The box was cold. It was a heavy, metallic cold that seeped through my thin jacket and bit into my ribs. Inside that box was a heart. It wasn’t a real one. Real ones were for people who lived in the towers where the air didn’t taste like copper and wet coal. This was a lab heart. It was a pulsing piece of bio-engineered plastic and wires. It was the only reason my brother Quinn was still clinging to a bed in a basement clinic five miles away.
I had fifty-two minutes left.
I stood on the edge of the Heights, looking down at the Sprawl. The city looked like a broken circuit board glowing with sick neon greens and bruised purples. My lungs burned. Every breath felt like I was inhaling ground glass. I’m a courier. People call us “rabbits” because we’re fast and we’re usually being hunted. Usually, I’m carrying data chips or stolen jewelry. Today, I was carrying the only thing that mattered in this trash heap of a world.
I stepped off the ledge.
Gravity is a bully, but if you know how to talk to it, it lets you do things you shouldn’t. I hit the slanted roof of a mag-train station, rolled, and came up sprinting. My boots made a sharp *clack-clack-clack* against the metal. Below me, the city roared. People were screaming, cars were humming, and the smell of cheap noodles mixed with the stench of the sewers.
I didn’t look back. I knew they were there. Sutton and his Aegis goons. They didn’t want the heart because they needed it. They wanted it because it was a prototype. It was worth more than a thousand lives like mine or Quinn’s. To them, my brother was just a “viability variable.” To me, he was the guy who used to share his crusts of bread when our mom didn’t come home for three days.
A drone buzzed over my head. It sounded like a giant, angry hornet.
“Halt,” a mechanical voice boomed.
I didn’t halt. I kicked off a ventilation pipe and dove toward a fire escape across the alley. My fingers caught the cold iron. The rust bit into my palms, leaving orange smears. I swung my body and kicked through a window.
The room was a kitchen. A woman was standing there, holding a bowl of lukewarm soup. She looked at me with eyes that had seen too much and cared too little.
“Sorry,” I wheezed.
I scrambled across her table, knocking over a salt shaker. My boots left muddy streaks on her floor. I didn’t stop to see if she yelled. I was out the door and back into the hall. My heart was thumping against the box on my chest. It felt like the two hearts were trying to talk to each other. One was made of meat and fear. The other was made of silicon and ice.
Forty-five minutes.
I hit the stairs, jumping half a flight at a time. My knees felt like they were full of dry sand. I’m twenty-four, but I feel ninety. That’s what happens when you spend your life being the guy people hire to disappear. I used to drive for the mobs. I was good at it. I could make a sedan dance through a crowded street. But then I got Quinn involved. I let him come on a job once. Just once.
That was the night the Aegis guards opened fire on a “suspicious vehicle.” They didn’t find the money, but they found Quinn’s chest.
Now, every step I took was an apology. Each jump was a prayer to a god I didn’t believe in.
I burst onto the street. The rain started then. It wasn’t a clean rain. It was a thick, greasy drizzle that made the neon signs smear like wet paint. I dove between two idling trucks. I heard the *pop-pop-pop* of a silenced pistol behind me. A bullet chipped the brick wall next to my ear.
“Cade! Stop!”
It was Sutton’s voice. He sounded bored. That was the worst part. To him, this was just a Tuesday. He was probably thinking about what he wanted for dinner while he tried to put a hole in my head.
I didn’t stop. I found a gap in the fence and slid through. The mud coated my jeans. I scrambled up a pile of trash and grabbed a low-hanging power line. It hummed with a vibration that made my teeth ache. I pulled myself up, hand over hand, until I reached the balcony of a crumbling apartment block.
My breath was coming in ragged gasps. I looked at the timer on the box.
Thirty-eight minutes.
I felt a sharp sting in my side. I looked down. A red flower was blooming on my shirt. It wasn’t a big flower, just a small, dark rose. I didn’t feel the pain yet. The adrenaline was a thick curtain between me and the truth. I pressed my hand against the wound. It felt warm.
“Not yet,” I whispered. “Just a little longer, you piece of junk.”
I wasn’t sure if I was talking to my body or the heart.
I kept moving. I ran through the “Lower Gut” of the city. This was where the pipes leaked steam and the people lived in shipping containers. I had to jump from container to container. My balance was off. The world was starting to tilt. The neon lights were getting too bright. They looked like jagged teeth.
I saw the clinic. It was a gray building with a flickering blue sign that said “Hope.” It was a lie. Nobody came here for hope. They came here because the real hospitals wouldn’t take them.
I was two blocks away when the black SUV cut me off. It skidded across the wet pavement, splashing oily water over my legs. Sutton stepped out. He looked perfect. His suit was crisp. His hair was dry. He held a heavy pistol like it was an expensive watch.
“Give it over, Cade,” Sutton said. “He’s probably already dead anyway. Why die for a corpse?”
I looked at him. I wanted to spit, but my mouth was too dry. I looked at the clinic. I looked at the gap between the SUV and the wall. It was small. Too small.
“He’s not a corpse,” I said. My voice sounded like gravel rubbing together. “He’s my brother.”
Sutton sighed. He raised the gun.
I didn’t run away. I ran at him.
I saw his eyes widen. He didn’t expect a rabbit to bite. I didn’t use a gun. I used the weight of the box. I swung it like a hammer. The metal corner caught him right in the jaw. I heard a satisfying *crack*. Sutton went down, his gun skittering across the asphalt.
The other guards were jumping out of the car. I didn’t wait. I scrambled over the hood of the SUV, my blood leaving a long, dark streak on the black paint. I hit the ground and ran. My leg gave out for a second. I stumbled, scraped my chin, and crawled.
*Get up. Get up. Get up.*
I forced my legs to move. They felt like they belonged to someone else. I reached the doors of the clinic. I slammed into them with my shoulder.
Twenty minutes left.
The hallway was dim. It smelled like bleach and old soup. I saw Jade, the nurse. She saw me and her eyes went wide. She looked at my side, then at my face.
“Cade? You’re bleeding.”
“The heart,” I choked out. I fumbled with the straps. My fingers were shaking so hard I couldn’t get the buckles loose. “Take it. Quinn. Is he…?”
Jade didn’t answer. She pulled a pair of scissors from her pocket and snipped the straps. The cold weight left my chest. I felt light. Too light. Like I might float away and hit the ceiling.
“He’s in room four,” she said. She took the box. She didn’t look at me. She was already running toward the back.
I followed her. My feet felt heavy, like I was wearing lead boots. I reached the door to room four. Through the small glass window, I saw him.
Quinn looked so small. He was hooked up to a machine that went *bellow-hiss, bellow-hiss*. It was breathing for him because his own chest was a ruin. His skin was the color of old paper. He looked like a ghost that hadn’t realized it was dead yet.
I saw the doctor take the box. I saw the cold blue light of the lab heart as they lifted it out. It was beautiful in a terrifying way. It was a miracle wrapped in plastic.
I leaned my forehead against the glass. The coldness felt good.
“Hey, kid,” I whispered. “I got it. I told you I would.”
I watched them work. I watched them open him up. I should have turned away. It was brutal. It was all blood and metal. But I couldn’t look away. I had to stay. I had to be there.
Then I heard the boots in the lobby.
Sutton. He was persistent. I’ll give him that. He was coming to take back his property. He didn’t care if it was already inside a boy’s chest. He’d probably cut it back out.
I looked at Quinn. His eyes were closed. He didn’t know I was there. He’d never know what it took to get that heart to him. He’d wake up, and he’d have a beat in his chest again. A cold, blue beat. But he’d be alive.
I looked at the exit at the end of the hall. If I stayed, they would find us both. They would kill me and take him. If I ran… they would follow the rabbit. They always follow the rabbit.
I took a deep breath. It hurt. My side felt like it was on fire. I took a marker from the nurse’s station and wrote on the glass of Quinn’s door.
*LIVE.*
Just one word. It was all I had left.
I turned and ran toward the back exit. I burst out into the rain. The sky was turning a sickly orange. The sun was trying to come up, but the smog wouldn’t let it. I saw the black SUVs turning the corner.
“Hey!” I screamed. I waved my arms. I looked like a madman. “Over here! I still have it! Come and get it!”
I didn’t have it. My chest was empty. My ribs felt hollow.
I started to run. I headed toward the docks, toward the place where the city ends and the dark water begins. I ran through the puddles. I ran past the sleeping beggars. I ran until my lungs felt like they were melting.
I heard the cars behind me. I heard the sirens.
I reached the edge of the pier. The water below was black and oily. It looked like a giant mouth waiting to swallow everything. I turned around. Sutton was there. His face was bruised and purple. He looked angry now. He wasn’t bored anymore.
“Where is it, Cade?” he hissed.
I smiled. My teeth were stained red. I reached into my jacket and pulled out my hand, clenched in a fist. I held it over the water.
“Catch,” I said.
I opened my hand. There was nothing in it but a little bit of blood and a salt shaker I must have swiped from that woman’s kitchen. It fell into the dark water with a tiny splash.
Sutton screamed. He pointed the gun.
I didn’t feel the bullets. Not really. It just felt like someone was tapping me on the shoulder, telling me it was time to go. I fell backward.
The air was cold. The rain was cold.
As I hit the water, I thought about Quinn. I thought about the little blue light beating inside him. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t running. I was just sinking.
The city was loud above me, but down here, it was quiet. It was finally quiet. I hoped he would like the heart. I hoped it would be warmer than the one I had.
I closed my eyes. The last thing I felt was the rhythm. *Thump-click. Thump-click.*
A cold, blue beat.
And then, nothing at all.