Fate's Edge

tried to steal one, and they have to be made of lead, because we tried to winch it onto our truck and the winch broke. But anyway, if you have fake cards loaded with debit-card numbers, you can go to ATMs and withdraw money straight from the people’s accounts. You could clean out one ATM, then go to the next, for several days even, until the banks caught on. You could make thousands. My dad loved this idea. In his head, it was ridiculously easy free money. You see, the bank insures people’s accounts, so if the money is stolen, the insurance company replaces it. My dad thought it was a victimless crime. Oh, if only we’d get in on this scam, we would all be rich and happy forever.”
     
    KALDAR paused behind the wyvern. Audrey’s voice carried over. She was talking about her parents. She kept it light, but he heard the underlying tension in her tone.
    Kaldar put down the two buckets of water he’d carried from the stream and held up his hand. Behind him, Gaston stopped, and murmured, “What?”
    “Shhh. I want to hear this.”
    Gaston shrugged, set his buckets on the grass, and sat near the wyvern, his long, dark hair spilling down his back.
    Kaldar leaned against the wyvern’s scaled side. The boy had talent. Getting Audrey to talk must’ve been difficult. She was smart, and she guarded herself carefully.
    Her reaction to the Hand’s magic might have played a part. The Hand’s agents were so twisted by the magic, they emanated it. Magically, they stank like roadkill left to bake in the sun for a few days, and most people “gagged” when they came into close contact with them for the first time. The reaction lasted a few hours, depending on the intensity and brand of magic and how sensitive the victim was to it. Some exposed felt invisible bugs on their skin; some panicked; some went into convulsions. Audrey was the burn type: they reported the feeling of being set on fire and the sensation of being skewered or chewed on. That reaction came coupled with lowered inhibitions. Whatever brakes Audrey had were malfunctioning. She was hurtling out of control down an emotional highway, and Kaldar wanted to be there for that ride. Curiosity was killing him. He wanted to know what she liked, what she didn’t like, what made her happy. He wanted to know why she lived in the Edge by herself.
    The more he knew about her, the easier it would be to impress her. The more impressed she became, the more she’d like him. And he wanted Audrey to like him. Standing next to her was like standing in the sunlight.
     
    AUDREY’S voice caught a little, and she cleared her throat.
    “My parents never understood the Internet. They didn’t realize you couldn’t just go on to the debit-card forums to buy the numbers. You had to be introduced or get a password from someone.
    “Dad found this guy—Colin—a real scumbag. Colin was a big shot on one of the forums, so Dad told Alex to make friends with him and get the password. He told him to do whatever it took. ‘Get the password, Alex. Just get that password.’”
    She sounded so bitter. Audrey felt bitter too, bitter and angry. “Colin was a cokehead, and the only way to get to him was to supply him with drugs. So Alex would sell him coke, and Colin wanted him to sit there and do it with him, so that’s what Alex did for two months. Finally, Colin ODed. He took too many drugs, and they killed him. We did get the password to the forum, and Dad bought a bunch of numbers. Drained our reserves completely. And then on the fifth ATM he hit, an off-duty cop noticed him feeding a bunch of cards into the machine, and Dad got arrested. It was a huge mess. When Dad got out three months later on some technicality, he and Mom put Alex into rehab, but it was too late. He likes . . . liked being an addict. It was an easier life than being Dad’s errand boy all the time, and he would guilt-trip Dad into buying him drugs. He never stopped after that. All we did from that point on was work to get enough money to put Alex into a new rehab.”
    Audrey paused. She didn’t want it to sound all “oh-poor-me,” but there was no help for it. “Sometimes I went to school, but mostly I didn’t. I didn’t have friends, I didn’t get to do any of the normal things twelve-year-old girls do. I guess I still had hope that my brother would come back to us. Then, when I was almost seventeen, Alex sold me to a drug dealer. He wanted some prescriptions, and he didn’t have the money, so he told