That was truth dressed in a lie, because his eyes told me what his mouth refused to.
You’re coming.
The hours since have ticked by like preparation for my own execution, which only pisses me off more. Anger is easier to sit with than fear. Anger doesn’t make my palms sweat or my stomach pitch or my throat feel lined with broken glass.
Sweat like sickness coats my skin anyway.
By the time I retreat to my bathroom, my pulse is high and ugly under my jaw. I shut the door harder than necessary and find the clothes already laid out for me on the bed when I come back out.
Makeup is lined along my vanity in a neat row like barbed wire strung along a fence.
The dress Nash wants me to wear isn’t mine. Not really. It’s a gift from them. It isn’t me. It’s too elegant, too deliberate, too much like strategy turned into silk.
Too fucking red.
Pointedly ignoring it, I shower for too long and scrub my skin until it’s pink and gleaming and no more free of dread than it was before.
I dry my hair slowly, glaring at the makeup in challenge. This is the price I have to pay for revenge.
I wish the reminder did some good. Instead, the longer I stare at my own face in the mirror, the easier it is for dread to creep in around the edges.
Finally, time runs out.
They’re outside my door. I can feel them there, restless and prowling, the energy in the hallway like a storm rubbing its hands together. I slide the dress up my body and stare at myself in the mirror like I just put on someone else’s skin.
Maybe I have always been wearing someone else’s skin.
From the moment loss struck and my childhood ended, I’ve been trapped in a long, ugly game of make-believe. Foster child. Good girl. Survivor. Avenger. Lover. Pawn. Guest. Prisoner.
Tonight, the dress is simply the newest costume.
I smooth a hand down the front and the fabric ripples around my fingertips like dark water. It skims my hips, hangs to the floor, the corset bodice cut low without crossing into vulgarity. The effect is worse for its restraint. Elegant. Dangerous. Like a knife in a velvet sheath.
The woman in the mirror looks composed enough to kill somebody and gorgeous enough to be invited to do it.
I leave my hair loose. Paint my eyes for war and my mouth red enough to pass for blood.
Seduction in lace and silk, but the dress hides nothing. There’s nowhere to stash a weapon in it. No room for a blade at the thigh or a gun at the waist, no matter how creative I got.
Which is why, when I reach for my bag at the foot of the bed and check inside anyway, some stupid hopeful part of me expecting to find the pistol there, panic flashes first and rage follows when it’s gone.
I know immediately who took it.
I stomp barefoot into the hallway, strangling the strap of the bag in one fist. Nash steps in front of me before I make it three feet. His gaze drops unerringly to the bag and one dark brow lifts.
“You don’t need that,” he says, calm as a grave. “And it wasn’t yours anyway.”
“How do you know?”
His mouth barely moves. “Because if you pull a weapon in that place, you die. And you took it from me, little wolf.”
I want to scratch the smugness from his face. I want to hurt him just enough to see if the expression changes. Iwant to go up on my toes and kiss him senseless and hate myself for wanting that too.
Instead I let the bag drop at my feet rather than throw it at him.
“Jackass.”
He stares at me long enough for the self-hatred to begin welling where my pride gives out.
