. That you weren’t a…spontaneous person by nature.”

Grace’s eyebrow arched. “Did she?”

“She advised me to tell you to think on it. And that you’d come around.” Lenorie pulled at her dress, smoothing invisible wrinkles. “So think about it.”

“I will,” she said, and wondered why in the world she would make such a promise.

Lenorie clearly approved. “Then get in touch with me when you’re ready to begin.”

With that, the woman marched out of the room without a backward glance.

Heron was trying not to laugh again.

“From what I understand about your mother,” he began, “I can see why she’d like her.”

Grace lowered the opacity on her office wall and watched the woman leave.

Neither she nor Heron moved or spoke until Lenorie walked past the officers’ desks and through the precinct’s double doors, out into the sunny morning.

“I don’t think we have time for a conspiracy,” Grace said, returning the wall to normal. With two flicks of her eyes, she sent the weekly agenda to Heron.

They were already ten minutes behind schedule. Grace’s flesh crawled at the very thought of it.

“How do we know it’s a conspiracy?” He patted his pockets, sensing their imminent departure. “She might be right. Something dark and sinister might be going on in CyTown Towers.”

Only Heron would use those words, dark and sinister.

“Besides, you promised you’d consider the case,” he pressed. “We have to at least check it out.”

The threat of danger was enough to excite Heron into action.

“We’ll check it out,” Grace said, rearranging the morning to accommodate this unwelcome surprise. If she moved everything just so, they’d be back on schedule by lunchtime. “But first, I have questions.”

“Where are we going?” Heron asked as they crossed the plaza surrounding the Zone 2 precinct and walked toward the auto stop on the corner. “You’ve cleared the agenda for the next hour but didn’t fill it.”

“To see my mother,” Grace said with a sigh.

Heron’s steps faltered. “Together?”

“Yes.” She used her lenscape to summon an auto. Then she checked the time. “She’ll be at her condo in Westside.”

A white auto slid into the designated queue and Grace waited for the automatic door to unfurl like a swan’s wing and allow them entry.

The dark, cool interior was a relief from the warming day.

“Welcome to CityRide, Commander Buteo,” the AI chirped. “We’re glad you’ve chosen CityRide to serve your transportation needs today. My name is Honor. What is your destination today?”

She gave her mother’s address, watching Heron fuss with the safety belt on the opposite bucket seat.

“That’s a fourteen-minute ride by level-one transport, Commander Buteo. May I confirm your selection?”

Grace confirmed her selection, but that wasn’t enough for the AI.

“You don’t have any music saved, Commander Buteo. Would you like—”

“No,” Grace said, always irritated by the AI’s insistence to accommodate her. “I want silence, please. Just go.”

The auto obliged, pulling away from the sidewalk and into traffic. This left Grace free to take in the city beyond its clear windows.

Tall rose-gold buildings lined both sides of the ten-lane boulevard that the white CityRide autos scuttled down like beetles through the morning haze. Grace’s eyes caught snatches of green vegetation everywhere.

Already, a heat haze was forming on the upper levels. She suspected by the look of it that the air-quality rating would be lower today, and the UV risk elevated.

Grace enjoyed several minutes of blessed silence before she caught sight of Heron.

He looked…pained. As if he were unsure of where to put his hands or his eyes.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

He flicked his gaze up, pouting his lips. “Nothing.”

“You sound suspicious, Heron. Why do you sound suspicious?”

“I’m not suspicious.”

Grace arched a brow. “We made a deal, remember?”

And he’d better remember. It was the whole reason she’d agreed to keep him on as her assistant inspector even after he confessed to being a fraud.

They’d been sitting in a Low Town bar as he’d told her the story of his secret mission to fulfill her dead husband’s last wish. How Davion, upon realizing he might “disappear” for his resistance work, had recruited his friend to aid Grace and their son any way he could—unaware that his actions would get their son killed, too.

Heron hadn’t hesitated to forge a visa and sneak into the zone under the pretense of filling the inspector position at her very own precinct in case the people who killed her husband and son came back for her.

He was risking his life, banishment from civilization, and much more, simply because Davion had asked.

So she’d agreed to let him stay under one condition: no more pretending. No more lies.

Not with her.

Heron could fool anyone he wanted—anyone he needed to—but not her.

“We made a deal,” she said again.

Heron sighed, laying his head back against the auto’s dark seat. “Okay, but you won’t like it, and I hate telling you things you won’t like.”

These words were enough to prickle the hair on the back of Grace’s neck.

He raised his head and met Grace’s eyes. “Remember when I tried to update your house last month, before we were real friends?”

“You mean when you hacked my house without telling me then said its security was garbage.”

“Oh, it was. Really, Davion should’ve been ashamed of himself,” he said, then seemed to catch himself. “Your house isn’t the only residence you visit, so…”

Grace tilted her head, the heat in her face building.

“I mean, you have family in the city. I just thought I’d update your mother’s system while I was at it, but we got to talking and—”

“What are you saying?” Her jaw flexed.

Heron fell back against the seat. “This is why it’s hard to tell you things, Gray! You get so upset.”

Grace, ruffled now, took a slow, deep breath. She ground out, “Finish.”

“Arjun needed an apartment anyway, okay? Why not install him near your mom? And it was easy. Once we got him moved in, we visited her one day, brought some dessert, said hello, embedded a security tracker in your mother’s home mainframe, and now we can monitor her at all times—”

“What?”

“We ate shortcake! Big deal!” He aimed for a nonchalant shrug, but it was far too tight.

Grace only blinked at him.

“This is a good thing. Arjun can keep an eye on things while we continue working on Davion’s case.”

On Davion’s case.

Their investigation into Davion’s murder was a case that didn’t officially exist.

If one were to review the existing files, they’d learn that a radical extremist named Lix Richards, bent on destabilizing Zone 2, had infiltrated the precinct. It would say he was the one who placed two IEDs near the police precinct, hoping to destroy the police force and leave the zone vulnerable to seizure.

Grace had disarmed one bomb, but had missed the second placed in her personal vehicle. It was the second one that exploded, killing her husband and son, and nearly her.

Lix was apprehended and died by “suicide” days before he was set to be exiled on the Midnight Train.

But that wasn’t what happened.

Davion and Kaiden died, but the blame didn’t rest with radical extremists from the outer zones seeking to rob Zone 2 of its resources. Lix Richards had been innocent.

Davion was “disposed of” because he’d been forging visas, moving thousands of families from the worst zones into better ones.

Because relocation wasn’t cheap, he’d been stealing from the wealthiest corporations in the zone to fund their travels. Until he was caught and someone decided to put an end to his work.

Davion’s case, she thought again.

Part of her, a bitter part, thought Davion had gotten what was coming to him. He couldn’t expect to go against the most powerful entities in one of the wealthiest zones without repercussions.

She would give anything to have him back. Anything to wrap her arms around him, but that changed nothing.

She was proud of him and angry with him. She understood he’d done what he’d done because he was a good, loving man who couldn’t abide injustice any more than she could.

But Kaiden had been a child. Her child.

An innocent eight-year-old boy, and Davion had gotten him killed.

Grace wanted the head of whatever sick bastard who’d done it.

Heron was watching her war with herself. Grace exhaled until she felt steady again. “Do you have her under full twenty-four-hour surveillance, or do you just check-in?”

“We have sensors. We’re alerted only when something is amiss.”

“You do know what my mother does to her robot.”

“We haven’t turned your mother’s condo into a porn house, Gray! Consent is very important!” Heron looked up at her through long lashes, his lower lip noticeably fuller than it’d been a moment before. “Tell me. What would you do if someone hurt your mother?”

“I’d be irrational and go after them.”

“Exactly,” Heron said, snapping his fingers as if his point had been made. But when he saw Grace’s face, he deflated a bit. “It pays to be cautious.”

“How long ago did you infiltrate my mother’s house?”

“About three weeks.”

“Right after we met.”

“Hmm.” He scratched his chin, clearly pretending to think it over. “Something like that.”

“You’re telling me this now because…”

“Because your mother is going to recognize me. I didn’t want you to be surprised.”

“Wait, why you? I thought Arjun was the undercover neighbor.”

“I sleep over. Often.” At this he wagged his eyebrows. “And I say hi to people. I’m not rude. Also, there was the shortcake.”

Grace adjusted herself against the seat. “Can I ask you something?”

“Mint chip and rocky road.”

“What?”

“My favorite ice cream flavors. Classic but stylish.”

“Wait.” Her eyebrows knit together. “How can you have two favorite flavors? The word favorite is used for one thing. Not two.”

“Grace, you and all your rules. Of course I can have two.”

She was trying to remember what she’d wanted to say before he’d distracted her with this nonsense.

“I love them both equally. But sometimes, I’m simply in the mood for one more than the other. Or sometimes I want them both at the same time, and then I get them both together and—”

“Stop.” He was definitely not talking about ice cream. “I don’t want to know about your preferences.”

He pouted a little. “Oh, okay. Well, yours is vanilla, which apparently you eat by itself. How sad.”

“How do you—?”

“Your mother.”

Grace bit back the urge to scream. “Why did Arjun agree to come to Zone 2 with you?”

Heron glanced out the window.

“You uprooted your life and came here because Davion asked you to and he was your friend.” Supposedly. She’d begun to wonder if they’d once been more. “But why would Arjun risk it?”

Heron forced a smile. “For love.”

“Be serious.”

He scoffed. “Excuse me. He does love me.”

“I’m sure. But is that enough to risk what you’re risking by being here?”

Heron met her gaze at last. “He goes where I go. He looks after me.”

She thought, Lucky for you. To still have someone like that.

His smile softened. He made a wide, sweeping gesture toward the window. “You’re looking out for everyone. Let us look out for you.”

That was what she’d vowed to do when she accepted the position of co-commander. It was her job to keep the zone and its citizens safe from outside threats. But more and more lately, the threats seemed to be coming from within, much closer to home than she’d like.

All of this overlooked one blaring fact.

She’d failed.

She’d failed to save the two people who really mattered to her.

She was still learning to live with that.