The Lofties (The Echelon Book 2)

I’d held my tongue. “I’m sorry. Were you friends?”
“Sort of. Not exactly.” He pressed his palm to a glass panel, lit from behind by a dull maroon light. It beeped, and the outer door spun open. We filed into the decontamination chamber, first Lock, then me. I held my breath as the sprayers went off.
“Look, Myla, uh—” Lock turned to face me, features indistinct in the fog.
“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “I was there, but I couldn’t—”
“Not that.” He grasped my hand quickly, one squeeze and done. “What you did for me out there, keeping me company in the pit—”
The inner door spun open. Shapes emerged from the fog, armed figures crouched to shoot. Lock swept me behind him and raised his hands in surrender.
“I’m Lock Powell, A-team. My friend’s Myla Hyde. She’s Ona Hyde’s sister. She went after her last month.”
“Oh, we know who you are.” One shape detached itself from the rest, scrawny and oily and all too familiar. I’d barely thought about Miron since I’d fled the Dirt, but still, my scalp prickled as my old boss strode forth. He sashayed up to Lock and shouldered him aside, crowding into my space.
“Myla Hyde.” He hooked two fingers under my mask and jerked it up so hard my head snapped back. His breath hit me full-force, spearmint and warm lunchmeat. I thought of old blood and nearly retched.
“I’ve been counting your hours,” he said. “Every second you owe me, just in case. Want to hear your total?”
I sucked air through my teeth and tasted chlorine.
“Two hundred and seventy-two, plus twenty-one minutes from the day you skipped out.” He spat his gum into his palm. “Throw this out for me, would you?”
I stood, disbelieving, as he glommed the wet wad to my forehead, twisting his thumb to make it stick. Lock made a sound, a low, sickened grunt. I felt him stiffen beside me, heard his boot scuff on the tile.
“Take them away,” said Miron. He stepped back, smirking, and I wondered how many nights he’d sat up, rehearsing this moment. I wondered how it had played out in his fantasies—if I’d cried, if I’d cursed him. If I’d flown at him, straight into a bullet. Determined to thwart him, I did nothing at all, just stood and stared as his expectant grin soured.
“Go quietly,” whispered Lock, and I nodded so he’d know I heard. Miron’s gum rode the sweat off my brow and fell on my boot. One of the guards spun me around, and I felt the cuffs go on. I heard Lock’s click on next, and he grunted. His eyes met mine, wide with surprise. Whatever he’d expected, this wasn’t it.
“Move.” Someone jabbed me in the kidney, and I stumbled into Lock. He caught me as best he could, breath hot in my ear.
“I was gonna say thanks,” he muttered. He smiled, and a bolt of pain shot up my arm. I felt a knee in my back, a big body propelling me forward. Lock shouted in pain. I strained back to look for him and glimpsed him on his knees, a thin line of blood streaking his chin. I never got to ask him thanks for what.

Chapter Two
I wound up in a cell no bigger than my mattress back home—four walls and a door and a drain in the floor. The walls were concrete, the door clad in steel, but the sounds of the Dirt still got through, metal clashes and screeching, the sighs of ancient pipes. I’d once found a rhythm in that chaos, a steady beat to march to. Today, I found a headache. I pressed my cheek to the wall and closed my eyes.
“Shut up,” I hissed. “Just shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
My eyes flew open. “Lock?”
“Over here.” Something rattled behind me. I felt around without turning and found an air vent, low to the ground and rusted open. I scootched down next to it and pulled my knees to my chest.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Cold. Kind of hungry. How about you?”
“Same.” I tilted my head back, scanning for cameras. I didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean no one was listening. Lock made a frustrated sound, a sort of strangled groan.
“What’s that noise?”
I snorted. “Which one?”
“The one that won’t stop. That throbbing—don’t you feel it? Coming up through the floor, like a toothache for your ass.”
“The hydraulic hammer.” I pressed my palms to the concrete to feel its vibration. “We must be above the foundry.”
“Oh. Right. We would be.” Lock cracked his knuckles, or maybe his back. “Well, we won’t be here long. So there’s that, at least.”
“What makes you say that?”
“No toilets.”
I chuckled. No toilets, sure, but we had drains. Or maybe they’d bring buckets, or march us down the hall twice a day. I leaned back and waited, and a deep drowsiness came over me. My eyelids drooped. My limbs got heavy. I thought of Ben again, of his hand on my back and his heartbeat next to mine. He’d never held me through the night. I’d wanted that more than anything, just his presence in the dark. I wanted it now, shivered with the lack of it.
Someone screamed, far below, and I heard Lock jerk upright. I had just enough time to wonder if he’d been sleeping before the sirens kicked in.
“Hey, Lock?”
No answer. I rattled the vent again.
“Lock. Get down here.”
“’S okay. It’s just a gretha flare.” His voice was thick and slurred with sleep. “If it was anything serious, they’d—”
“I’m not worried.” I edged closer to the vent. “We need to talk now. While the siren’s still going.”
“You think someone’s listening?”
“I don’t know, but they could be.” I lowered my voice to a hiss. “I need you to swear you won’t cough up any details.”
“Any details?”
“About the Outsiders.” My pulse picked up. “Lita and Derrick did right by you. They let your friends go. You can’t put their lives at risk.”
The siren cut out and ramped up again. I thought I heard Lock sigh. “I