Adon sprinted down an abandoned corridor to the rows of Med-pods that had mostly seen overdose patients dumped in by concerned friends. He keyed in the text code that dinged on his visor screen, ripping the gloves off his hands so the Med-Pod touch-screen registered his shaking fingers. He yanked off his helmet as the opaque chamber door hissed open and he saw Y slumped in the patient chair, beaten to a pulp, her prognosis time frame already flashing on the screen in red letters: 2 weeks. Adon smashed his Asylum credit account numbers into the machine to let him the rest of the way in. 

After the horror of first his mother then Lu’s bio-scanner tricks, he only kept one account on his ID band, with barely enough credits for a dinner or two in it. When the machine dinged its approval, Adon stiffened, gripping Y’s arm as the pod system whirred to life. A doctor somewhere in the Uppers moved corresponding robot arms like a giant claw machine, attending to the worst cuts and internal bleeding. A divider screen rose from the floor, flashing lights directing Adon to the attendee chair while a brief spritz of disinfectant fog sterilized the air around him. Y’s progress was tracked like a delivery order on the screen, areas of her digitized body flashing red, then fading to orange, yellow, then blue as the doctor, or team or computer for all Adon knew, moved on to the next injury. 

He jittered a leg and stared at the progress bar gratefully until it stalled. The screen announced that they were finished, but he could still hear the rattle and bang of the machinery working. He cursed the faulty AI in every language he could think of until the screen lowered and his wait was over. 

After two days, the pod unlocked because Y was no longer sedated, after three, she woke, and after four, she demanded he press the voluntary release and take the recovery kit and instructions with her to XOX, the club all her new friends who’d left her to die in a Med-pod ran. Adon did, because he was tired of pod food and she looked like she might try to fight him if he didn’t. 

Adon carried Y on his back, hunched under her weight and reminding himself that he shouldn’t fight a sick person, even if it was the only time he could ever beat her. He trudged easily down the access-route stairs toward the Wells, cutting through to the Broken Bridge, no longer the frail boy who’d been so easily dragged into the Pits. He stood at the XOX side door, kicking until a large man whipped the door open, then jumped aside, seeing Y draped over his back. Adon stepped around him, following Y’s pointing finger through a strategic maze of halls, then an empty training facility, a small office, and finally trudging through one more office door and into a tiny bedroom. He turned his back to the bed and sat slowly, lowering her gently onto the soft mattress behind him, but she didn’t let go right away. 

“You hurt him,” Y hissed into Adon’s ear, “I’ll give you another tally. On purpose.”

Adon rolled his eyes and shrugged her off him. 

“You tell him how bad it was,” she croaked with half a smile, falling into the pillow, “and I’ll kick your corpse on accident.”

Adon snorted, fluffing the pillows and pulling the blankets over her, his movements stiff and clipped, betraying his friendly expression, “did he do it?”

“No way,” Y laughed.

“Did he let it happen?”

“Nuh-uh,” she shook her head adamantly, “he brought me to the pod himself.”

“Wow. What a hero,” Adon scoffed, sitting back from tucking her in, “were you protecting him?”

She nodded proudly, the drugs finally kicking in. 

“Okay,” he smoothed her hair back, pulling out the braid he’d tied too tight because he’d learned on Aphy’s hair and Y’s was less slippery, “and you’re safe here?”

“The safest.” 

Adon ruffled the remains of the braids, “and who’s that guy who let us in?”

“My brother.”

Adon blinked, frowning. He pulled the recovery kit off the floor and opened it to check the prescription amount in the recovery pamphlet printout, worried he’d given her too much. 

“I’m not actually her brother,” the impossibly large man laughed lightly in the doorway, entering the room and making it immediately too small, tossing an armful of clean blankets at the foot of the bed. 

Adon tried to smile back, but only achieved a scowl that made the man laugh harder. Adon stared at the man’s neon suit, decorated in dark florals that matched his complexion too well, everything about him shaped to a kind of perfection Adon didn’t like, even his voice sounded manufactured, too… happy. 

“Does she actually have brothers?” The man smiled, unfurling a blanket over Y.

“Yeah,” Adon stood, nodding, unimpressed because Y had hired him twice already to find her druggy Sec-Off brother, and once to pay the lawyer a visit to remind him that she had the sort of connections that could end him before he finished his phone call bribing a judge. 

“Yeah?” The man paused, tilting his head at Y’s goofy smile, then narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Adon, “you know her brothers?”

Adon sighed, standing straighter and shifting so he stood between the man and Y despite the cramped space, his hands deep in the pockets of his orange coat, one gripping knuckles, the other holding Y’s knife, brow cocked, “and so what the fuck if I do?”

The man’s face lit in recognition, “oh, you must be Doni!” He gripped Adon in a tight hug, setting him down before Adon stabbed him and holding out a hand, “I’m Leroy!”

“Oh…” Adon appraised him, his smile too genuine, hand held out too steady between them. Y had mentioned a Leroy. He belonged with the Conductor’s son, X, with Junior and the others she called her henchmen as a joke, all the people who operated XOX and planned to stop the Quartet, or whatever. Adon sighed, took the hand, pumped it once, then dropped it, “you know X?” Adon didn’t know if X was Y’s nickname, the guy’s actual name, or just what they all called him, if it was a joke on Y, or if, like Y, it was just the first letter of his name, cut off in that addictive Grounder shorthand.

“Yeah, sure I do. You wanna talk to him?” Leroy gestured toward the club.

Adon shook his head, his smile sharp, “no thank you. Could you just go ahead and tell him that I’ll mark the tally for her myself if it happens again.” He shouldered past him without explaining, X would get it or he’d ask, either way he’d have to face her.

Leroy held up a hand in confused farewell, certain it was a deserved threat, but with no idea how to interpret it. 

Adon glanced back only once. Leroy was unpacking the recovery kit, reading through the prescription brochure and marking alarms on his phone. Adon smiled. Y had made friends, people who cared when she was hurt… Y had other people. 

☆☆☆