And if I die, so do Kelda and Halle.
I jerk all the little bits of myself together, collapsing in a trembling knot in a dark, damp hallway, gasping at the air greedily as my pulse pounds in my ears. My side is a bright explosion of pain. My skin feels tender, like it’s been scraped raw. I can hear Big Haul in the alley just outside, overturning bins and kicking at crates looking for me.
If I’m going to abandon this plan, this is my moment. But if I leave Big Haul alive now, not only will there be no cash, but he’ll tell people what he saw. Someone with impossible abilities. A saint.
I grit my teeth and pull out the hooked, serrated knife I sheathed in my boot. Using the wall to push myself to a stand, the wound on my side burning, I inch to the door, opening it just enough to see out.
Big Haul has his back to me, his shoulders broad as a docking platform.
I tighten my grip on the knife, take a breath, and phase.
Big Haul yells in surprise as I appear on his back, my left arm wrapped tight around his neck, my legs around his rib cage. He tries to reach for me, but I’ve already started stabbing. In the neck. In the chest. Again and again and again. My shoulder is on fire. My hands shake with the effort of keeping a hold on the knife hilt as it grows slick with blood. But I don’t stop until Big Haul staggers, drops to his knees, and collapses onto the dirty alley floor.
I crawl off him, shaking, weak as a newborn, my red-stained hands limp in my lap. I stare at Big Haul’s empty face until his gray-blue eyes cloud over and his blood starts to cool. It’s only then that I’m finally able to gather all the unraveled bits of myself back together again.
I pick myself up, make sure my mask and hood are all still on, and deliver proof of the job to Kilpatrick.
I get paid in cash. More paper than I’ve ever had in my hands before. I buy water—so much water—and food, and let my sisters eat and drink until they’re full for the first time in months. I seethe difference it makes. How Halle and Kelda relax under the new, delicious weight in their bellies. Their lips no longer cracked and parched. The dark circles slowly retreating from underneath their eyes.
That makes everything I go through in the months and years to come worth it. The night sweats. The sleepless dark hours. The meticulous picking of dried blood out from under my fingernails. The mistakes and fights and secret bottles of booze.
It’s all worth it.
The Butcher becomes a notorious figure in Covenant after that.
And a big part of me loves it. I really do.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WILL NEGOTIATE CONTINUED PAYMENTS ONCE JUSTICE IS DONE. HAVE LEAD ON BUTCHER’S IDENTITY. PROVIDE ALL AVAILABLE INFORMATION ON ONE VALENE BRUINN. IMMEDIATELY.
—TELEGRAM DISPATCH DELIVERED TO TERRY DUDLEY, HIGH WARDEN OF COVENANT (YEAR 2120)
The stars turn far above, beyond the shift and glide of the skyline.
Trinity’s song calls out, bittersweet, and I come back to myself, lying in a tangled heap in a rusty alley as my teeth start to chatter. My bones ache, and I’m shivering hard. From the adrenaline, from the thirst. Probably from the blood loss. The dark of the early-morning hours shrouds the blank faces of the buildings, but I can’t tell exactly how deep into the morning we are. How long I was blacked out after I fell, tumbling, into the streets.
High above me, I can see the top of our boardinghouse and the gaping black hole where our home used to be. A column of white smoke rises into the dark sky and drifts down into the streets in tatters. It burns the insides of my nose and the back ofmy throat, but there is no sign of flames and I see the figures of steam teams moving in and out of the building. Containing the damage.
It doesn’t look like the explosion smashed up anyone else’s lodgings.
Small mercies.
I roll up to sitting, but I can’t manage to stand. My limbs are weak, it hurts to breathe, and the knife wounds on my torso throb and bite, oozing blood. When I press my hand there to try to stanch the blood flow, I think I can feel exposed bone.
I stare through the smoke without seeing it. My chest is hollowed out and empty, a hungry, aching blackness that lances down my limbs. It steals all my strength, and I want to collapse inside it.
No.
The Gold Towners have Halle and Kelda. I need to move. I need to pick up their trail. I can’t stay here and let myself be finished off. I owe them better than that.
I try again, bracing my arm against the rusty, rough side of the trash bin for purchase and pulling my legs up underneath me, biting down on a scream as my muscles and bones burn at the movement. With my back pressed hard against the wall, I manage to slide into a stand. Or close to a stand. I’m more vertical than horizontal. So… progress.
I pitch myself off the wall, staggering out of the alley, around the corner to the front door of the boardinghouse, which is currently propped open so steam teams can move in and out easier and deal with the mess upstairs. No one is around at the moment, though—boarders have been evacuated and the steam crew isnowhere to be seen. Just eerie quiet and the acrid smell of drifting smoke.
I crawl over to the vent grate hidden behind the stairs, wiggling it open, and every inch of my body sags in relief when I touch familiar canvas. I drag it out, fingers trembling, and feel around, checking that every piece of my Butcher kit is still there. The goggles, the soft flexible boots, the gloves lined with weights along the knuckles so my hits inflict more damage. I find my knives, too—Wrath, Reason, Mercy, and Toothpick, all accounted for.
And lastly, cash and water packets. Sewn into the lining of the rucksack. Put aside just in case of a bad day.
