Compassion. What a distant fucking word.
I tip the pint back and kill half of it without tasting a thing. “Alright,” I say. “If not in the bar, then what would you like me to do, Rhea? Maybe if you say it nicely, I’ll follow along.”
She blinks. Blushes harder. Swallows.
“Take him outside,” she says finally. “Scare him, I guess. Make him pay what he owes, if that’s what it takes. But don’t… kill him.”
“Hey now,” I say. “I asked for your opinion, not a bargain.”
A laugh huffs out of me despite myself. It twists something tight under my ribs.
Lark would’ve smirked and told me not to grow a conscience. Lark would’ve kissed me in the alley and told me to go do what I do best.
If only she lived.
What the hell am I even doing, discussing Fisher’s orders with some stranger girl, thinking about the one who died on me years ago?
“I mean…” Rhea murmurs. “If it’s a bargain you want, I might participate.”
“What do I get out of it?” I ask.
“What do you want?”
I roll the pint between my palms, the glass sweating cold. A hundred ugly answers rise to my tongue—lines I’ve used onother girls to end the night my way. I think about them. For whatever reason, I don’t use any.
“Straight deal,” I say. “You keep the kitchen open after closing. Feed me something hot. How about that?”
Her gaze drops to my hands. When she looks up, her blush widens.
“Done,” she says. “But you wash before eating.”
A laugh slips out before I can stop it. It feels weird in my throat, like a rusted hinge trying to move.
“Bossy.”
“You bet.” She nods toward the booth. “Go on, then. Before the blonde convinces him to spend whatever he owes you on her.”
Aye, miss.
I finish the beer and set the glass down with a quiet clink. When I slide off the stool the room tilts. Not from the drink, but from the part of me braced to break something and the other part trying not to. Lark’s face flashes up uninvited: green-glass eyes, wind-tangled hair, the smell of gasoline that never left my jacket.
I know how the violence ended back then.
Four men dead.
Don’t think. Just do it.
The kid sees me coming and scrambles deeper into his hoodie. The blonde clocks the danger and goes still.
I’d been in the same room as them the whole time and they hadn’t noticed me.
“Hi, guys,” I say, dropping my hands to the table. “How’re you doing?”
He swallows so hard I can hear it. “I—I was gonna call—”
“Sure.” I lift a shoulder. “Right after your fairy godmother wires rent and a backbone.”
The blonde finds her voice. “Hey, we were in the middle of—”
