End of the World, Start of My Empire novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Laundry

The laundry drain ran under the Yard wall.

Bria had found it on a map in the captain's saddlebag and redrawn it clean on a feed sack, a stone culvert two feet across that carried gray wash water out to the dry river.

"It's slimy," she said, shining a pen light into the dark. "And it stinks."

"You're coming?"

"I redrew the map. I'm coming."

Tova went first, rifle on her back, and I went last with my arm glowing a faint blue in the dark.

Hallie waited at the river mouth in the truck with the engine off.

"Forty minutes," she said. "If you aren't out, I come in loud."

"Don't."

"Forty minutes, Nolan."

I crawled into the pipe.

It was black and cold and smelled of lye and old soap.

We inched forward on our elbows for what felt like an hour, until a rusted grate blocked the end.

Voices drifted through it, women's voices, tired and low, and the hiss of steam.

"Cut it," Tova whispered.

I put my hand on the iron bars and let the blue light go in.

The metal glowed red, then white, and the bars bent apart.

A weight pulled at my chest, deep and hungry.

Behind me I heard a small gasp.

I looked back.

Bria had one hand on the tunnel wall and the other pinching her nose, and a drop of red hit the stone between her knees.

"Bria."

"It's the smell," she said thickly. "Go."

I stared at her.

Haskell's voice came back to me from the dry lake, soft and certain.

Did you notice that it costs?

"What did he mean?" I said.

"He's a liar."

"Bria."

"He's a liar, and he reads the ledger to people until they believe it." She lifted her chin, eyes huge and bright.

"Your mother's twenty feet away. Do you want to stand here arguing with Haskell's accountant?"

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