Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,53

the other side of the chain-link fence that binds the lots. The ship the tunnel undercuts blocks us from sight, and relief stirs in me as I pluck the gun from my mouth and whip around the corner after Wen.

A hook catches my ankle, and I go sprawling. I twist to find Wen flipping her umbrella’s handle back into her hand, looking nonchalant as ever. “Now’s the part when we lay low,” she says, beckoning me into a narrow alley. “They expect us to go for distance, so we wait for them to spread out.”

I stagger to my feet and lurch after her, tucking the blaster in my waistband and wiping halfheartedly at my shirt. It’s a lost cause at this point—I’ve been knocked into the dirt too many times.

Wen hauls open a hatch in the alley’s wall and beckons me forward. “After you, flyboy,” she says, clapping me on the back as I duck into the darkness.

Too late the smell hits me. Too late I realize this is a garbage bin.

Wen slams the hatch shut. A moment later, she clicks on a penlight. The tiny glow casts her burns in sharp relief. Even worse, she’s grinning. “You saved my life back there,” she says, falling back on her haunches and leaning against the bin’s wall. “I think that means I owe you some sort of debt.”

“No, no—I don’t want anything like that.”

“I’m serious, Ettian. I can help you. You need help.”

“Not the sort you give.” I hug my arms against my chest, terrified of what I might brush up against in here. I’m no stranger to spaces like this, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to accept returning to them so easily. “Look, I just wanted to buy a ship. I didn’t ask to get caught up in this mob nonsense.”

“And then you shot a Cutter. I’ve spent a whole month dodging them, but I’m good—they only caught on today.”

It takes all my willpower to keep my voice at a whisper. “Because you were trying to pawn off their boss’s ship!” I hiss through my teeth.

“Among other things.”

“Among—” I clamp a hand over my mouth as my outburst echoes in the tiny space.

“You should be thanking me. I saved our asses by blowing the ship.”

“So the debt is paid.”

Wen’s brow furrows. She looks like she’s crunching numbers. Weaving checks and balances into a net. A sinking feeling overtakes me. From what I’ve seen so far, Wen’s a chaotic opportunist. This debt thing isn’t a matter of honor. She has none. It’s her chance to squeeze something out of me. Sure, she says she owes me, but she also knows I was in the market for a ship. The 6K offer was enough to get me to take a look at one, which means there’s at least that much in my pockets.

I have to get out of her grip before she takes me for everything I have.

“You saved my life, even though you didn’t have to. You could have turned and ran, but you didn’t.” Wen’s voice is soft, her narrow eyes half-open, focused on the tiny light in her hand. “That matters. That’s not something people do, usually. It means something, doesn’t it?”

She’s so relaxed here. So comfortable, even though we’re hunkered down in the smell of stale garbage. This is normal for her, and what I did wasn’t. I sigh, slumping slightly, trying to inhabit this space the way she does, to imagine being used to this.

It isn’t that far a stretch. Less imagination, more remembering. I was here—I was her seven years ago. When I had no one to fight for me. It didn’t last, but I didn’t know that at the time. A flashback takes hold of me like a hook in the gut, the feeling of my throat collapsing under a hand far too large for me to pry away. It was the first time I’d been caught stealing and the first time I truly understood how alone I was. There was no one who could have saved me from whatever revenge that woman had wanted to take. After that incident—after she let me