She looks up at me. “What?”
“It’s not safe yet.”
That part, at least, is not entirely a lie.
The noise outside has died down. No more shots. No more breaking glass. Just the muffled thud of movement somewhere below and the distant bark of men calling to one another. My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Sergei. I already know what he’s going to say before I answer.
I take the call, keeping my eyes on her. “Yes.”
His voice comes through low and efficient. “Perimeter is secure. Two shooters down, one gone. We’re sweeping the grounds now. You’re clear.”
Clear.I glance at Zatanna.
She’s hugging herself slightly, pretending she isn’t waiting on my answer, pretending she isn’t watching me with those big dark eyes that make me want to tell every other truth except the one she asked for.
No. I’m not done having her to myself.
“Understood,” I say. “Keep sweeping.” I end the call.
“Well?” she asks.
I slip the phone back into my pocket. “Not yet.”
A tiny furrow appears between her brows. Suspicion. Or maybe just exhaustion. “It sounded like something changed.”
“Not enough.”
That isn’t a full lie either.
The room is too warm. Too intimate. Her perfume is still in the air, mixed now with gunpowder and broken glass and the clean scent of hotel linen. I can hear the rain against the windows. I can hear her breathing.
And for the first time all night, the violence has receded just enough for me to notice something else.
Blood. My blood.
There’s a sting across my left shoulder and another lower on my side where glass must have caught me when the window blew. Nothing serious. Barely worth naming.
She notices the second I do.
Her eyes widen, dropping to my shirt. “You’re bleeding.” I look down. A thin line of red has soaked through the white fabric near the shoulder seam, another darker patch low near my ribs.
“It’s nothing,” I say.
She gives me a look that would be almost funny if it weren’t so sincere. “That does not look like nothing.”
“It is.”
She takes a step closer before she can think better of it, gaze fixed on the blood. “You’re cut.”
I almost smile. “Yes. That’s generally how bleeding works.”
She doesn’t laugh.
“It’s superficial,” I say, already reaching for my cufflinks. “Glass.”
She watches my hands. I undo the cuffs. Peel the jacket off. Let it fall over the arm of a chair. Then I start on the buttons of my shirt.
