another, the sound echoing through the air around them. “Afraid to step into the light?”
“Are you in such a rush to kill me, little Fox? I thought we might talk a while first.”
“I’m done talking to you.”
“Fine, then. You can listen. You’ve chosen the losing team.” Mac clucked his tongue. “But, hey, I’m not such a bad guy. There’s still time to change your mind.”
Dorothy fixed him with a cool stare. “Is that so?”
“Do you really think you can win this game?” His nose separated from the darkness first, and then his big, thick lips. “I’ve already bribed the rest of your gang. They were cheap, too. Eliza turned her back on you for a new pair of boots. Donovan was more expensive; he wanted a knife.”
Dorothy felt a sharp twist in her gut. “You’re lying.”
“Bennett was the cheapest,” Mac continued, grinning. “All he’d wanted was a peach. One lousy peach.” Mac laughed, shaking his head. “They must’ve hated you. And, once those two idiots take each other out, you’ll be all alone, again. And what am I supposed to do with you then?”
Dorothy tilted her dagger, letting her blade catch the light. “Come closer and tell me.”
She could see his eyes now. They were flat and black, like a shark’s, and they slid past her, coming to rest on the scene unfolding on the other side of the room.
A smile twitched at the corner of his lips. “I mean it. They’re going to kill each other. And then you and me will have a very different conversation.”
Kill each other?
Dorothy hesitated, and a rushing sound filled her ears.
Hands still tight on her daggers, she turned—
48
Ash
Ash slammed into the ground, his fingers twitching, his mouth filling with dust and dirt. Jagged, black rocks scraped into his cheeks, and remnants of shattered glass bit into his skin.
He coughed, hard, and tried to push himself back up, but Roman was on his back, one arm braced against his neck and the base of his skull.
There was a click that could’ve been a thumb sliding over the hammer of a gun—that was probably a thumb sliding over the hammer of a gun—and cold metal pressed up against the back of Ash’s neck.
Ash closed his eyes. Everything inside of him went still.
A second passed, and then another. Roman swore under his breath. But he didn’t fire.
Ash was sweating, shaking, trying to think. There was a rushing sound in his ears, and blood in his eyes.
Why wasn’t he firing?
The answer came to him in a flash of image: a boy on his knees in a muddy clearing, surrounded on all sides by black tents. A little girl lying in his arms, limbs rigid, eyes vacant and staring . . .
Ash felt like he was still standing at the edge of that clearing, mud beneath his boots and rain pounding at his shoulders as he watched Roman’s little sister die on the ground before him.
“Why didn’t you tell me about her?” he asked, his voice thick. It was the same question he’d asked Roman back at the clearing in 2074, and he found that he couldn’t let it go. “Did you really think I wouldn’t have understood?”
Roman was breathing hard. Through clenched teeth, he said, “Don’t you dare talk to me about Cassia.”
“You were my best friend,” Ash continued. And now another memory was invading his mind, crowding out the images of Cassia’s death:
It was the morning after Roman’s betrayal. Ash had woken to find his gun stolen, and a crumpled piece of notebook paper in its place. Scrawled across it were the words So long, old friend, written in Roman’s familiar, slanted hand.
Ash had kept the note with him that entire day, clenched in one hand as he watched the still, black waters, waiting for Roman to return. He would’ve forgiven him. He would’ve forgiven Roman almost anything, back then. But Roman had never come back.
Now, Roman clenched his eyes shut. His hand, still holding the gun, was trembling. “Don’t.”
How long had he been holding on to this pain? Ash wondered. It had been two years since Cassia died, a year since Roman had defected to the Black Cirkus. And all that time he’d spent plotting and planning, trying to find a way back to her.
“I would’ve helped you,” Ash said, and meant it. He would’ve done whatever Roman had asked of him and needed no explanation, just as he would’ve for Chandra or Willis or Zora. “If you had told me what you wanted to