I pull away from her grip. “I know that.” A quaver lingers in my voice.
“Good.” At my reply, she reaches behind her back and pulls another gun from her belt. She throws it at me without warning.
I fumble the weapon. “For chrissakes,” I blurt out, holding the gun in front of me with two fingers. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”
“Fire when needed?” she suggests.
My blank stare continues until she rolls her eyes at me and snatches the weapon back. She replaces it on her belt before picking up her own gun and clicking the old cartridge out of its magazine. “What, you’ve never shot a gun before?”
“Not a real one.”
“Seen someone die?”
I shake my head numbly.
“I thought you were a bounty hunter.”
“I am.”
“Don’t you do that kind of stuff?”
“What, kill people?”
“Yeah. That.”
“My job’s to catch my marksalive, not to put holes in their heads.” I watch her snap a new cartridge into her gun. “Is this my cue to ask you what’s going on? Did Zero send you?”
Jax tucks the freshly loaded gun back into her holster. The look she gives me is almost pitying. “Listen. Emika Chen, isn’t it? You clearly have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.” Without missing a beat, she pulls a knife out from the inside of one of her boots and continues. “You were having dinner with the Phoenix Riders tonight, weren’t you?”
“You’ve been spying on me?”
“I wasobservingyou.” Jax walks over to the other side of the closet, where she pushes one of the stacks of crates aside. Behind it is an inconspicuous door, visible only as a thin rectangle against the wall. She takes her knife and jams it carefully into the subtle cracks. “Tell me I don’t have to explain everything.”
“Look, let’s start with you telling me what the hell just happened, and we’ll go from there.” I cross my arms. It’s an easier way to disguise my trembling, and the feeling of my arms crossed protectively over my chest gives me a small hint of comfort. Showing this girl weakness seems like a dangerous thing.
“I just saved you from your would-be assassins,” Jax says, pointing her knife at me. “Zero warned you about them.”
Hearing this confirmation from her sends another wave of dizzying fear through me. I steady myself against the wall. “So he sent you to fetch me?”
She nods. “I’m willing to bet that some of those hunters were working together, from the way they placed themselves on either side of the street and covered the basement floor of this place. They won’t be the last, either. Plenty will be targeting you as long as that fat jackpot stays up in the Pirate’s Den.”
She walks over to me and drops a metal fragment into my hand. “Hold this.” Then she heads back to the door and continues working on wedging her knife into the outline.
I look on, frozen in shock. “Why do people want me dead?”
“Is your connection to Hideo Tanaka not enough?” She grunts once as her knife’s blade becomes stuck. “People think everything that’s gone wrong in the games this year is because of your hack of the opening ceremony game and your fling with Hideo. Rumor’s that you’re also the one responsible for installing the cheat in the Final, as a rebellion against being kicked off your team.” She shrugs. “I mean, they’re not wrong.”
Anger slices through my surprise. “People want medeadfor that?”
“There are a lot of gamblers out there who probably lost big money on that Final. Doesn’t matter. You’re going to have assassins on your trail for a while, so I suggest you stick close to me.” She yanks the knife out and presses it into a different spot in the crack, then pushes her weight against it.
Zero.This is the first time I’ve heard someone other than Hideo acknowledge his existence. “Why’d he send you?”
She pulls off her black cap, revealing short silver hair, and looks up at me. “Why else? To save you from being pumped full of bullets. And you’re welcome.”
A tingle runs through my limbs. Zero had been genuine about warning me, after all. Hadn’t he? “No—I mean, what do youdo?”
She pauses to glance at me. “Takes an assassin to stop one, doesn’t it?”
