“Get some rest,” he says.
“Not sure that’s gonna happen.”
“Try anyway.” He heads for the door.
“Sting,” I call.
He pauses, glancing back.
“Who do you think it was?” I ask. “Really. The person looking for me?”
His gaze lingers on me for a moment. “Someone who cares about you. Or who doesn’t care about you and wants something,” he says. “Either way, that makes them dangerous.”
Then he’s gone and I sit there on the cot, fingers lifting to touch my lips where his mouth just was.
36
VI
It felt sogood to forget for a minute.
To forget that I came here to save my father’s reputation and ended up a Runt with a target on my back. To forget that crazy girl’s cold smile. To forget whoever’s out there looking for me.
I lean back against the wall, pulling my knees up despite the protest from the bad one.
Someone came looking for you.
The words loop in my head, relentless. Who? I run through the list again, even though it’s painfully short.
Mara.
It has to be Mara.
She’s the only person I can think of who might care enough to risk it. But even as I think it, doubt creeps in.
She wasn’t there when I needed her before. When thecity turned on my father, when people stopped talking to me, when I was eating scraps and sleeping on a friend’s couch because I couldn’t afford rent, where was she then?
Gone. Like everyone else.
So why now? Why risk coming to the Rot—a place everyone knows is dangerous, lawless, deadly—just to find me? Unless it’s not aboutmeat all.
What if she wants something? What if she’s looking for leverage? Information? Proof that my father was guilty so she can clear her own family’s name? Or what if it’s not Mara at all?
What if it’s someone worse?
A politician trying to tie up loose ends. Someone who wants to use me as a pawn in whatever power game is still playing out in the ruins of Rothwell.
My breath comes faster.
Or who doesn’t care about you and wants something.
Sting’s words echo in my head, cold and certain.
Either way, that makes them dangerous.
I press my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the spiral. It doesn’t work. Because the truth is, I don’t know who’s out there. I don’t know what they want. And I don’t know if I evenwantto be found. That thought stops me cold.
Do I want to be found?
