He looks over at me, slicing through my derision with one soft glance. “All the more reason to choose empathy. Otherwise, what else have we got left?”
I can’t hold his gaze; it’s too earnest, too vulnerable. I don’t know what to do with it. So I turn my glare back to Dani again. “You still haven’t said why you turned up. I’m pretty sure I warned you I’d send you to the Depths if I ever saw you again.”
“And look at me now”—she spreads her arms wide—“still surface-side and thriving. Maybe the Butcher isn’t quite such a scary monster, after all.”
Orion jerks his chin at the window on the opposite wall—small but crystal clear, each pane polished clean. “This area is kind of a maze. How exactly did you know where we were?”
Dani shrugs. “I told you, the Shipyards is where I grew up. I know everything that goes on here. As soon as I saw some signs Halle and Kelda—”
“You don’t get to say their names,” I snap.
“—were here, I started keeping an eye out. Knew you two would turn up and thought I could be of some help.”
I push off the door, my hands slipping out of my pockets and balling into fists at my sides. “Absolutely not. This is ridiculous. We shouldn’t have even come here.”
Orion raises a quizzical eyebrow as he eyes my stance, the angry tension in my jaw and the lines of my body. “You know what we’re up against at the Rack. We could use some help.”
“I don’t care! She sold me out and used me for her personal revenge against Kilpatrick, and itgot my sisters kidnapped.”
Dani’s glaring at me, fingers clenched so tight her nails are digging into her palms. She stands abruptly, shoving off the chair hard enough that it tips over and clatters on the floor. “A revenge that was only necessary becauseyoukilled Big Haul Cruz and didn’t give a shit about the consequences!”
Orion looks between the two of us for a long moment and then blows out an exasperated breath, rubbing his hands over his face. “You two are giving me a headache. V, give me your goggles.” He gets to his feet and holds out a hand, and I reluctantly look away from my glaring contest with Dani to fish them out of my rucksack. “I’m going to go up on the roof and give the billiards hall a full look over, see if we’ve got a good way in. You all, maybe figure out this mess while I’m gone.” He opens the door and then pauses, reaching over to poke me hard in the ribs. “Withoutviolence, got it?”
The door shuts quietly behind him, and it’s just Dani and me, in the tight, close silence of the lodgings.
She kicks the chair upright and sits back down on it, forward this time, her legs and arms both crossed. “You don’t get to look at me like that. Like I’m the bad guy here.”
I snort, stepping farther into the room, hooking my thumbs into the pockets of my pants. “Aren’t you? Let me just ask my sisters—oh, wait. I can’t do that.”
“Your sisters are stillalive, at least, unlike Big Haul. Theone guywho had a chance at putting Gold Town on their heels. The guy who gave angry little Shipyard orphans like me somewhere to go and something to fight for. Can I get anI’m sorryfor that? A little contrition would go a long way here.”
“I don’t do contrition. You know that.”
“Not for other people, no.” The timbre of her voice wavers, and she suddenly sounds vulnerable in a way I don’t know what to do with. Exposing her soft underbelly and trusting me not to rip it open and spill out her insides. “I guess I thought maybe… I don’t know. That I meant more to you than that.”
Flickers of guilt roil my stomach. I feel that tug at my heart again, like the one I sometimes feel with Orion, pulling taut, binding us together, and I hate that it’s there. That it’s still there after all this. Too many threads wrapped around my ribs, yanking at my bones until they crack.
I harden my jaw, going Butcher-cold. She should know better than to show a killer your weak spots. “The job is the job. That’s all there is to it.”
Lightning-fast, Dani springs to her feet and lunges at me, like she’s going to shoulder-check me against the wall, but I phase away, pulling myself back together just behind her—
—only to find her already waiting, and the instant I’m solid, she kicks a heavy, booted foot into my chest, sending me stumbling backward into the kitchen table.
I gasp and double over, the wind knocked out of me a little, both from the blow and the shock. I’ve never seen Dani fight; I didn’t even know she could. But she’s a lot quicker and more agile than I would’ve ever guessed.
A few feet away, Dani smirks and shakes her head. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but your moves are kind of predictable.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” I spit back through gritted teeth, “but you’re kind of an asshole.”
I phase-skip around the room—flickering into sight on the couch, by the window, by the door, trying to disorient her—and then finally reappear at her back, aiming a kick at the backs of her knees.
The second she feels my blow, she moves with it, rolling onto the floor and then spinning on her back to sweep my legs out from underneath me. I’ve barely hit the floor when Dani is on top of me, snatching my wrists and pinning them above my head, her face inches from mine. Close enough for me to count the long lashes that ring her amber eyes, to see the tiny white scar just above her top lip.
“Come on, ghoulie.” She leans close, her breath a whisper against my mouth. “You’re not even trying. It’s like your heart isn’t in it.”
Baring my teeth, I quick-phase away, reappearing behind her half a second later. Fisting my fingers into her hair, I yank her head back, my lips brushing her ear.
“Let’s think about why that is. Who could possibly be to blame for the shit time I’m having right now?”
