“I know that,” Lola whispered.
“You’re angry. You’re as angry as I am.”
Arabella reached forward and pressed her hand below Lola’s shoulder, against her heart. Lola tried not to cringe. Arabella could undoubtedly feel her pulse racing in nerves, feel her chest staggering in swallowed sobs. It was such a simple touch, but now Arabella could tell how broken she was, inside and out.
“That makes the two of us the same,” Arabella told her.
Lola couldn’t deny this, but it still chilled her, to hear such words from the Devil’s lips. She shivered, backing away from her until she pressed against the wall, until she could feel the cold of the brick even through her coat.
I’ve spent my whole life in someone else’s cross fire,Lola thought.But I can end the war now.
But Lola couldn’t bring herself to say the words Arabella so clearly wanted from her. Because despite how much Lola hurt, despite how her friends had used her, Lola still heard the same voice in the paranoid corners of her mind.
You are the worst version of yourself.
Lola knew this—not just from Arabella, but from Tock and Enne, people who had once cared for her. But in trying to piece together the girl she’d once been, Lola only had scraps of evidence, fleeting moments, foggy memories—an assortment as disorganized as Jonas’s files.
She was clever, so her father had taught her.
She listened. Jac had shown her that.
She paid attention, Zula had complimented her.
Lola clung to these good qualities in case they were the only goodness she had left. Because Lola was also angry, and hurting, and paranoid—buckling under the pressure everyone had thrust upon her since she was a child. She’d always been the girl with a “good head on her shoulders,” but that wasn’t because she’d wanted to be. Who else would’ve cared for their father while he was ill? Who else would’ve paid the bills while her brothers chased their delusions of glory? It was all that responsibility and worrying that had made her paranoid in the first place.
Maybe there was no reckoning coming, and Lola had been paranoid for nothing. Or maybe reckonings weren’t defined by the fire of a bullet or the thunder of an explosion. Maybe they were the moments when you decided who you truly were, and Lola, so obsessed with determining this for everyone around her, had been putting off her own moment, knowing that if she studied the whole of her life too closely, she’d only find hurt.
But she couldn’t avoid it any longer. Because even though she was the worst version of herself, Lola refused to believe that any version of her resembled Arabella.
“I’m not like you,” Lola told her quietly. “I am not a monster.”
The Bargainer’s features, distorted in the shadows’ reach, gave way to rage. A rage Lola understood, but not one she wished to share anymore.
“I know what I’ve done, and I’ve tried to be better,” Arabella deadpanned. “Iambetter.”
“But you’re not. You’ve done nothing to earn it.”
“I’ve been nothing but good to you!” Arabella fumed. “I know that I tricked you, but I’ve tried to make up for it. I took you and your brother in. I’ve been your friend when you had no one else.”
“I can forgive you for tricking me,” Lola said, because she had, even though she hated not knowing herself. “But in the grand scheme of every sin you’ve committed, I’m not the one you need to redeem yourself to. I am your cop-out, and I’m tired of being your conscience.”
Lola, as it turned out, did still have some anger left in her, because her voice rose.
“I’m a terrible judge of people,” she went on, and for once, it didn’t wound her pride to admit it. Because in all her research, she’d overlooked a vital truth—people changed, for better and for worse. Sometimes the ones you loved abandoned you. Sometimes they came back. “But I’ve figured out this. Your pain isn’t enough to redeem you. Redemption is trying to heal the hurt you’ve caused. And I’ve never been the person you truly needed to redeem yourself to.”
Arabella shook at Lola’s words, and Lola realized that of any of the weapons she could’ve wielded tonight, she’d chosen the only one to make the Bargainer bleed.
“But you can still redeem yourself,” Lola told her. “You’re a malisonanda shade-maker. Help Enne and the others end the game. Stop—”
“I willneverhelp her,” Arabella growled. “And I’ve already made my last move. The game will be finished before sunrise.”
Lola’s mouth went dry. Sunrise could only be a few hours away.
“You can’t—”
“Why? Because it’ll make me terrible? It’ll make me a monster?” Arabella grinned ruthlessly. “If I’m the only one who will move the hands of history for the better, then so be it. I’ll be beyond redemption.”
Lola eyed the mouth of the alley. Arabella stood between her and her exit.
