“But you asked me about this half an hour ago.”
“I know.”
“Kenji.”
“What?” He rolls his eyes at me before returning his focus to the street, still trying to read shop signs as we make our way down the sidewalk. “I knew you’d say yes. You always say yes when Juliette is involved. Hell, if I told you J said we needed to go to the moon to pick up some rocks you’d probably figure out how to build a spaceship.”
“A rocket.”
“What?”
“A rocket,” I say to him. “Not a spaceship. Spaceships aren’t real. Spaceships are for aliens.”
“Okay, you’re literally proving my point.”
I duck to avoid a low-hanging branch. “No, I’m taking issue with your analogy. You’re acting as if it’s an impossible thought. But we possess the technology and potential capability to launch a space program. We’ve just focused our energies on other things—”
“Bro. It was a simple question. A hypothetical question.”
“You never asked me a question.”
“Fine.” He crosses his arms, coming to a halt.
We turn to face each other.
“Here’s the question,” he says. “If J asked you to go to the moon for her, would you go to the moon?”
“Yes.”
Kenji barks out a laugh, his astonishment loud. “Youmake me sick, you know that?I’mdisgusted.”
He’s not disgusted.
In fact, he’s feeling mournful. I can easily imagine the direction of his thoughts. The source of all his anxiety.
She’s currently babysitting an assassin.
My pager buzzes.
Then buzzes again.
“You’re not going to check those messages?” says Kenji. “All that buzzing is starting to drive me crazy.”
I finally relent with a sigh.
I’ve given myself a nearly twenty-minute reprieve; waiting any longer to check on the status of things might prove dangerous.
I unearth the pager from my interior pocket and, as expected, I have to scroll through an endless stream of messages from Adam before I can get to anything else.
My eyes catch on a few as I blow past them—
What is the vial????????? vial of what???. Why don’t I know about the vial?
Your brother ois an idiot
NAZEERA WAS GOIGNG TO LET HER KILL ME
WHER THE HELL ARE UOU
