I looked back at Elio to see his eyes wide and fearful. Neither of us had thought there was a possibility that we might be followed.
“There wasn’t a tracker on the pod,” I said. “I checked.” Or I would check, just as soon as this conversation was over.
“You didn’t check.” Evelina bared her teeth in triumph. I imagined them slicing into my jugular. “But your father did. There’s nothing there.”
She almost looked disappointed.
“See? I didn’t completely mess up,” I said.
“You were lazy,” she snapped. “We taught you better.”
“Did you? Because last I checked, you taught me how to hack a computer system and build a blaster from scratch. You never made me a distraction. You never put me in the line of fire. I could have died.” I gestured to Elio. “We could have died.”
Elio shuffled his feet. “I would prefer you leave me out of this.”
Evelina pouted, as if she actually cared. But unless my skin was suddenly made of gold, her caring was highly unlikely. “We wouldn’t have let you die, Cora. Oh, don’t look at me like that, we wouldn’t have. And calm down. I can see your aura spreading all over the room.”
“Been practicing, have you? Congratulations.” Everyone native to Condor had a slight talent for reading auras, but my skills far surpassed anyone else’s in my family. It was probably the only thing I was better at than them.
The corner of Cruz’s mouth quirked at my sass, but Evelina’s nostrils flared. She tapped her long nails across the tabletop. She’d taken to filing them into points recently, making them a deadlier weapon than almost any blaster.
She looked about ready to skewer me with them when the door creaked open and my Nana Rae shuffled through. Seeing Nana was like looking into Evelina’s future. Her back was bent like a crowbar, her milky skin soft and full of wrinkles. She dug through the protein pouches, ignoring us completely while she hummed the low notes of the Condor national anthem.
“Evelina, about today—” I started.
She shushed me. “Don’t complain while your grandmother is in the room.”
“It’s not like she can hear us.” Despite having bionic implants, Nana Rae always had her ears turned off.
After scooping up half the box of protein pouches, Nana Rae pivoted, swaying a bit under their weight. When she finally noticed the four of us, she gasped, and a few packets fell to the floor.
“Oh!” Her humming started up again, louder now. She paused only long enough between verses to peer out the window and mutter, “It’s darker today than it was yesterday.”
Evelina stepped forward. “It’s the same, Mother. It’s always the same.”
“No.” Another verse of humming. “Definitely darker.” Her neck arched as she peered up into Evelina’s eyes. “Or perhaps that’s because you’re in the room, dear.”
Elio snickered.
Evelina’s golden eyes appeared to be spitting sparks. “Mother, go to bed. Cora will bring those to your room.”
Nana Rae heaved her bundle of pouches a bit higher. “I am perfectly capable of getting a meal on my own. What’s next? You’re going to hand-feed me? I’d like to see you try.” She continued to hum as she exited the room, loud and off-key and disruptive enough to hopefully draw all the attention away from me and Elio. I tried sliding quietly out of my chair to creep after her, but Evelina snapped her fingers in my direction, her deathly nails clicking.
“Where are you going? We’re not done with you yet,” she snarled. “We’re holding back two months’ pay after what happened this afternoon.”
“What?” I looked desperately from her to Cruz, who only shrugged. “No! I need that money.”
Elio and I both needed that money.
“Cora. Sweetheart.” Evelina placed her hands on my cheeks, squeezing slightly. She didn’t appear to be mad anymore, which I knew was even worse. She was like a snake, waiting to strike until the time was right. Cruz wasn’t any better. Always silent, always standing in her shadow. Why he put up with her, I didn’t have a clue.
“I need that money,” I repeated pathetically.
“Cora, I know it’s hard,” she cooed. “I remember when I was your age. Seventeen.” She pinched my cheeks a bit harder. “So young. You just want to help, right?” She jerked my head up and down. “Right. You are the future of this family. You need to take on more responsibility, but perhaps you just aren’t ready for it.”
Her soft words took on an icy sting that I saw coming a mile away.
“Maybe you really are no better than a distraction.”
Forget running a crime empire, Evelina Saros had one true talent: she always had an incredible knack for making me feel worthless.
“Do not disappoint me again, Cora.” She pinched my cheeks one final time, hard enough that I felt blood rush to the surface. “I’m doing this because I want the world for you. Your mother knows best, do you understand?”
I nodded, but as soon as she let go of my face, I grabbed Elio’s hand and bolted from the kitchen. My skin felt like it was crawling. Mother. I hadn’t called Evelina that since I was a child.
I knew it would be easier to go along with her, to please her. Eventually, this mess of a family business would be mine, and I would have more money than I’d ever need.
But by then … it might be too late.
3
“Have you ever noticed,” Elio asked me, “that when Evelina gets really angry, her eyes bug out like a fish?”
“Yeah, you should tell her. I’m sure she would find that incredibly attractive. Not offensive at all.”
“I thought the same thing!”
“That’s sarcasm, Elio.” We turned the corner on the fourth floor and headed up the ramp to level five. The house was a converted apartment complex, each level separated by spiraling ramps of glowing white moonstone. But despite its grandeur, calling the house a home was a stretch. Even though my family filled its halls, we all agreed that the house was just a place to stash our stuff.
“I understand sarcasm quite well, thank you very much,” Elio said as we reached the top floor. “You programmed it into my hard drive when you were twelve. I’m a pro now.”
“Thank the skies for that. Could you imagine how bored I would be otherwise?”
We entered my bedroom, the only room up here. Elio and I had christened it “The Nest” years ago, considering we were as far above ground as anyone could get in this house. Three of the four walls were made of glass, showcasing the jagged Condor skyline and the winking lights of the manufacturing district that stretched out around us.
My bedroom was about as tidy as the rest of the house. Wires and gears littered the workbench wedged beside my bed. The lamp on my desk illuminated a stack of blueprints for potential gadgets that I’d yet to find time to make, along with a half-built X-ray sensor for Elio that shocked me every time I tried to touch it.
I chucked the broken phaser and the visual enhancer onto the workbench, where they landed on top of the remnants of last night’s dinner—fried jellyfish from Condor’s central marketplace. Only then did I notice the cuts dotting my hands from falling at the treasury. I’d have to clean them, and then they could join the dozens of scars on my palms and fingertips. An unfortunate side effect of playing with metal and wires. Every once in a while, things decided they wanted to catch fire.