Six - K.I. Lynn Page 0,109

days before.

Whoops. I was shocked he even remembered it was there.

Turning Mr. Dead’s head, Six used the napkin to wipe away as much blood as he could from behind the guy’s ear. It took a few passes to get the sticky, dried red to leave the skin, exposing two small dots.

“Damn, it is Two.”

Five sighed. “Down four now.”

Six stood. “And we’re about to be down six.”

Five nodded. “Let’s take them out.” He was getting pumped up at the idea of going after Nine and One.

Six shook his head and started walking back toward the staircase. “No. He’s my blood. I have to do it.”

“Why?” Five asked, saddling up next to him. “He’s a target just like any other.”

We descended the stairs and walked in an opposite direction of the sea of bodies to find another way out.

“But he’s not. He made it personal. If anyone ends Nine, it’s going to be me.”

A busted garage door provided the perfect exit. Six held out his hand, helping me climb over the fallen panels.

“What about One?” Five asked as we made our way across the broken asphalt back to the car.

“She’ll be with him,” Six said.

It made sense. I had a feeling they never really separated when we left Tennessee.

“Can you take them both?”

“We can.”

Five looked between us and my brow scrunched up, then he nodded. “Okay. I’ll find Seven, and we’ll start to get things prepped for a go on Langley.”

“It’s going to be a fight to talk to Wolesley.”

Five’s lips spread into a grin. “Not fun any other way.”

As Five stepped away, the thought itching in the back of my mind clicked. “We? As in, you and me?” I asked, turning to look at Six.

Over the last almost three months and he always said I, never we.

“Do you think you can do it? Kill?”

Could I? I’d done it before when my life was on the line, but could I hunt them down with him?

The answer was an easier conclusion than I was expecting.

Yes.

It was their actions, their first betrayal, the death of Three, that put Six in my life. If they hadn’t, we never would have met in that bar and my life would still be going, boring and all.

That meant, for months, they’d tried to kill me.

They played us in Tennessee because Nine wanted Six on their side. That was probably the only reason they didn’t kill us then. Two Cleaners could have easily been taken out, but they chose to wait.

“I already said I would do anything to survive.” I placed my hands on his chest, moving them slowly up and linking them around the back of his neck. “And the only one I want to kill me is you.” I pulled him down as I stood on the tip of my toes, reaching up to press my lips to his.

He pulled me closer, deepening the kiss.

What I said was true. If I was going to be killed, I wanted it to be him.

I stared into the mirror above the dresser, at my less-than-like-me new haircut, to go with my so-not-me dye job. If my eyes weren’t their normal bright blue, I would seriously question the reflection as being me.

But it was me, or rather Lacey.

So much had gone on the last few months that my entire twenty-eight years leading up to now seemed like an entire lifetime ago.

Paisley Anne Warren lived a lifetime ago.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the mirror, from the changes I’d endured that morphed me into Lacey Collins. But I could hear the life going on in the motel room. The TV spouting some news about something terrible, as they always seemed to do. There was the buzzing of the phone against the wood tabletop—an oddity since Jason’s death. The spray of the shower, and then the squeak of the knob as it turned off.

Steam billowed out a minute later as the door opened, but Six didn’t come out. Instead, the next sound that filtered through my ears was another buzzing. My gaze flickered to the door, then back to my shortened locks.

How long had it been since I’d had a bob? Such a small change, but needed. We’d both been stagnant in our looks for months.

I reached up, my fingers skimming across the newly snipped edge. A surreal feeling came over me, a tingling sensation.

“Lacey?”

His voice echoed around my head.

“Lacey?”

I turned to look at him and gasped, my eyes going wide.

Like mine, his hair was gone. Only, all of his was gone.