Proud Machinery

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Getting Rod out without the others seeing was tricky. Priya slung his bulky body over her shoulder—given her unnatural strength, the hardest thing to deal with wasn't his weight but his awkward size. She jumped off the balcony outside the master bedroom and hit the ground hard, and then she carried Rod all the way down the long driveway to where Lorraine's car was parked. But not Lorraine's car. Danny's. That realization made Priya sick to her stomach. Lorraine leaned against the hood with crossed arms and a face like metal.

When she saw Priya, she popped the trunk of the car open. Priya slung Rod inside and slammed the trunk closed over him. Then she turned away and found Lorraine with her hand stuck out waiting for a handshake.

The moment their hands touched, Lorraine could shock her to the ground.

But this whole plan required trust. So Priya shook Lorraine's hand, and then Lorraine got into her car and drove away.

Through the entire exchange, neither of them had said a word.

Back at the house, Priya returned the same way she'd left, crawling up the wall to the second-story balcony outside Stephanie's parents' room. She lay on her back on their bed and considered her next move. The rest of the Reds had to find out eventually, but if it came from Priya they'd hate her for it. They'd crucify her. So she had to first convince one person it was the right thing, someone the rest would listen to.

Connor was with the others. They were passing around a bowl of metal bolts, eating them like M&Ms, and talking about things that didn't matter. Priya came up behind the couch where Connor was sitting and put a hand on his shoulder. "Come with me?" she said to him, voice low.

She led him to a room the Reds hadn't really used so far, a study decorated with pictures of Stephanie's dad posing with captain-of-industry types.

"What's this about?" asked Connor. The question made Priya unreasonably angry, because it reminded her of Rod asking "What do you want?" and "What are you doing?"

"Did you see when Rod... did it? I mean when he killed Danny?"

"Yeah. Yeah I did." Connor visibly shuddered. "It was the worst moment of my life. I don't think I'm ever going to have a worse one."

Maybe it was the red hair, but Connor could look extremely vulnerable sometimes. If he knew that about himself, he probably hated it. Priya's unreasonable anger simmered off to nothing.

"So you understand why I had to do something about Rod."

"Um, what?"

"You understand that we couldn't just let it go. We couldn't pretend—"

"You did something about Rod? Past tense?"

Priya leaned back against the edge of the heavy desk and did not look away from Connor's eyes. Avoiding eye contact was for the weak and the guilty. "I turned him over to Lorraine."

Connor's eyes flew open. He moved, turned, paced, as if he couldn't look at her or even stand still. "They'll kill him."

"I know. That's the point."

"That's the point?"

"He has to die, Connor. It'll solve all our problems."

"How does that solve any problems, Priya? You're the nonviolent one, Priya."

"If Lorraine kills Rod, we'll be even. It stops the escalation. And it puts us all on the same side."

"The same side against who?"

"Against the police. Once Rod is dead, we'll have killed one of them and they'll have killed one of us. We'll need to work together to get our story straight with the police. And then, if anyone else gets hurt it'll bring the cops down on all of us, so we'll have to leave each other alone. It will all be over."