The Thousandth Floor

Moments later he reappeared. “Look what I’ve got.” He dropped a full pack of pills into Leda’s outstretched palm.

They were small and white and square, marked with a tiny X. “Oh, thank god,” Leda half moaned, and took two of them at the same time.

Leda’s thoughts, which had been sluggish and confused, immediately snapped back to life. Her whole body felt flooded with a new wave of energy. She looked at Brice, who was sitting there watching her, seeming deeply entertained. “Thank you,” she said, her words already clearer than before. “Brice Anderton, human medicine cabinet. You’re right, I should have come to you all along.”

“There’s the Leda Cole we all know and love,” he said drily as Leda looked around the apartment with new eyes. She hadn’t been here in years except for parties, when the space was loud and teeming with people. It was bigger than she remembered. Everything seemed sharper, drawn in starker detail, as though outlined with the fat black markers she used to draw with as a child. Her heart beat so hard she thought it would burst out of her chest.

“I actually have to go,” Brice said after a moment, still watching her. “Though I wish I could stay. You’re way more fun than Cord lately.”

She reluctantly started to hand him back the packet of xenperheidren, but Brice shook his head. “Please, keep them. It’s the least I can do, after what you told me.”

Leda nodded gratefully. “Can I hang out for a minute before I head home?” she asked. Brice shrugged and headed out the front door.

A thousand scenes danced through Leda’s accelerated brain. Eris and her father, kissing. Atlas. Avery. That guy Avery was dating now, Watt, laughing at her at the benefit. Atlas’s eyes when he told her there was someone else. You deserve the truth, he’d told her. The truth will set you free, wasn’t that the saying? She needed to tell Cord to fire that maid. She needed to know who Atlas liked more than he liked her. As you wish, Nadia had said, and promised to find out, but then nothing at all had gone as Leda wished, had it?

It all swirled in her mind, a kaleidoscope of blurring color, but where it had threatened to overwhelm her earlier, Leda now felt a deep focus and a pounding sense of urgency. God, she loved stimulants. And xenperheidren was the best of them. She took in a deep breath, letting the drug prickle pleasantly through her veins, all the way to her fingertips.

Nadia. She needed to ask Nadia about Eris and her father, find out how long it had been going on. God, she thought, disgusted, it probably started right after Eris found out she was poor. Little gold digger.

Halfway through the message Leda remembered she couldn’t ask Nadia anymore. Nadia had quit on her.

There was something weird about Nadia, too, come to think of it.

And suddenly Leda knew. The answer was so elegant in its simplicity that she marveled she hadn’t thought of it before.

She knew where she had to go, and what she had to do. Moving quickly, her eyes glassy and her breathing a little too fast, she swept her bag up onto her shoulder and started toward the express elevator.



WATT



WATT AND DERRICK were in the living room at Watt’s house, sitting on the plastic yellow couch as they worked their way steadily through the cheap whiskey Derrick had brought over.

“It’s been a while since you wanted to drink alone on a Friday night,” Derrick said, though he didn’t sound particularly bothered by the prospect.

“I’m not alone. You’re here,” Watt pointed out.

If it wasn’t for Derrick, though, Watt would have been alone—Nadia was powered down. He’d been turning her off more lately, ever since the news she’d given him earlier that week. He wasn’t sure why, except that he wanted some quiet in his own head. Besides, she was kind of annoying, even sanctimonious, whenever he set out to drink heavily like this; always reminding him of his blood alcohol content, and sending him headlines about the consequences of alcohol poisoning.

“Fair enough.” Derrick glanced around the room, at the prints tacked on the walls, the twins’ pile of discarded toys, foam blocks and a coloring wand and Zahra’s tiara. “Is it Avery?” he asked.

Watt took another sip of the whiskey.

“What happened?”

“Let’s talk about something else.” Watt didn’t exactly want to get into it, how the only girl he’d ever really liked was sleeping with her brother. He knew, of course, that they weren’t technically related, that Atlas had been adopted when Avery was a toddler. But still.

“Want to go to Pulse?” Derrick suggested, but Watt shook his head. He knew Derrick was right, and he should bury all thoughts of Avery in the arms of some anonymous girl, whose face he wouldn’t even remember the next day. But he kind of preferred the whiskey right now. At least it wasn’t trying to talk to him.

Derrick opened his mouth to make another suggestion, but was interrupted by a vicious pounding on the front door.

“Watt?” What the— he thought, dazed. It was a voice Watt had never, ever expected to hear at his apartment, let alone anywhere downTower. “Watt, you’d better let me in!”

“You didn’t tell me you had a girl coming over,” Derrick laughed, reluctant admiration in his tone.

“I don’t,” Watt said shortly. His drunk reflexes kicking in—he hoped his parents hadn’t heard—he ran to throw open the door.