his body under the arms and dragged him toward the washroom. He jerked and struggled, but it was pointless. Nita had gotten rid of her myostatin, so her muscles had no limit on how strong they could get, and she had been training them. She had superhuman strength, and he was dying of blood loss.
She shoved him in a stall, and he lolled against the wall, eyes glassy and vacant, mouth still stuffed with bagel. Frowning, she took the bagel bag, flushed the receipt and bag down the toilet, then soaked the bagel until it was a soggy disgusting mess, ripped it into pieces, and flushed it too. She didn’t want anything to be able to tie her to his death.
She locked the stall from the inside and wiggled across the floor into the neighboring stall to avoid crawling through the trail of blood. After exiting the stall, she grabbed water and paper towels and mopped up the bloody trail on the concrete.
As she scrubbed, anger bubbled in her chest. She hadn’t needed this complication today. She didn’t want to have to deal with this. It hadn’t taken her long to handle—she should probably be disturbed by that, it was probably a bad sign how efficient she’d become at taking out black market dealers, but she didn’t mind the efficiency she’d gained. She didn’t even feel guilty about it anymore, it was just another task that simply had to be completed.
No, what pissed her off about all this was the fact that she was so notorious now that she couldn’t walk outside for fifteen minutes without attracting a hunter.
She threw the bloody paper towels in the trash and then covered them with clean ones. She needed to leave Toronto. This city was a death trap for her.
Part of her wanted to stay, to take every single one of these dealers out, to wreak havoc on all of them for trying to kill her and sell her. But she’d tried that, and it had only made things worse. She needed to be smart about this, and being smart meant that she had to think big, plan ahead, and not just murder everyone in her way. She needed to make them all too afraid to try to kill her.
And for that, she needed Fabricio’s information. And she needed Kovit’s help—she couldn’t afford for him to have the whole planet trying to murder him.
Kovit. She checked the time and swore, leaving the bathroom at a brisk pace. She’d been delayed too much already.
She had an INHUP agent to meet.
Eight
AS SHE NEARED the Pickle Barrel, she noticed that the old man was still sitting with his breakfast in the window to the restaurant, the hostess was still texting. The man looking at books was gone of course, dead in the bathroom. Nita eyed the hostess and the man eating breakfast, but didn’t let her gaze linger. There was no way to know if they were INHUP.
In front of the Pickle Barrel stood a woman. She was short, barely five feet, with long black hair pulled into a professional bun at the nape of her neck. Her brown skin was the same warm shade as Kovit’s, and she shared his striking eyebrows and black eyes.
Nita let out a breath. Patchaya Vidthuvitsai had come.
But the question was, had she been followed? And if she had, was she the one instigating it, or was INHUP doing it independently of her?
You’re being paranoid again, one part of her mind whispered.
Better to be safe than sorry . . . And you were just followed and had to murder someone and hide a body in a bathroom. Is it really paranoia when it happens?
Touché, brain, touché.
So she casually walked by and didn’t even look up as she passed Kovit’s sister. Once outside the mall, she tipped her head back and looked around. There was construction on the opposite side of the street, but the subway entrance was clear.
Nita crossed the street and stood under the shelter of a mesh fence, pulled out her phone, and texted the same number she’d used last night: The subway entrance across the street.
A few moments later, Patchaya left the mall and made her way to the streetlights. As she waited for the lights to change, the man who’d been eating breakfast at the Pickle Barrel came out the front door of the shopping mall.
Nita’s eyes narrowed. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. But Nita didn’t stay alive by assuming the best. And she’d already had