The market was bustling. Every Inert from the city must have been here. Several stalls had been put up on the outer rims of the square, selling eggs, meat, and grass. Not many people visited the stalls. Which was expected when a Vocate cart stopped by.

  In the center of the square was the wooden cart. A man inside held out vegetation grown by Vocates, tempting the surrounding Inerts to trade. Potatoes. Carrots. Turnips and onions. All oddly shaped, small, or soft with worm spots.

  Maple sighed. “If I had known a cart was going to be here this week, I wouldn’t have bothered.” She leaned over her stall counter, pressing the stem of an herb into the wood.

  “I’m sorry you came all this way to have nothing to do, but I did warn you that this isn’t exciting work,” Maple added.

  “It’s okay. I’m not bored.”

  It was a lie, and I’m pretty sure she knew it.

  The market was a place for girls. Most stalls had a woman behind them, and even the butcher who traded meat and livestock was a girl. Men were usually busy helping Vocates with their farms. They helped them grow the very food that was now being distributed to the lower city as leftovers.

  Never made sense to me that the difference between Inert and a Vocate was a metal bracelet they wore like a status ID. Fit to never come off. Because of that, they live in the upper city, and treated the rest of us like scum. Begging for the trash they were too good to keep.

  Maple eyed me, huffed, and laid her arms out on the table. “I don’t think anyone is coming, hun, so you don’t have to stay here. You could go look around.”

  “I’m fine,” I told her.

  After all, I was Amira’s replacement at the stall while Lemley played at their house. Had to use that bug-killing brew on our heads every day to get Maple to agree. But I really wanted to go to the market this week. Lemley couldn’t be seen wandering around with Supra all over the place, so this ended up being a good way to actually get out, and have a break from her.

  I may have also had other motivations.

  “Well, would you look at that. The Kid’s at the cart.” She turned to look at me. “The Kid Crusader,” as if I didn’t know who she was referring to.

  So he did come?

  Where?

  There was a mob of people at the cart, all raising their hands into the air with items they had brought from home. Some had clothes. Others had food. I couldn’t tell what else. The man in the cart took what looked like a sugarcane stalk from someone’s hand and replaced it with a couple of misshapen vegetables.

  “He’s right…” she pointed. “There.”

  I moved behind her to see exactly what she was pointing to, but there was just a bunch of people in dull-colored clothes swarming the corner of the cart. None of them looked like the kid on the roof.

  Then suddenly a young-looking man broke out from the crowd, staring at the ground and walking with a strut toward Maple’s stall.

  He almost didn’t look Inert. He wore a black tunic with a torn hem and baggy pants tied with rope at his waist. His clothes had few holes, and his dark hair didn’t reach his shoulders. But his arms were bare and bore no Vocate bracelet. Was that The Kid Crusader?

  His gaze drifted to Maple’s stall. Blue eyes. A bit of stubble on his chin. He was still a few yards away, but it looked like he was deciding whether what Maple sold was worth a closer look.

  Then he walked away, apparently uninterested in herbs.

  “That’s him,” Maple said.

  I already knew that. Not by what he looked like, but by how he moved with more confidence than any other Inert in the square.

  He turned into the street as if he were in a hurry.

  Well. That was that.

  I don’t know what I was thinking, offering to take Amira’s place today as if I thought something might happen. It’s not like I hoped he’d talk to me out of the blue.

  That was stupid.

  “Well, go meet him,” Maple said, nudging my shoulder like a nosy child.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “I’m fine,” I told her again.

  “I’ll watch the stall. Just go.”

  Go… why?

  I didn’t have anything to talk to him about. So what, I’d say hi and walk away? Embarrassing. Honestly, the Kid Crusader looked older up close, and more like a Vocate than an Inert. He didn’t seem friendly.

  But I still leaned back to look down the street he had gone.

  Fifteen seconds.

  Twenty.

  Crap.

  I stepped away from the stall, and Maple waved. “I’ll be here another hour. Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck,” I told her, walking to the street and around the corner where The Kid had gone.

  He was still there. Just at the end of the block. Far away now.

  I picked up into a slow jog, and The Kid kept walking forward at the same speed. Same rhythm. When I caught up a little more, I slowed so he couldn’t hear me. Longer strides. Heavy breathing.

  There was no good reason to be sneaky. I just didn’t want him seeing me following him, or he might think I was creepy. Some kid from the market randomly following him home.

  Even though that was exactly what I was doing.

  Inerts leaned against houses or slept on the ground with bottles of brew. Plastic and glass pulled from dumpsites littered the street.

  The Kid turned a corner, and was gone.

  I walked quickly to follow, and thankfully he was still there, walking a distance in front of me.

  That same confident strut. He never turned around. Either he didn’t hear me, or he didn’t care.

  As we walked further, the streets grew cleaner. The Kid entered a district that no one lived in anymore. There were no houses that could be used as shelter without crumbling walls or holes in the roof.

  Sort of like the one Lemley and I stayed in.

  Then he went around another corner where a tall, torn down church stood.

  I followed, just like before, but when I turned onto the street, he was already gone.

  Did he run?

  There was no way he could’ve disappeared that fast.

  “You followin’ me?”

  The voice sounded like it came from in front of me, but it didn’t.

  It came from above.

  On top of the house beside me, the Kid stood with one leg propped higher than the other on the slanted rooftop.

  “No. I was just heading home.”

  “Liar.” He stepped cautiously, getting closer. “What do you want, kid?”

  Great. This was going exactly how I thought it would.

  “Nothing.”

  Something flew toward me. It was too fast to see what it was, but I reached for it anyway. A potato slammed into my broken finger and bounced away, so I caught it against my chest.

  “Nice reflexes,” he said.

  I shook my hand out, hissing, and wiped it on my pants like it helped.

  Wait. He was complimenting me?

  “You can keep it,” he added. “I would’ve just found some other kid to give it to anyway.”

  The potato was brown with rough skin, bent into a weird stubby curve. But food was food. I’d only had a potato once before, at Amira’s house, after they got lucky enough to get a crate from a Vocate cart.

  He gave this to me?

  He didn’t even know me.

  “You’re the Kid Crusader, right?”

  He stepped back, irritated. “Do I look like him?”

  “Oh. I don’t know. I’ve only heard about him. Sorry.”

  So who was he?

  “Alright,” he said. “Come up here.”

  What…?

  “I said come up here. I’m not going down there.”

  My finger still throbbed from the potato’s impact.

  The house had a split rain gutter propped up beside it.

  Was that how he got up?

  “How?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  Alright. I’d done it before.

  I pocketed the potato, grabbed the gutter and started to climb, placing my feet against the wall wherever there were divots or window ledges. The gutter shook more and more the higher I went. Then it tipped backward.

  Crap.

  I reached for the roof, but it was too far.

  Then it stopped. Solid.

  His hand held the gutter steady as he sat down at the edge of the roof.

  “I’ve got you,” he said.

  My heart beat faster than before. I wasn’t prepared for any of this, but I still climbed the rest of the way. With his help. He pulled me by the hand until I could roll onto the roof.

  “Thanks.”

  Up close, I could see him better. Long eyelashes. Dark blue eyes. Thick brows. A patch of poik was creeping up his neck and onto the left side of his chin.

  “My name’s Carlos,” he said, looking away from me. “Yours?”

  I fixed my clothes as they started to slide down my waist, “I’m Alex.”

  “You clean?” he asked.

  The word felt like a trap. Everything about this felt wrong, the same way it had when I told Amira’s parents about Lemley.

  “No.” I tugged on my shirt tight against my neck and showed him my right shoulder, where poik was spreading to my chest.

  “That’s good,” he said softly. “Clean kids disappear.”

  I nodded, waiting for him to say more, but he didn’t. It felt like he wanted me to ask.

  “Do you know what’s happening to them?”

  “Nope. But I’m gonna find out.”

  “I know Supra are taking them,” I said. “I just don’t know where.”

  His eyes widened. “Yeah. I figured that much.”

  “I could help,” I said.

  The words slipped out before I could stop them.

  He scoffed. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day." He paused, and looked me up and down, "You serious?" he asked.

  I shook my head before I caught it, "Uh, yeah."

  Then he muttered, and looked away, "Good. You oughtta meet me here next week."

  When I didn't say anything, he added, "Same day. Same spot." and watched me as if he was waiting to read my reaction.

  I nodded.

  “No ground.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Carlos smiled and started toward the end of the roof. Then he turned back, and something else flew through the air into my arms.

  Another potato.

  “That one’s for the girl that was with you under the house.”

  He knew.

  “By the way,” he pointed to his pinky, then pointed at me with both hands like finger guns, “I’ve broken mine more times than I have fingers. It gets easier.”

  Carlos jumped from the roof, jogged along another, and waved once before he disappeared.

  Maple had already put everything away at the stall so I went to Amira’s house to get Lemley.

  “What took you so long?” Lemley asked.

  I handed her the potato from my pocket.

  “I got you a potato.”

  Thank you for reading!