That shut Pru up.
“When we met,” said Anabel, “I had this half-baked idea about using the book smuggling trade to expose Incorporated citizens to the Barricader way of life. It’s not cool that whole groups of people stuck living under the UCC’s thumb can’t read or listen to whatever they want, just because they lack the resources and connections to emigrate to a Barricade city, you know? Besides, people always crave stuff that’s taboo. It was an opportunity for us. I pitched the idea to one of my cousins who works with Lamarque—under-the-table support for dealing free media in Incorporated territory. Quiet, cheap, easy way to undermine UCC authoritarianism. Jay agreed with the bare bones of my strategy, but I had no clue how to actually smuggle shit until I met you.”
Understanding dawned on Pru. “Second semester of our first year. When we started running holo-drives past the Barricade sentinels together. You offered to play bodyguard and teach me self-defense in exchange for a cut of the pay. I always wondered why General Park’s granddaughter wanted black market money. But it wasn’t really about the money, was it? It never was.”
Anabel bit her lip. “I couldn’t share all my shady Coalition shit with you because that wasn’t my call to make. But that doesn’t mean you weren’t my friend. I hope you still are.”
Pru rolled Anabel’s words around inside her head for a long moment. “Tell me something true. If I hadn’t been a book smuggler—if I’d just been that other gawky Asian girl in your first-year class at prep school—would we be friends now?”
Anabel met Pru’s gaze, unflinching, and swallowed hard. “Probably not. I’m not great at forming relationships that aren’t about making other people . . . useful to me. I’d blame the way my family raised me, you know—Barricader values first, always—but I think maybe this is just who I am. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t important to me. I didn’t know who you were back then. I do now.”
And that was Anabel all over. It always had been. The General’s granddaughter, the silver-tongued young strategist who built tools, or weapons, out of everything she could get her hands on. Her confession hung between them for a moment, an uncertain offering. Pru studied Anabel from beneath her lashes, the pinched look of Anabel’s lipsticked mouth, the tight-fisted fingers on the metro railing. Anabel was being honest with Pru. That was a brand of vulnerability particular to Anabel, and one she didn’t share with just anybody.
“Well, jeez.” Pru heaved an extravagant sigh. “Now I just feel bad. You and Alex and your highbrow political loyalties.”
The side of Anabel’s mouth curled. “Formative from the cradle, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s the thing.” Pru felt her own mouth twist. “You want to know why I didn’t text you about making that drop solo yesterday? I know I should have. I didn’t think. But I’m pretty sure the reason I didn’t think was because I didn’t want to.”
Anabel’s eyebrows climbed, a silent question.
Embarrassment hunched Pru’s shoulders inward. “I don’t have a Cause with a capital C, like you or Alex do. That’s not how I was raised. I don’t have anything, really, to set me apart from the other kids at school—I’m not the best student, or the best athlete, or super rich, or anything like that. But I thought maybe I was smooth, at least smooth enough not to need General Park’s youngest and cleverest babysitting me in a low-risk—”
“Mid-risk.”
Pru resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Fine, yeah, a mid-risk drop. Maybe going solo without telling you was dumb and reckless, but I worry about so much shit all the time. I wanted to prove that smuggling—conning authorities, sneaking around, eyeing up quick escapes—wasn’t something I needed to worry about. I just wanted to be good enough at this one thing, on my own. That’s all.”
Anabel shook her head. “Needing people doesn’t mean you’re not good at something. Most book smugglers work in crews. There’s a reason why university admissions reps are always blathering on about demonstrating teamwork skills.” Her gaze softened toward the opposite end of the compartment where Alex and Cat bent their heads together, Spanish still rolling easy and low voiced between them. “I don’t think people are really made to be alone, you know? Life’s full of scary shit. We all need someone to watch our backs.”
“Uh-huh,” said Pru, very dryly, “which is Anabel Park for ‘trick my best friend into enabling my secret sketchy Coalition business with nary a word.’ Which is all fun and games, it turns out, until giant mech dragons start kidnapping people for midnight joy rides.”
“Hey, in my defense, Cat and Alex’s pet project was so not part of my original plan. How was I supposed to know you’d run off and imprint on the damn thing?”
“She imprinted on me!” cried Pru, indignant.
Anabel’s mouth twitched, but her eyes went somber. “You’re the reason I know how to forge gate passes and read a street corner better than Grandfather’s military men. I should have just told you that I wanted Alex to see what you were capable of. I forget, sometimes, that not everyone in my life’s a mark. For that, I really am sorry.”
Pru leaned her head against the window. Genuine praise from Anabel Park, especially during a fight, was rare, and praise from literally anyone always left Pru feeling strangely vulnerable, half warm, half suspicious. “Alex said you wanted me for the Coalition too. That you told him I’d be useful to your . . . cause.” Whatever that meant.
“Well, yeah. The skills you taught me aren’t useless, Pru. You could help me keep tabs on what media content’s selling hot, plot out different routes for crews to pass through UCC-controlled neighborhoods without alerting their police brigades, locate underground libraries and tunnel passages, that sort of thing.”
“You are crap at navigating those tunnels without escort,” Pru agreed.
“And screw you very much too, Wu.”
Pru spread her fingers across the foggy glass, watching her prints appear and disappear. “Look, this is going to sound awkward, but I have to ask. After this whole, um, un-imprinting process is done. If, hypothetically, I never want anything to do with the Coalition or its sketchy secret internships again, are you and I still friends?”
Anabel, heaving a tremendous sigh, plopped into the seat beside Pru’s. Their shoulders knocked together. “Coaltion, shmoalition. Internship or no, I’ll still need someone to share sticky rice with at lunchtime.”
Pru released a long, pent-up breath of air. Her stomach uncoiled itself. “Oh, I see. You’re still finding ways to make me useful to you!”
“Hey, girl’s gotta have priorities.”
Pru snorted, knocking her shoulder against Anabel’s slightly harder than necessary. “Glad you know what you want.”