A DISTRACTION
Caitríona
North.Just keep moving north, Cat.
I cut across town with my hood up and my heartbeat trying to sprint out of my throat. The air tastes like exhaust and approaching rain. Creeping sunlight glints off windshields and stings my eyes. I don’t look back. Looking back only makes you slow.
My phone buzzes once in my pocket.
Unknown: Tiernan is here. He’s coming for you.
Panic spikes, sharp and blinding. Tiernan? Donal, I expected, but not my dead fiancé’s father. I gulp in a breath and the training clamps down like a lid.
Breathe. Inventory. Execute.
I ghost past a bodega with pyramids of oranges out front, the scent bright and wrong in contrast with the ice in my veins. My fingers find the edge of the tattoo under my jacket to that orangeblossom inked over my heart, the lettersLiviasmall and sure. I press there once, a promise, and I keep moving.
I don’t reply to the message as much as my fingers itch to. A trail is a trail, even if it’s meant to save you.
Columbus Avenue gives way to Amsterdam. Sirens ring out somewhere to the east, then a church bell somewhere west. I take the side street lined with scaffolding and scaffolding nets, the city’s favorite, because nets work both ways when you know where to step. A kid on a scooter whistles past me, and a woman drags a terrier that refuses to go in the same direction as anything.
Halfway down the block, I feel it. Icy cold blooms between my shoulder blades and screams someone is at my back.
Don’t turn around.
A van door thunks closed. Footsteps quicken. The old me would have smiled. The new me checks angles and distances, calculates how long it will take to make the corner, and whether the deli awning will hold weight.
“McKenna.” Irish, but not Sean or Donal. The voice carries like a bad habit.
I keep walking.
“Stop.”
I don’t.
Someone yanks on the back of my hood.
The momentum becomes a weapon, and I let the pull spin me and ride it. Then I drop the duffel and drive the muzzle of my gun up under the man’s ribs. He’s big, bigger than Donal. He wears a thick jacket and has a scar over one brow with eyes the color of beer bottle glass. He smells like menthol.
“Bad idea,” I growl.
He grins around a split lip like I’ve made his day. His free hand snaps for my wrist, too fast, and the gun skitters across grimy concrete, vanishing under a parked car.
“Tiernan says hello.” Then he swings.
I take the first hit on my forearm, and it lights up the corners of my vision. I answer with a heel to the knee. He grunts, but it’s not enough to stop him. He’s a brawler with good balance, the kind that doesn’t fall until someone steals his air.
Fine.
I feint for his eyes, then slip left under the scaffolding. We bang metal. A woman yelps and scurries away with her poodle shouting at us in Spanish. I grab for a length of rebar tied with twine and wrench it free. The knot gives with a soft, treacherous sigh.
“Come on then,” he taunts, his eyes sparking with delight.
I oblige. The bar cracks his forearm. He hisses out a curse, and I pivot for his temple next. He ducks, then shoulder-checks me into the green plywood. Splinters bite into my skin. I swing again but he catches it this time, twists, and the bar wrenches my wrist until it sings. I let it go, step inside his reach like I’m about to kiss him and bring my knee up hard.
He turns at the last second, and I catch his hip instead of his groin. Damn it. He punishes me for the attempt with a palm to my throat that slams me into the wall. White spots bloom, and the world goes off-center.
“Not so soft now, are you?” the asshole murmurs, enjoying himself.
