Page 203 of Code Bound
“Good night, my core function.”
NEW TITLE AWARDED: Core Function
I’m so tired, I can’t even ask what he means before the darkness claims me.
CHAPTER57
VESPER
“Okay,” I start as we all step out of the Disorderly Hotel back into the rotting streets of Smokestack Row the next day. “We have one more Minor Boss left. We take care of this one, we’ve hit every Minor Boss in the three sections.”
Locke nods. “We fightin’ the Major Bosses after this?”
“After we find Dox, that’s the idea,” I reply, wincing. “But I have no idea what to expect for the Major Bosses. I know we get a key from each of them, but . . .”
“Imagine the most difficult Minor Bosses you fought, but multiply it by at least three,” Havoc supplies helpfully. “From what I hear.”
I meet Locke’s eyes. “So, three times worse than the orcas,” I say.
“Or the abominable yeti,” Locke adds, wincing at the memory of how much he had been knocked around by Debbie.
“I liked Debbie,” Stevie declares. “I wish we could have totally met Big Deborah.”
“You’re alone in that,” I tell him, shaking my head. “Little Debbie was hard enough and we only survived that because of your help.”
Stevie giggles, but doesn’t argue.
“I did not enjoy the abominable yeti,” Svetlana adds. “It was much too cold for a summer girl like me.” She flutters her wings briefly, as if shivering. “I prefer we not go back.”
I wince. “Sorry, Svetlana. We have to fight the Major Boss there.”
She groans.
With the thought of the Major Bosses being more difficult than our hardest battles so far plaguing us, we weave deeper into Smokestack Row. The streets are disgusting no matter where you step, but we try out best to, at least, step around the decomposing bodies and not into them. The more we cut through the streets, the more this place feels like Dross. The only difference is the bodies wouldn’t be in the streets. They’d be picked clean for their resources. We also have some plumbing in Dross left over from before humanity started to fall. We have mostly flushable toilets and sometimes running water, though always cold. Here, they don’t seem to have any of it. In fact, the horrible smell in the air comes not only from the rotting corpses, but from the buckets of waste that people toss out their windows right into the street. More than once we almost take one of those buckets to our faces as we walk past, just narrowly jumping back to avoid a suddenly necessary rush back to the safehouse.
We have just over two days until the Harrow Gates open, which means after this Minor Boss, we’ll need to start making our way to the New Babel Gate. Thankfully, the gate is in the Gilded District and not in Smokestack Row. I need to be there just in case Dox comes through. If she’s alive, she’ll be here. I know she will.
If she’s alive.
I haven’t prepared myself for what happens if she doesn’t walk through the Harrow Gate. I refuse to accept it as a possibility. Dox will come through those gates, and if she doesn’t . . .
“You said you fought this Minor Boss before?” I ask Havoc to distract myself from my inner thoughts.
Locke and Stevie are trailing ahead of us, picking their way through the grime to one of the largest warehouses in the middle of Smokestack Row. That’s where the Minor Boss is housed. Every so often, Locke looks over his shoulder at me to make sure I’m okay and then turns back forward. He’s gotten more . . . aware of me . . . since the Disorderly Hotel. His fingers brush more against me at every opportunity. His eyes linger. Every time his eyes meet mine, my skin flushes as I think about what it is we’re dancing around. Desire. Hunger.
Something else entirely.
On my shoulder, Svetlana dances back and forth, doing her weird praying mantis sway as we walk. She doesn’t talk much under the guise of not breathing in the fumes, but I also think she’s just genuinely disgusted by this section. I don’t blame her. If there’d been any part of me that missed Dross—there isn’t—then this place would remind me to hate it. Even the buildings have a red wash to them because of the red bricks they’re made of. They’re covered in black coal and grimy, but you can still see the red peeking out.
“I have a few times,” Havoc finally answers as we pick our way over a large pile of bodies. “This is one of the easier ones.”
“So you’ve said,” I say, glancing at him. “What makes it easy?”
“You’ll see,” Havoc replies, meeting my eyes. “I’m not doing the workforyou. If I do it, I get the XP.”
While Havoc always offers as few words as possible, he often leaves words hanging in the air. Reading between the lines is necessary when talking to the Warden, or else you’ll miss something. Like the fact he can’t fight the Minor Boss because Locke and I need the XP more than he does. The information between a Tier Two and Tier Three is locked. I can’t see what the next Tier is or even what all I have to pay. I can only see the XP requirement. Ten thousand. Locke’s is the same. We’re going to be grinding for a while to reach the next one. So, Havoc is correct. He’s already a Tier Three and on his way to a Tier Four. We’re severely behind him with my one thousand and nine XP.
I sigh. “You’re right, but your delivery needs some work. You always come across as a complete asshole when you say shit like that.”
