“Why yawn? It’s pretty. It’s part of you.” He moved in, gripped her shoulders, inclined his head, moved his lips close to hers, and…
“Anyone can have a nice smile!” she spat.
“I thought you were going to kiss me!”
“You ruined it!”
“By complimenting you?” His voice rippled frustration. “So you’re leaving?”
Merinda pivoted on her heel. “I will walk on that side of the street”—she inclined her head—“and we’ll talk later.”
“Merinda… we’re going in the same direction.”
“It won’t be too long until you get to the inane moment where you say my eyes are like stars!”
“I wasn’t going to say that! You’re an absolutely flummoxing woman, Merinda Herringford.”
Merinda turned before his eyes could catch her smile.
Ray and Jasper waited for Jem, who was, if Ray thought about it, a little too indecently excited for an enterprise that required criminal activity.
“Well, I ask you,” Jem said with a wink, “do you really expect to vet the new shipment without the aid of the rather invaluable Silent Jim?”
In spite of her enthusiasm, Ray tried to convince her to stay in the Palmer, but she was adamant, and when he told her she was very much unwelcome, she merely ignored him, sitting on the front step of the lodging house in hat and trousers, inspiring glances and even a wolf whistle from the particularly astute, so Ray decided she would be safer with him than anywhere else.
The plan was very much the same as before: receive and survey the goods and ensure they were ready for David Ross’s imminent use.
“There’s another shipment chugging in now,” Hedgehog said, pointing his bowler toward a vessel sliding into the docks.
“That’s a lot of fireworks,” Jasper remarked. “That anarchist fellow the other night, he said he wanted to make an impression. This is more than that.”
“We don’t ask. We don’t tell. We get paid for transporting things that are a little less easy to get in through traditional channels.” Hedgehog tugged his bowler on and turned his back. “You two wait for this one and whatever requisition Valari has for you.” He walked away.
Ray, Jem, and Jasper waited. And waited. The boat seemed so near, but why did it take so blasted long for it to finally glide in and dock? The midsummer heat billowed around then. The hot morning warned of a blazing afternoon.
“I wasn’t cut out for criminal life,” Jasper said as men on board threw ropes over the side of the boat and began scrambling down from the deck. “It’s so sedentary.”
Ray hollered to ask if they needed help unloading, and they began the slow jog toward the boat when given the assent.
It started as a hiss and then a fizzle, and then the air shimmered around them. Jasper, panicking, got to Jem even before Ray could and shoved her out of the way. The blast followed but seconds after, sending them back with little time to fling up their arms and protect themselves.
Jasper fell the hardest, protecting Jem, and once the shock and smoke dissipated, he blinked the grit and grime of the dark fog away and frantically looked to her. “Are you all right?”
Jem nodded. “A little dizzy. W-where’s Ray?” Her eyes searched the vicinity. “Jasper?”
Nearby, Ray stood, uneasily, an incessant ringing vibrating through his left eardrum, pricking daggers through his head and throwing off his balance.
Jasper rose with Jem and joined him, and they sprinted as far away from the blast as possible.
“There’s a chance of another explosion,” Jasper yelled, and while Ray could make out the echo of sound, he couldn’t hear a word. “And there won’t be any survivors there.” They surveyed the growing devastation and fire. Not too long and the sirens of the fire brigade would be heard, the boat doused, the charred bodies moved. Jasper assumed the destruction, all red and orange, shooting incendiary sparks to the sky, could be seen a mile away.
Ray held one hand to his ear and folded over, free hand on his knee.
“You all right?”
“Eh?”
“Jasper, can he even hear us?”
“I can hear you, Jem,” Ray said, having watched her mouth and her panicked face and put two and two together.
Jasper led them farther away, pulling Ray with a tight force so Ray was required to do little walking. They fell against a makeshift shed, Jasper coughing the debris out of his lungs.
“Are you all right?” Jasper asked Ray again when he had composed himself.
Ray ran his hand over his soot-smudged face. “My ear is popping something fierce. This awful buzz.” He broke into Italian for a moment, unable to think hard enough to translate.
Jasper motioned for him to remove his hand from his ear.
“Your ear’s bleeding pretty badly,” Jasper said. His eyes were full of concern.