“You’re just like them,” Alix accused. “You just pretend to be nicer.”
Cynthia’s head jerked up, anger flaring, but the expression was gone as fast as it came. She took a breath. “Just listen to what we’re going to tell you,” she said. “That’s all. Just listen.”
“Listen to my kidnappers, you mean.”
“We might know something you need to hear. You want underwear, too?”
“Thanks. I think I’ll go commando.”
“Whatever.”
Fully dressed in another girl’s clothes, Alix let Cynthia guide her back to the factory’s main floor. They walked past long empty production lines with rusting machinery sitting silent, ducking under snaking tracks of conveyor belts and rollers that seemed to go nowhere in particular. The factory was huge.
Now that she was less disoriented, Alix tried to pick out details. Anything she could use to remember the place. She noted high clerestory windows, where sunlight filtered down and laid angular shapes of yellow on the open, smooth concrete. Not far away, a pair of double doors beckoned, offering escape, but their handles were tangled in heavy links of chain.
Cynthia led her out of the production area and into what Alix thought might be warehouse space. Flat concrete stretched ahead for what felt like a quarter mile. Along one side, empty steel racks rose from the floor all the way to the fifty-foot-high ceilings. An abandoned forklift lay on its side near one of the aisles between the racks.
At the far side of the warehouse, the tall blond kid whom Alix recognized as the DJ from the night before and the younger kid whom Moses had called Tank were riding skateboards. They skidded along makeshift iron skate rails, which looked like they’d been refashioned from what might have been part of the factory’s production lines, and rumbled up and down a couple of plywood ramps.
Tank shot upward, pulling his board out from under his feet, kicking his legs, and then tried to land. He failed spectacularly, coming down hard, and slid down the ramp on his back. Alix winced. She could practically feel the kid’s skin shredding, but Tank popped right back up, unconcerned, and kicked off again, making another run at the ramp.
When the two boys caught sight of Alix and Cynthia, they slewed to a halt.
“Took you long enough,” the bleached DJ said. Tank didn’t say anything at all. Just stared at them. For a second Alix thought it was her they were hating on, but then she realized it was all about Cynthia. The tension between them was palpable.
“She’s here now,” Cynthia said. “You want to do this or not?”
“Moses is pissed,” the DJ said.
“Yeah?” Cynthia shot back. “Well, so am I.”
The lanky boy laughed and dropped his board to the concrete. He kicked off easily, weaving between imaginary obstacles as he rumbled across the open space. Tank rolled in his wake, leaving Cynthia and Alix following on foot. The boys popped their boards beside a door and pushed it open. When Cynthia and Alix reached them, the DJ made a mocking bow and waved them through.
“M’ladies.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Adam,” Cynthia said as she shoved past.
“Don’t be pissed at me. I didn’t lock up the rich girl.”
Inside, Moses and the pierced gutter girl were leaning against a steel counter, talking. They shut up as Alix entered.
The room was a large kitchen space. A big metal table dominated its center, with an assortment of folding chairs surrounding it. The rest of the kitchen was all industrial steel sinks and gleaming steel counters and big steel walk-in coolers. An impressive pile of pizza boxes was stacked in one corner, and a thick wheel of some kind of Swiss cheese sat on one of the countertops. Adam and Tank sidled in behind her.
Alix felt surrounded.
Once again, Alix was struck by how different Cynthia looked from the rest of the freak parade. She was perfectly coiffed, even now. Long lustrous black hair, combed silky, carefully applied makeup. A Seitz girl, through and through.
And yet Alix had seen the lockers that Cynthia lived out of. She was one of these—kids?—too. Some kind of Stepford plant of a perfect daughter, used to snare her.
Moses was looking at her, smiling slightly. The confidence was back. The relaxed persona that he used when he wasn’t… whatever the other version of him was. The version that looked like a real person and had feelings like a real person.
Alix realized everyone’s eyes were on her. The blue-haired girl with all the piercings looked like she’d be happy to rip out Alix’s lungs. More than anything, she reminded Alix of a predatory creature from the realms of fey, a strange, bloodthirsty urban sprite. The blond DJ was watching her, cool and amused, like he thought she was beneath him. Like he was too beautiful to be bothered with her at all.
Tank was different. His tangled, curly black hair hid his eyes almost entirely, but Alix could see them roving the room, taking stock of everyone and the situation almost as carefully as she was.
“So,” Moses said slowly. “Cynthia thinks we owe you an apology.”
It wasn’t what Alix had expected. She’d expected him to be like he’d been when he had her in the cage. All swagger and confidence, telling her how it was, and how ignorant she was, and trying to sell the line about Dad being a killer.
Instead, he seemed to be carefully picking his words. “You should know that was my call. If you want to blame someone, blame me. I overreacted.” He touched his face. “I knew you were a fighter, and then I got pissed when you fought. You made me lose my head.” He shrugged. “Not often that happens.”
“Is that your apology?” Alix asked. “You’re blaming me for making you angry when you stuck me in a cage?”
Suddenly she was pissed. Really pissed.
“I’m not blaming—”
“Basically, you are.”
“Try again, Moses,” the DJ said, looking amused.
Moses looked like he was about to say something nasty, but he stopped and took a breath. He held up his hands, defensive. “Okay. My bad. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for how we treated you. You didn’t deserve that.”
“Deserve what?”
“Getting locked in there for so long.”
“I didn’t deserve to be locked in there at all!”
“Whoa! I’m trying to say…”
“You’re trying to say you’re not sorry at all!”
“He is,” Cynthia sighed. “He’s just an idiot.”
“An idiot for sticking his hand in the cage,” the blue-haired girl muttered. “Rich girl didn’t suffer that much.”
“Shut up, Kook,” Cynthia snapped. “Just shut up.”
Kook looked like she was about to snap back, but Moses held up a quelling hand. “It’s done,” he said. “I’m sorry. I should have thought of a better plan. I should have thought of you.” He inclined his head, and now, finally, Alix had the feeling he was genuinely contrite. “I’m sorry.”
“So you’re like… what? The leader or something?”
He glanced at the other kids in the room, and there was a flash of grin again. The one she’d seen when he was pulling his pranks. “Oh, I don’t know. We’ve got shared interests, maybe. I’m just good at planning.”
“Sometimes,” Cynthia amended. “When you don’t let your stupid run away with you.”
“I already apologized,” Moses reminded her.
“So what do you want with me?” Alix asked.
“Nothing, really,” Cynthia said. “It’s your father we’re interested in.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t understand why.”
Moses eyed her for a moment, seeming to be considering his answers. Finally, he said, “Okay. Sure. Let’s do this.” He grabbed a chair and dragged it to the table, sat down and leaned it back on two legs, kicking out his feet.