Free The Backworlds by M. Pax

list of
potentials. I couldn’t get stuck with Confo , Craze.
Just couldn’t.”
    She shuddered, scrunching up her
pretty face, but her helpless act wouldn’t work this time. His lips drew taut.
“Your uncle ‘n his friends branded me a leecher.”
    “Not forever, Baby. My uncle ‘n
Bast promise they’ll get it lifted before the year is out, then herald you as
hero when you make your fortune.”
    Those promises meant nothing. Bast
and the council would do what was in their best interests like they always did.
Craze didn’t hold out hope for any other result. Unless he let them in on the
chocolate. No, none of them deserved the show of respect. They’d only take it
as a sign that Craze was a mark to be tromped on and used. Like he’d been under
Bast all these years. He didn’t want that. It was time to stand on his own, to
rise above them and show them he was someone to take seriously. That included
Yerness.
    He didn’t get this call. Although
he now understood Yerness’s motives in getting close
to him, he didn’t get what her current one for contacting him was. “What do you
want from me?”
    “We about to be family. Let’s not
be angry with each other.”
    What did she have to be angry with him
about? He shook his head, stopping in front of a bright purple shop splattered
with sparkles and splashes of cobalt blue, Must Have
Gear for the Edge . Coats, bags, and supplies were crammed everywhere
inside in no order Craze could discern.
    “It doesn’t matter,” he answered.
“We not allowed to be in touch anyway. Bast said. The council said.”
    “I know. Just wanted to call this
once ‘n say how sorry I am. Tell me you sorry, too.”
    She was something. Craze vowed not
to let beauty play him like this ever again. “For what?”
    “For not finding status ‘n fortune
faster, so I could be yours instead.”
    Craze sucked in a sharp breath. “I
was on the list.”
    “Not at the level I need, Baby. Try
to understand. You let me down.”
    He stepped inside the shop curious
about what ‘must haves’ he didn’t have for travelling around the Edge. The
prices were reasonable and the workmanship of the goods not as shoddy as Craze
expected.
    “Look, I’m busy,” he said.
    She bit her lower lip in that
adorable way, batting her eyelids, the long lashes sweeping over the lovely
curve of her cheekbones. “Business already? I knew you’d do great. Just knew
it. The sooner you make it, the sooner the council will renounce your leecher
status. I can void my pairing with Bast ‘n—”
    “No, Yerness. You can take a flyin ’ leap off a space dock. I won’t want you when I’m
rich. We done.”
    He took their connection offline,
deleting her avatar, blocking her code, grunting with a modicum of
satisfaction. “Bitch.”
    The racks of gear beckoned to him.
Craze rifled through the coats, searching for a dark gray duster in his size. A
display of hourglasses sifting black sand gave him an idea. He splurged his
last coins on gum, sacks of rice, and a patrol siren.

 
     
    CHAPTER 13
     
     
     
    He met the aviarmen and gave them
the siren, rice sacks, pickled snoink , and the spool
of clear, super-strong filament he’d taken from Bast’s tavern. Together they went over Craze’s tab files from the surveillance of Mr.
Slade’s Emporium and the street.
    Lepsi spent a lot of time studying
the objects in front of the motion detectors near the abandoned emporium.
“These fans will soon unfold so as to block the sensors,” he said. “If we were
to go back now, we’d see they’d be slightly bigger than when you were there. If
they move slow enough, the detectors can’t see them.”
    Craze peered over the aviarman’s
shoulder, reaching around Lepsi to scroll onto footage of Mr. Slade’s Emporium.
“I’m pretty sure that will be the place. It was neater than the other empty
storefronts ‘n it seemed arranged with the marks on the floor ‘n the pulley
system.”
    Lepsi leafed through more images of
the