“He’s underage,” Joe said.
“More’s the pity. We play it legal. And ethical.” The woman, Helene, began to walk away.
Joe caught her arm. “Please don’t tell him you saw me.”
Helene nodded toward Flix. “He one of Boggs’s, too?”
Joe’s voice shook. “Yes.”
“That bastard won’t hear about you from me. But, beautiful? You may have been able to slide under the radar wherever you’ve been. You go into that dome, it’s only a matter of time ’til he finds out.”
“Thank you, Miss Helene.”
Helene waved her hand as she headed back to her spot in line. “My, but I do like that Southern charm.”
Joe sat, shaky, Flix’s arm back around his waist. He leaned into it, let Flix soothe him. For a few breaths, at least.
“Peter,” Devin said, “go play with Flix. I’d like to speak to Joe.”
Well, shit.
***
Joe had dreaded this, the moment when he had to tell Devin about the ad. How dumb he’d been. The story rolled off his tongue, what he’d seen on the EC at Clinton and Maribou’s and what he’d lived through in order to be Boggs’s star.
Devin didn’t waver. His hands balled into fists at his side, but in a tiny movement surely invisible to anyone who wasn’t sitting directly across from them, his index finger never stopped stroking the outside of Joe’s thigh.
So much scarier now was the threat of Boggs, the idea that all the way up here in Minneapolis, Boggs would be able to find them. He’d had access to Peter after he’d been stolen from his family. How much harder would it be for Boggs to target them specifically? Not hard enough.
“He won’t hurt us,” Devin said again and again, his voice soft.
“We don’t know that,” Joe whispered.
Night had fallen over the long hours they had talked. Dim, yellowed lights flickered from above, and the tunnel was silent but for the sniffles of Miguelito and his brother and the hacking cough of the teenage boy behind them. Every once in a while, a wail or cry would come from farther ahead, but it was too distant to worry about when Joe could feel Boggs’s hands all over his body.
“Up here,” Devin said, “we’ll have resources. My money.”
“Peter will be protected, I bet, once they learn who he is.” Joe liked that, liked putting his family into boxes where they’d be safe. “Aria never worked for him. She’ll be fine. We’ll say she’s Peter’s guardian or something.”
“That’s good. That’ll work.”
“I see the people here in the tube. Lots of black and Latino people are traveling with white people, as their servants or something.”
“You can be my butler.” Devin broke out a low, dirty laugh.
“Grow up, papi. I’ll get in all right, either with my dad’s name — you heard what that lady Melanie said about her son? — or with the special admittance test. Flix can be your housekeeper.”
Devin laughed again, louder, and someone yelled at him to shut up. Devin’s expression slowly lost its mirth. “How will you stay safe?”
“I know how to defend myself. I’ll change my name, find safe places to live and work.”
“Stay with me.”
Joe’s heart beat faster, and he tried to play it off. He hadn’t pictured himself living with Devin. Men didn’t live together. “I’d be a terrible butler.”
“Don’t be an asshole.” Devin looked up and down the tunnel. “I need a roommate.” He leaned in close. “It’s no one’s business what we do inside our own house. Stay.”
Joe nodded and let himself picture it.
***
Traversing the passage took twenty-seven days. In that time, Joe saw four fights. The brute with Helene, the madam, broke the neck of a man dumb enough to try to rob the round little man they were traveling with. Joe listened to the hacking cough of the boy behind Aria turn into horrible wheezes. Aria did what she could for the kid, but he died anyway. Gunfire erupted outside the tube; somebody’s guts ended up plastered red and dripping along its thankfully bulletproof exterior.
Worse, though, were the small things. The crying, inconsolable babies. The hungry children. The rape gangs that roamed the tube at night. Devin paid Helene’s security man to watch over them, so after the first time someone made the mistake of trying to rob them, they were left alone. But they heard it all. Saw it all.
Still, they made it.
The end came into sight as soon as Joe woke on that last day. He’d grown accustomed to shuffling some in his sleep, because the line never stopped, so he woke having traveled up a small incline from where he’d fallen asleep. For the last few days, they’d heard whispers up and down the line that they were getting close, but to see it was still a shock. Another squad of guards stood around a widening of the passageway. Just past them, Joe made out a few travelers stretching out the kinks, undergoing a scan and final pat-down, and changing into cleaner clothes. Off to the left, a simple metal door didn’t look nearly so inviting.
The line inched forward. No one was sitting now. People crammed in tight, forgoing personal space. Joe pressed up against Flix and Devin’s backs and kept his hand on Flix’s shoulder for balance. Ahead, Peter and Aria stood on tiptoes, probably trying to see whatever they could beyond the antechamber. Behind Joe, the crush of all the other travelers weighed on him, hands on his back, breath in his ears. They shuffled together, packed too close to risk taking steps.
Helene breezed through a tall gate of iron bars that swung forward to accommodate her then latched heavily back in place, leaving both of the men accompanying her trailing in her wake. The guards paused for a moment over her security man, asking him questions he was slow to answer. Through the bars, Helene spoke sharply to the shorter of the two, and the put-upon man rolled his eyes and addressed the guards. This time, they scanned him, then held a small white device up to the
