Page 222 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Now Kade wants everything.

He wants dancing in clubs and playing games in an arcade, sitting on an aeroplane while it takes off, eating French toast with Lachlan first thing in the morning after having sex all night, swimming and shopping and new clothes and maybe cutting his hair differently, trying new things, so many new things, and what’s amazing, what’s absolutely brilliant is that he can do it all here.

He doesn’t even need to leave.

Varrow City has so much, and he’s never once been interested in any of it, but now that he is, he’s going to—

The car swerves as a muted bang comes from the right side.

Pete brakes and pulls the car over.

‘We blew a tyre,’ he tells Kade.

They both get out of the car.

‘Where are we?’

‘On the highway,’ Pete says, getting out various things to change the tyre, Kade assumes. He knows very little about cars.

‘Are we still in the city?’

‘On the outskirts, but yeah.’

A twang of suspicion curls inside him that maybe this is still Riley.

That the call was to instruct Pete to fake the tyre blowing out to keep Kade here, and although it doesn’t look fake, Riley is extremely resourceful and Kade knows his determination is fairly unparalleled.

He can see the city limit up ahead.

‘Going for a walk,’ he tells Pete. ‘Be back in five.’

‘Sure thing.’

The highway is quiet. The sky is washed in cool shades, another chilly day ahead. Only a few cars breeze past, leaving the city. Kade looks above and all around. No bubble, no glass dome.

A quick glance back shows that Pete is well and truly changing the tyre, so Kade speeds up a little, his mind returning to all the fun things he’ll do in the city now that he remembers he wants to.

God, he can’t wait.

It’s going to be so fun.

Kade is mentally planning what parts of Varrow City he wants to explore first when he remembers with a sick, swooping sense of fear that they left the tunnel gate open when they came out.

Panic strikes hard because that exit has to be obscured at all times, it leads directly into the Tower, leaves them wide open to attack.

He turns back quickly, jogging towards Pete.

Kade gets halfway and then the panic fades.

Wait.

Wait.

Of course they didn’t leave the end gate open.

The gate team closes it behind every vehicle as standard.

Kade himself designed the lock protocol that way.