I don’t expect him to give me my sword back and send me on my way with a casual reminder to show up for “work” tomorrow at eight P.M. He says there’s something else he wants me to see.

I hate this.

He’s not reeling off one thousand and one Ryodan commandments like I thought he would.

He’s giving me all kinds of rope to hang myself with. I tie knots with rope. And I move really fast. It’s inevitable I’ll get tangled up in all that rope somehow, with a loop or two around my neck.

How am I going to get Jo out of this?

Four of his big scarred dudes are waiting for me when I get off the elevator. I glance warily around for Barrons and TP as I wave my contract big and noisy at Ryodan’s men so they don’t give me any grief before they take it from me to put it wherever it is Ryodan plans to keep it and I’m going to have to eventually steal it back from. I’m out of protein bars and not in the mood for a pissing contest. Fortunately, TP is nowhere to be seen.

I hit the bathroom under heavy guard. What do they think I’ll do? Blow the place up? I can’t. I don’t have my backpack. No MacHalo either. They didn’t bring it when they nabbed me at Dancer’s. I’d look out a window but there aren’t any in the club. My bones tell me it’s night. I don’t take chances with Shades. I refuse to die so stupidly. “I need flashlights,” I say, blowing out of the bathroom.

One of the dudes grunts and walks away. The rest of them escort me through the subclubs. I get stared at by every Fae we pass. There’s murder in their eyes.

Something weird happens to me on the way out.

Freeze-framing feels like picking myself up mentally and shifting sideways into a different way of being, and I like it.

Now, as I walk out and see all the pissed-off faces, human and Fae, a completely different part of me gets picked up and shifted sideways without me even trying—in fact, I’m pretty sure I’m resisting—and I don’t like it one bit, because all the sudden I’m seeing my world with what feels like totally different eyeballs.

I don’t like these eyeballs. They see things wrong.

The Fae hate me. A lot of the humans do, too.

Ryodan’s men want me dead and I have no idea why he’s keeping me alive.

TP—oh, feck it—Mac, the best friend I ever had, Mac—who made me a birthday cake and hung with me and treated me cool, and sold a piece of her soul to the Gray Woman to save me, hates me, too. She wants to kill me because I killed her sister on Rowena’s orders before I ever even knew Mac existed.

Jo’s life dangles on a thread held by my completely unreliable hands.

And I have a thought that I’ve never had in my entire fourteen years of life (and I’ve had a lot of thoughts!), and it’s a little muffled (probably because I’d rather not hear it) and it goes something like this:

Geez, Dani, what the feck have you done?

I’ve always been a speedboat blasting across the whitecaps, thriving on sensation, wind in my hair, salt spray on my face, having the time of my life. Never looking back. Never seeing what happens around or behind me.

These new eyeballs see my wake. They see what I leave behind when I’ve passed.

Boats capsized. People flailing in the waves.

People I care about. I’m not talking about Dublin, my city that I always keep cool and impersonal with no real face. These people have faces.

We pass Jo. She’s already dressed and at her new post, paired with another waitress, being trained. She does look good in the uniform. She gives me a look as I pass, part exasperation, part plea to behave. Her trainer stares daggers at me. I wonder if the waitresses I killed were her friends.

“They shouldn’t have eaten so much Unseelie,” I mutter in my defense.

I try to shift back to the way I was before I got off the elevator, back to Dani “the Mega” who doesn’t give a crap.

Nothing happens.

I try it again.

Still feeling the breeze from that guillotine.

One of Ryodan’s dudes, Lor, hands me a flashlight. “Gee,” I say, “thanks. A whole flashlight against a city of Shades.”

“They moved on. Mostly.”

I roll my eyes. “ ‘Mostly’ might be okay with you ’cause, like, they don’t eat whatever you dudes are. Why is that?”

Lor doesn’t answer me, but I didn’t expect him to.

The second we reach the door, I freeze-frame.

I can outrun anything.

Even myself.

EIGHT

“And I’m hungry like the wolf”

I click on a flashlight and head for the nearest store I know of that still has Snickers on the shelves so I can replenish my supplies. I have a bottomless stomach and it hurts from hunger. That’s a feeling I take pains to avoid. Especially when my head’s still throbbing so bad. I’d put ice on it, but if I’ve been out for three days, it’s too late. Ice only works if you use it right away. I root through my hair, find the swollen, bruised patch at my nape that’s causing so much pain, and sigh, wondering what I hit and when. Some folks think since I’m always banged up I’m a glutton for pain. I’m not. It’s just the way my life is.