And just to keep himself from thinking about what she was going to do with that needle and thread, Luke asked, “Where did you get that suit?”
She stabbed him with a syringe, numbing the area. “I made it myself.” Perhaps she had a shred of pity for him, because she went on, as if to distract him from the stitches. “I’ve always loved science and technology.” A rasp of laughter, muffled by that helmet. “I won a state science competition when I was a kid. It probably put me on the League’s radar long before I even knew they existed.”
He tucked away those facts. State—she’d likely grown up in America. He opened his mouth, then shut it. Admitting his own passion for science would only let her gather facts of her own on him. “That suit must have taken forever to make.”
“The base model belonged to the League.” Her needle glinted as it rose and fell. Luke shut out the strange sensation of thread passing through numbed skin. “I modified it to meet my specifications.”
“Like the cat ears and claws.”
Another rasp of laughter. “Like those.”
“Why the cat stuff?”
“Why the bat stuff?”
She had him there. “It was part of a larger theme.”
“Your…colleague’s theme, I assume.”
Luke avoided the urge to shrug, considering she currently had a needle in his skin. “Really, though: why the cat motif?”
Another few passes of the needle and she was done, tying off the stitches. Luke dared a look—and found a neat, precise line down his ribs. She leaned back, gathering up the needle and remaining thread in the plastic case they’d come in, along with the various needles and wipes. She handed them to him, and Luke blinked.
Right. They were covered in his blood. His DNA. And yet—there she was, handing it over. Dousing her own gloved hands in sanitizer once again, wiping away any trace of him from her.
“I had a stupid nickname at the League,” she said at last. “So I took back the symbol for myself. Decided I liked it. The other assassins had their own personal touches, so I made this”—a wave of the hand to encompass her claws, her eared helmet—“to reflect my own.”
“It’s impressive work.”
“Did you make your suit?”
The answer to that might lead to too many questions—and answers. “Parts of it.” Not a lie, not entirely. Some of the tech had been made by others. Like the robots in the lab.
Her head angled, and Luke followed the line of her vision to his side. Not on stitches she’d made, but the scars he realized were showing.
The tail end of the big scar that sliced down his chest, ending right near the bottom of his ribs.
He didn’t move as she traced a claw over it, leaving his skin prickling in her wake. He waited for the question about it, building the lie on his tongue: one of the underworld cronies had given it to him, not that piece of shrapnel that tore through his body. His very existence.
Instead, she asked, “Who hurt you tonight?”
The question was icy. The coldness not directed at him, but at whoever was behind the wound. As if she’d hunt him down and hurt him for it.
Luke was grateful for the mask covering his face as he blinked in surprise. He managed to say, “You should know. You freed him.”
She went still for a heartbeat. “You caught him.”
“I caught all of them.”
Silence.
She stood, stalking to the windows and shutting the curtains over the blinds. Cutting off the streetlight. Then she opened up a drawer, fished out what seemed to be two sweaters, and shoved them in the crack between the door and the floor. She still managed to navigate the way back to the bed, as if she’d mapped the entire room already.
In the pitch black, he heard the hiss and click of her helmet coming off. Heard the soft sigh of her hair being freed. Felt the slight weight of the helmet as she set it on the mattress behind them. He waited, heart thundering in his chest.
She said, voice low, “Take off your helmet.”
Luke couldn’t help but obey. His side barked in pain at the movement, but he lifted his hands to either side of his head and pulled it off. Cool air kissed his skin.
Both of them utterly blind here in the darkness.
“I should arrest you,” he managed to say.
“You should,” she agreed, and he could have sworn he heard her smile. “But you won’t.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“We’re not doing