“Yeah, I hear you.”
“And it’s too small of a place to mess around. Smaller than the smallest college campus.”
“Yeah.”
“So we resort to other sources.”
I arch a brow at him, taking another drag, smoking the entire joint all by myself. Yeah, I’m greedy.
“Escorts arrived this morning from the mainland,” he says.
I cough in surprise, and immediately, the burn effect in my lungs rolls through, and I keep coughing as Marlow leans back on his elbows on the sand and grins at me.
“Didn’t take you for a sensitive girl.”
“It’s not that. It’s…”
This sounds ridiculously unfair. The Eastsiders didn’t get a chance in two years to talk to their surviving relatives. They don’t have technology or mere cellphones. They don’t have access to money. And here is the Westside—deliveries, jets, yachts, luxury living, and hookers from the mainland.
I tell Marlow all this.
“Listen.” He rolls his eyes. “There is the hierarchy of power on Zion, right? Most of us come from money. But Archer owns this island.”
“His father does.”
“Nu-huh. Not since a year ago.”
I arch a brow. That’s new.
“He is in pharmaceuticals, yeah?” Marlow goes on. “With one of the biggest contracts with governments across the world. Right after cancer drugs, antivirus vaccines, and opioids.”
“So?”
“So he is a billionaire. And he is the king of this place.”
Billionaire. I let it sink in. It doesn’t sink. I literally can’t wrap my head around the word. It sounds like something out of a fantasy.
Marlow studies me as his smile fades. “Kat, it’s all about money and power,” he explains, and I let the “Kat” thing slide for now. “The Eastsiders had a choice.”
“Yeah, that they were given when the world was at its worst.”
“You don’t understand the dynamics of it.”
“I understand the money and power dynamics.”
“And that’s what it is.”
I lied, I don’t get it. The Eastsiders are not just anyone—some of them have wealthy families. It’s as if they got punished.
“We need to do something.” I keep pressing on.
“I told you to leave it alone for now. It’s not your business.”
“But it should be yours, no? Your friends are in trouble.”
“Listen, it’s Archer’s game—”
“And you just play along with whatever happens.”