The driver turns down a narrow alley, and the cab lurches to a stop in front of a closed steel door. Everything about the place feels like a warning. I don’t even know where we are, but the security bars covering the door and the broken bulbs above it tell me enough. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. The place is obviously closed. We should just—”

Kai passes a wad of bills through the partition to the driver, slings her backpack over her shoulder, and gets out. The driver glances at me in his mirror, waiting for me to do the same. With a muttered swear, I grab my own bag and follow her.

I watch the alley as Kai leans on the buzzer. A panel slides open in the door. An eye peers through it, the dark pupil bouncing to Kai, then to me, before the panel snaps closed.

Kai grabs the bars and gives them a violent shake. “Come on, Auggie! Open the damn door!”

A dead bolt screeches and the door swings open. The man’s gray whiskers catch the low light as he jerks his chin toward me through the bars. “That one’s not welcome.”

“Great, we’re all in agreement.” I tug Kai by the sleeve. “Come on, let’s go.”

Kai shakes me off. “I just need to pick up a few things, and we’ll be out of your hair, Auggie. I promise. Augustus Poole, meet Jack Sommers,” Kai says, as if the guy didn’t just tell me to fuck off. “Jack Sommers, meet my good friend Auggie.”

Augustus Poole’s name tells me everything I need to know about him. He isn’t a Summer—at least not anymore—but he was probably someone’s Handler once, a long time ago, if the lines around his eyes and the silver in his scruff are any indication. Some of the tension leaves my shoulders. He doesn’t seem like much of a threat.

Auggie grumbles to himself as he unlocks the security door and ushers us inside. We follow him down a dark hall into some kind of shop. Two cracked glass display cases sit in the middle of the floor, the mildew-stained walls behind them piled high with boxes and loose junk. The shadows sway with the swing of a lone lightbulb, making it hard to focus.

Auggie settles himself onto a stool and leans an elbow against a display case. A huge black fly alights on a stain on his shirt. “I told you it’s not safe for you to come back here, girl.”

“I don’t have a choice. My sister’s down there, Auggie. I can’t leave her.”

He shakes his head. “It’s suicide, whatever you’re planning.” The fly takes to the air and hovers around me. I wave it away, but it circles back. “There’ve been more quakes,” Auggie says.

“Bad?” Kai asks.