People scatter. Someone grabs my arm and I put them down without looking, already moving, already running toward the left wall where Bors is closing the distance and Genevieve still doesn’t realize he’s coming.
Bors sees me first.
He turns, and there’s a moment where our eyes meet across the crowd, and I watch him calculate. I’ve got six inches on him and at least thirty pounds, but he definitely has a weapon in his jacket.
I’ve got blood in my mouth and cracked ribs and the absolute certainty that if he takes one more step toward her, I will remove him from the earth.
He takes the step.
I cover the distance in seconds. He reaches into his jacket and I catch his wrist before his hand clears the fabric. I twist, feel the joint give, hear the sound it makes. The weapon clatters to the floor. His other hand comes up and I’m inside it, too close for him to swing, my forearm against his throat, driving him backward into the wall.
His pale eyes go wide. The same eyes that watched her through the trees. That tracked her through town. That made her afraid to sleep alone.
I don’t make it dramatic. I don’t make it slow. I do what I was trained to do, efficiently and without hesitation, and when it’s done, Bors slides down the wall and doesn’t get up.
My hands are steady. That’s the worst part. Six years of this, and my hands are always steady after.
The Lye erupts. The crowd doesn’t know what’s happening anymore. Benny is screaming. Someone tips a table and bottles shatter across the concrete. In VIP, Myrddin is saying something to Art, and Art is standing, horror painted across his face, and none of it matters because I’m already turning to her.
Genevieve is staring at me. Her face is white. Her eyes are on my hands.
“We have to go,” I say. My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. “Right now.”
She doesn’t move. And for one sick second, I think this is the part where she meets the monster and runs.
“Genevieve.”
Her chin lifts. Her jaw sets. And there she is, the woman who called me a dog and meant it, who said she sees me and doesn’t care about the rest.
The Queen.
“Then stop standing there andmove.” She grabs my hand and we run.
Back through the tunnel she came in. The concrete is damp and the lights are sparse, one bare bulb every twenty feet, and our footsteps echo off the walls. She’s fast, faster than I expected, and later I’ll reflect on how thankful I am that I made her run every day, but right now she doesn’t let go of my hand. Her grip is so tight I feel her pulse in her fingers.
We come out behind Montgomery Manor into cold air andwet grass and a sky full of stars that don’t give a shit about what just happened.
I pull out my phone with a shaking hand and dial Paxton.
He answers on the first ring.
“It’s tonight,” I say. “Right now. Ithasto be right now.”
There’s a pause. Then Paxton’s voice, calm and surgical: “Twenty minutes. The address I gave you. Don’t stop for anything.”
He hangs up. That’s Pax. No questions. Just the plan.
We keep moving, and we don’t stop until I’m confident no one will find us.
Genevieve is leaning against a tree, breath coming in little puffy clouds, still gripping my hand like she’s daring me to pull away. She’s shaking. We’re both covered in someone else’s blood and the adrenaline is crashing and the reality of what I just did is settling in like cold water.
I killed a man tonight. Again.
But this time, I didn’t reach for the numbness or try to memorize something beautiful to hold on to before I did it.
I just looked at her.
She reaches up and touches my face. Her fingers come away red, and she stares at them for a second before wiping them on her jacket like it’s nothing. Like blood is just another thing she’s learned to handle since she moved to this town.
