Do you think control means you pick who you hurt? Because that’s not control. Control is when you don’t hurt anyone, when you resist the violence within. Control isn’t just picking your victim.”
Kovit was quiet. After a long moment, he looked down at the gun in Patchaya’s hand and whispered, “Are you going to kill me?”
Patchaya laughed, wet and broken, her fingers tight on her gun. “I came here to stop you. To avenge Bran, to put an end to this.”
Kovit swallowed. “Pat—”
“Shut up.”
They stood there for a heartbeat, then two, completely silent, Patchaya’s chest heaving as she steadied herself, gun high, and Kovit stared at her with dark eyes.
Finally, Patchaya lowered her gun and turned away, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Don’t talk to me, now or ever again. As far as I’m concerned, my brother died ten years ago.”
Then she spun around and left, slamming the door behind her.
Kovit stared after her, before slowly falling to his knees on the old carpeting.
Nita’s muscles loosened. It was okay. Patchaya hadn’t been able to go through with it. Her mother’s plan had failed. Kovit was all right.
Nita’s mother clicked her tongue, jerking Nita’s attention away from the screen. “Well, that’s annoying.” She sighed heavily. “But as they say, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”
Then she raised her own gun and shot through the paper-thin wall into the room next door.
Thirty-Seven
KOVIT HAD BEEN SHOT BEFORE. When they’d both been trapped in a cage together in Death Market, they’d tried to escape their captors, a fight had ensued, and a stray bullet had caught Kovit in the side. Nita had stitched it up, he took antibiotics, and he recovered.
But a stray bullet is not the same as a bullet shot by her mother aiming to kill.
It didn’t matter that it was through the wall, or that they were watching through a TV screen. Her mother had practice and aim, and Kovit went down in a spray of blood.
Nita tried to scream, but she was paralyzed, and all that came out was a terrible, broken croak.
Her mother nodded approvingly as Kovit choked onscreen, his body sprawled across the floor, blood seeping out and pooling around him.
“I’ve still got it.” Her mother laughed, harsh and cruel.
Tears streamed down Nita’s face at her own uselessness.
On the screen, Kovit gasped, hand weakly coming to cover his wound, even as the blood pooled around him.
A sudden sharp pain rocked Nita’s spine, and it took her a heartbeat to realize her mother had pulled the knife out. She immediately started healing the damage.
“Go say goodbye to your little monster. I imagine you’ll need a little bit of alone time to think through things. I’ll be waiting for you in my hotel.” Her mother’s eyes hardened. “Don’t make me wait long.”
Then with a cheery wave, her mother was out the door and gone.
Nita didn’t focus on the future, on what she’d do about her mother, she spent all her energy healing her spine, re-fusing vertebrae and nerves. The moment she could move, she was out the door and smashing into her and Kovit’s room.
Kovit turned to her when she entered, his face spattered with his own blood, eyes unfocused. “Nita?”
“I’m here,” she whispered, yanking out her phone and calling 911. “I’m here, Kovit. It’s going to be okay.”
His eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings, and he gave her a cracked smile. “I don’t think it is.”
The blood was pooling around him, and the stain on his shirt was a deep, dark red. His chest was rising and falling in jerky motions, and his breathing was wrong. There was a strange, sucking sound coming from his chest when he inhaled, and glops of blood burbled against his shirt.
“Don’t talk like that,” Nita hissed. “You’re going to get through this.”
He just smiled slightly and fumbled for her hand with his bloody one. “Thank you, Nita. For everything.”
“Stop talking like that.” Her voice rose in panic, because the more he spoke, the more real it made things.
His eyes fluttered closed. “It’s okay. This is how it was always going to end for me.”
“Bullshit!” she screamed, hating that he was so accepting, that he wouldn’t fight back against the path that the world had put him on. “That’s bullshit, and you know it!”
But he didn’t respond, his chest gasping and gaping, and his head lolling limply.
Then she was connected to the emergency line, and she had to listen to them rather than to Kovit. She covered his wound