I can’t let you catch me, can’t stop playing, because if you do, I’ll lose you. And I don’t want to lose you, Van.” The grin was sudden, sharper than steel. Never knew, from one moment to the next how she’d be. The stupid-but-thrilling thing, the never-quite-in-his-grasp thing that always had him coming back for more. “Besides, I’m only happy when I’ve got someone chasing me.”
“And you had to shoot me for that?”
Her low laugh made all the hairs on his arms stand to attention. “Got to keep you on your toes, Van. Besides, it was the only way to shoot Rillen right in the face. I would have got him better, but even you couldn’t survive a bullet through the neck. Still, he’s got one heck of a nice scar now, and it did get him to let you go.”
She reached out and trailed soft fingers over his face, across the curve of his cheek, over his lips so that he kissed them.
“So what now, Josie? Where do we go now?”
“Now we get back to the ship, sail off into the sunset and go and live like kings for a bit. Till we get bored and find a new scam. For that I need you to run, Van.”
“I’m barely fit to stagger. And how will we live like kings, when we didn’t get a damn copper fish-head out of this?”
She held out her hand, palm up. A quick twist, a blur of movement, and there sat the diamond that had started all this. Big as his fist and worth a kingdom, maybe two. “With this?”
“You palmed it while we were in the strong room.” Kyr’s mercy, he needed to kiss her, now and for a long, long time.
Another flick and the diamond was gone. She stood and dusted herself down, cocked her head as if listening. Van Gast could hear it too—the unmistakable sound of guards closing in, a yelp as one fell through a salt-rotted plank and into the room below. Yet Van Gast’s legs seemed turned to damp rags, and whatever strength he had was leached away by the black lines on his arm.
“You go. I’ll wriggle out of it somehow. But I took this bond because you did it once for me, and I needed you to know you could trust me. And I took this bond so that you could escape. Because I need you to be alive more than I need me to be. Because no matter what you think, I’ll never catch you, not all the way. Not my Butterfly Josie. Even if I caught you, you’d still be freer than the wind. That’s how I love it, and you.”
Josie snorted in disgust, dragged him to his feet and looked him in the eye. No softness there, only hard steel and harder determination. “So you’re going to quit on me now? The ship’s not far. Just past this next alley, round the corner and…not far. I’ll do you a deal, Andor Van Gast. A one-time only offer, never to be repeated.”
She danced to the edge of the roof and looked over, calculated the distance to the next building, to the ground. When she turned back she was grinning, capricious as the sea, as unpredictable, loving and vicious, and all he ever wanted.
“Catch me just once, Van Gast, catch me today, and I’ll love you forever.”
With that she dropped over the edge, out of sight, the only hint of her a joyous jingle of her bells.
It was his last, only, best chance. It was everything he needed to get his feet moving, to get him running. He forgot the black of his arm, the lances of pain, the bone-aching weariness as he took the drop, rolled and ran on. He forgot guards behind him, forgot his ship, forgot everything but this, the joy/fear thrilling in him, making him laugh as he ran, despite everything. He was Van Gast, the rack to beat, he was good, better than good, and the bastards would never catch him.
The instant his feet hit the deck, Skrymir bellowed for the crew to cast off, and Holden was already firing cannon at the guards behind him. He didn’t care, not about the guards, not about the cannon deafening him, not even about the swell of the tide as it took them away from their berth, the snap of the sails, the scent of the sea.
He staggered as the ship caught him by surprise, and onto Josie as she stood by