“I’m sorry . . . you shot Mac Murphy in the leg?”
For the first time since Dorothy arrived, Chandra looked at her with something like her old warmth. “It was awesome,” she said, grinning. “Ash was all, where do you keep your girls, and then Mac said—”
“Off topic,” Zora murmured, cutting off Chandra. Turning to Dorothy, she asked, “Is that why Mac put a bounty on Ash’s head? Because of the thing at his brothel?”
“What?” Dorothy shook her head. “No, that’s not it at all. Mac needed someone to take the fall for—”
Dorothy stopped talking abruptly. Roman’s death felt like it had happened a lifetime ago, and yet the memory of it played in her mind like a movie waiting to be cued.
She saw Roman’s chest blossoming with blood. Roman falling to the ground, his eyes going distant. And Mac’s hand on the trigger. She had to close her eyes for a moment to stop tears from spilling on to her cheeks. Oh, Roman.
It was too much, all this pain. Just when she thought she’d gotten a handle on herself, some other memory roared up inside her mind, threatening to ruin her.
When she found her voice again, Dorothy said, as carefully as she could, “We went to the future, Mac, Roman, and I. We’d planned to kill Mac, but Ash showed up before we could take him out. There was a fight and . . . and Mac shot Roman.”
Dorothy wasn’t sure what sort of reaction she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this one. Chandra released a sharp “Oh!” and threw a hand over her mouth. Zora’s face fell, and something in her eyes went complicated and distant. Willis lowered his massive head to his hands.
Dorothy shifted uncomfortably in her seat, a shot of irritation moving through her. Who were these people to mourn Roman? They’d turned their backs on him, just as they were turning their backs on her now. She’d been his only real friend in the end.
More tears pooled in her eyes, but she blinked, hard, refusing to let them fall.
“I never got the feeling you all were close,” she said, voice flat.
“He was one of us before everything happened,” Willis reminded her, wiping a tear from his eye.
Dorothy was unmoved. “He was my friend, too. My best friend.” She didn’t say my only friend, but that’s what she’d meant. Clearing her throat, she continued. “After Roman’s death, Mac told the Cirkus that Ash was the one who’d killed him, and he offered a reward for anyone who brought him in. They’re probably out looking for me, too. By now, they’ll have seen that I’m not in my room.”
“Is that why you killed Ash?” Zora asked. “To regain favor with the Cirkus by taking out the man they think murdered their leader?”
“I didn’t kill Ash,” Dorothy insisted, but she was having a hard time mustering up the same indignation she had before. They didn’t believe her. Perhaps they never would believe her. What was the use of trying to convince them?
Tired now, she added, “I’m telling you, before he showed up in the future, I hadn’t even seen Ash, not since that night at the ball!”
There was a beat of silence, all of them staring at her. Dorothy narrowed her eyes. There was something they weren’t telling her.
“You’re lying,” Zora said, voice flat. But, behind her, Chandra was frowning. She opened her mouth, looking like she wanted to add something, but Zora shot her a look, and she shut it again.
Dorothy kept her eyes trained on Chandra, nerves creeping up her skin. What had she been about to say?
“You should go,” Zora said.
Dorothy could’ve laughed. “Go? I can’t go anywhere. If the Cirkus finds that I’ve escaped, they’ll kill me.”
Zora seemed unmoved. “You can’t stay here.”
Dorothy scrubbed a hand over her face, standing. She tried to convince herself that none of this mattered, that she didn’t need these people, that she was better off without them.
But when she met Zora’s eyes, she felt a thrill of pain move through her. She couldn’t lie to herself anymore.
It mattered. They mattered. Without them, she was lost.
“You trusted me once,” Dorothy said, working hard to keep her voice steady. “You might not remember that, but I do. I wish you could trust me now.”
Zora gave her a strange look. “Trust you? I don’t even know who you are. Are you Quinn? Or are you Dorothy?”
Dorothy, quiet, realized that she didn’t know the answer to that question, either.
3
Back at the Fairmont.