Fate's Edge

your legs, do whatever you need to do. And stay the hell away from the boundary. We’re really close.”
    Jack looked at George. They were close to the boundary. They hadn’t been in the Broken for almost three years, not since the last time they went to visit Grandma, and they hadn’t been in California ever.
    The light of the early morning glowed ahead, sifting through the front windshield of the cabin. Jack leaped over the crate, pushed the wicker door open, and stopped. A few steps ahead, the ground plunged down in a sheer cliff, and beyond it, a vast ocean spread to the horizon, blue and pale silver. A wind gust shot from under the cliff and hit him in the face. A thousand scents exploded all around Jack: the smell of pine resin and eucalyptus; the fragrance of small blue flowers, hiding between the crags; the distant stench of seagulls screaming overhead; salt; wet sand; ocean water, clean and slightly bitter; seaweed; and, as an afterthought, a faint aroma of smoked fish flavoring the breeze.
    For a second, Jack couldn’t process it all, then he jumped, arms open wide like wings, and dashed down the near-vertical slope to the waves below.

THREE
    THE Rose Cliff Rehabilitation Center could only be described as posh, Kaldar reflected, walking through the glass door into a foyer. Huge windows painted the cream and pale peach walls with rectangles of golden sunlight. The floor was brown marble tile, polished to a mirror sheen, and as he walked across it to a marble counter, his steps sent tiny echoes through the vestibule. Normally, he preferred shoes that made no sound, but the set of Broken clothes had to be obtained quickly, and he didn’t have a lot of choices. Now he felt like a shod horse: clack, clack, clack.
    The mirrored wall behind the receptionist presented him with his reflection: he wore a dark gray suit, a white shirt so crisp he was half-afraid the folded collar might nick his neck and draw blood, and the cursed black shoes. His dark hair was slicked back from his face. He’d shaved, trimmed his eyebrows, and dabbed cologne on his skin. He smelled expensive, he made noise as he walked, and he projected enough confidence to win a dozen sieges.
    The blond receptionist behind the counter smiled at him. “May I help you, sir?”
    “My name is Jonathan Berman.” He held out his business card. She took it and studied it for a second. Silver foil cursive crossed the dark blue card printed on the best stock money could buy. It read: SHIFTING THE PARADIGM. Below it his name was printed, followed by a phony Los Angeles address.
    “Good morning, Mr. Berman.”
    Kaldar nodded. Amazing how the Broken worked: all those forms of identification, but hand someone a business card, and they forget to ask you for your driver’s license. He’d had business cards in twenty different names, one for each region of the country. Each communicated something different. This one said money, confidence, and success, and, judging by her even wider smile, this fact wasn’t lost on the receptionist.
    “How may I help you, Mr. Berman?”
    “I’m here to see Alex Callahan.”
    The receptionist glanced at her computer screen. Her fingers with very long nails colored canary yellow flew over the keyboard. “Mr. Callahan was admitted three days ago. Normally, we recommend that our guests refrain from distractions during the first two weeks of treatment.”
    Kaldar leaned on the counter and gave her a knowing smile. “What’s your name?”
    “Bethany.”
    “Well, Bethany, Alex is my cousin. I understand he came in with his parents.”
    That was a wild stab in the dark, but who else would make a deal with the Hand, then blow all of that hard-earned cash on a rehab for an addict? That kind of love came only from parents. If Alex had a woman, she was either an addict like him or penniless like him.
    “His father, actually,” Bethany said.
    Kaldar felt the first hint of excitement. He was right; there was a family, and they were in this theft up to their eyeballs. Alex was probably too far gone to care, but they cared. They had something to lose. That meant he could lean on them.
    Everyone had a lever . . .
    While his mind processed and calculated, his lips were moving. “Just between you and me, did Alex’s father strike you as a man who can simply drop forty thousand dollars on this marble counter and walk away?”
    “I can’t say.” The receptionist leaned back, but he read the answer in her eyes. “It’s not