I peek over the ledge. The alley’s clear, so whatever I thought I saw either didn’t exist or plans to ambush me. Guess there’s only one way to know.
I stand, brush myself off, and head across the empty roof to the stairwell door. It opens without hassle.
So far, so good.
The stairs are dark and I’m quiet going down. Round and round the stuffy concrete box, hand light on the support rail.
The door at the bottom opens easily. Quiet, but not silent. I hold my breath in the patchy dark.
Nothing. No answering sound.
Okay, maybe too good.
I creep down the hall, right along the edge. The peeling wall scrapes my shoulder, even burns, but there’s no helping that. The central strip creaks. Ceiling lights spit as I pass under, spotlight my progress. Hopefully Decker doesn’t have cameras.
He probably has cameras.
Just find the bracelet, I tell myself. Then run like hell.
The Brink kids will probably get to me first. Decker will have to wait his turn.
The hall ends in the final door. It’s cracked, just a sliver. Not locked and barricaded but silent and beckoning.
Much too good.
Decker knows I’m here.
Run, scream the hairs on the back of my neck. Why aren’t you running yet?
Because everyone I know doesn’t deserve to be hunted down by the damn Brinkers. Especially not Niles. He didn’t sign up for that. Nobody signed up for that. Not Dee, in her damn hovel. Not Dad or his latest. Not even Greg.
And they would be hunted. Vengeance is like that.
At least Yonni’s well out of it. Death has its upsides.
I slide my fingers through the door handle and grip it tight.
“‘I don’t believe that fate falls on us no matter how we act,’” I say under my breath. Gilken steadies best when said aloud. “‘But I do believe in a fate that falls on us unless we act.’”
So we act.
If it’s a game, let’s play.
I press the door hard enough that it bounces back off the wall. Stride into the black pitch. “Hey, Decker.”
“See?” A high purr just behind my ear as the door clicks shut. “This is why I like you.”
I jump, spin away from his scraping voice. Lightning skids from my neck to twist with my shoulder. Not quite a knife, not quite a needle, but hot and spitting.
I flail, hands tangled with the dark and an endless collection of things—smooth, grated, sharp, rough—a sliding racket, ricocheting junk.
Decker swears. I crash to my knees amid the junk piles, burning up and dizzy as hell. Skin crawling away from where his blade hit. It fizzes.
Not again. No goddamn asshole is dosing me again.
My fists hit the floor, and I focus every fiber on keeping the fire out of my brain before it shuts me down.
Awake. I will stay awake.
Light flares. Yellow refracting stars bounce off a thousand tumbled surfaces to cluster behind my eyes.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” says Decker.
I look over my shoulder—on your feet, Kit, grab something heavy—and see him, kneeling, his green shirt patterned red. He holds the shattered pieces of something painted and pretty. Splintered glass and gold trim halo his feet. He pets each shard. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”
“Put it on the tab,” I think. Say?
Decker’s eyes snap to mine with the force of a sparkbomb.
Shit.
He lunges.
I grab the steel lamp near my elbow and swing. Smash his head as he rams my chest. We fall. His slimy body dead weight. Ribs and chin and knees. I kick him off, heels skidding as I scramble through the endless junk. His collected treasures. My shoulder collides with something sharp, and the world upends in clatter—trinkets and tools flooding the gap between me and him.
Decker doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even move.
“No.” I crawl close, reach his side and turn him over. “I did not just kill you, you asshole. You are not dead.”
His temple oozes, hair matted. There are red dots on the floor.
I freeze.
No, I move. Place two fingers to his neck and search. Nothing, more nothing.
A line of blood runs the gully of his nose, crests his upper lip.
“Artery’s on the other side,” I say aloud. Calm, even cold. My fingers are cold, skinny ice packs against his skinny neck. “Come on. Where are you? Where are you?”
A beat. Rhythm under my fingertips, strong and hot.
I sit back on my heels, hand sliding to the floor. Bone-less. Relief and beauty, my whole body an open world in a massive sky.
Alive. He has all his hopes and tomorrows. I didn’t steal them.
I just busted half his shit.
The room spins as I haul myself up. Another table crashes, but I manage not to fall.
The bracelet. Get the bracelet and get out.
I weave my way to the big counter in the room’s center. Peer through the smudged glass. So much glitter. Strings and pendants, rings and customized digicom earpieces. They sparkle.
My head sparkles. My shoulders and neck. Bright hot flairs.
“Bracelet,” I chant, under my breath. “Bracelet, bracelet.”