So I made her wait. I walked around her neighborhood for hours before knocking. Not because I had any other plan, but because even with the trump card in my pocket, I still felt the need to take every opportunity to keep her in the dark. Until, finally, I could no longer stand the nonstop sound of a car alarm, so I went to her door.

“What took you so long?”

“Have you ever tried to find it?” I asked as I kicked sludge from my boots. I had misjudged a puddle around the corner, but luckily it was only up to the ankle. “That car alarm that’s going off, I mean.”

Cal shut the door behind me.

“I went looking my first week here, but the alarm moves from car to car in whatever direction you’re headed.” She shrugged. “I barely notice it anymore.”

“Don’t say that too loud. We had an ice-cream truck that was like that in my neighborhood, but then some idiot had blocked it out long enough to say, ‘What ice-cream truck?’ and the next morning we got a century of Hell Week pledges on those bike-and-drink trolleys. I started humming myself to sleep with ‘The Entertainer,’ I missed that damn truck so much.”

“That’s yours,” she said, pointing to a beer on the counter. “It’s not my fault if it got warm.”

“So, care to tell me what’s going on?” I asked before I took the whole thing down in a deep and greedy gulp.

“Okay,” Cal said, exhaling. I could tell that’s what she was doing—exhaling—which meant she did it slowly enough that it could’ve been manipulative. Or she was simply breathing. “So, when I was in the Retribution Management Department on Third, designing punishment plans for individuals on the belt, I was in charge of this one case.”

“You know,” I said, and paused for another sip. “I was the person who had to actually execute those plans. You could’ve been more considerate of the well-being of your colleagues working the belt.”

I expected a sassy retort so completely, I didn’t even look at her, but after a minute of nothing, I turned. Cal’s eyes were trained on the mangy carpet.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s just rich,” she said. “Complaining to me about the conditions on the belt.”

My face burned, and I realized it had been a while since I had felt shame from the natural wellspring within instead of what they pumped into the air here.

“Sorry,” I said. “I forgot.”