“I don’t know why you’re so proud,” Sophia teased from beside him. “I wouldn’t be, if the only people I could make swoon were lonely, forty-year-old women.”
“I believe what you keep meaning to say is ‘thank you,’” Jac said.
“So you keep trying to remind me.” She leaned into his shoulder.
Jac bristled. He didn’t want to dredge up their same, familiar fight, but he couldn’t help himself as he swept aside the taffy wrappers on the bar and pulled their ledger closer. On it was a list of dens, some circled, some crossed off.
“I don’t understand why Charles hasn’t made a move yet,” he murmured. “That doesn’t seem like him.”
“Stop doing that,” Sophia said sharply. She turned her head so her chin rested on his shoulder, and Jac could feel her warm breath on his neck. He’d seen Sophia flirt with enough den managers to know how she used charm like a weapon, but Jac wouldn’t fall for it—not even if he wanted to.
“Then tell me the truth,” he told her, forcing himself not to stare at her lips. “Tell me why Delia never recognized you. Tell me what happened between you and your family.”
Sophia pulled away from him with pursed lips. Jac scolded himself—hewasstaring. “You’re right—this isn’t like him. Charles hits when you don’t expect it. He hits where you are weakest, and he hits until you break.” She shook her head. “Now I’m anxious. Does that make you happy?”
He sighed and stood up. “I’m going to find the washroom.”
Before he moved away, Sophia reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. She threw them across the bar.
“What was that for?” he snapped, even though he knew his smoking habit had worsened recently. “I’m just going to piss.”
“Then it shouldn’t matter to you.” She waved him away, her face buried in the ledger, her fingers fiddling with her coin.
Jac groaned under his breath as he made his way around back. They made good partners, but she still kept a wall between them, between her and the world. And she only reached over that wall to steal his cigarettes.
So what if she cares?he thought angrily. If she cared more, she’d treat him like a real partner, and she’d tell him the truth.
After he finished in the washroom, Jac opened the door back into the hallway and was startled to find a man standing behind it.
“Oh, um, sorry,” Jac muttered, moving aside to let him walk past.
The man shoved something in Jac’s hands. A red envelope. Jac stared at the words on the front for several moments until he worked out what they said.Todd Walsh.
As the man who’d delivered it hurried out the back door, Jac frowned and tore the envelope open. He spilled the contents into his hand, and a syringe gleamed on his palm. It was filled with a clear, murky liquid—a high enough dose of Lullaby to lull out for twelve hours, maybe even more.
Jac froze. He knew where the delivery had come from, and suddenly, it was like the past two years of sobriety meant nothing. No matter how many times he’d resisted, and prayed, and made himself stronger, he hadn’t changed.
He hits where you are weakest.
Jac’s palms began to sweat, and all of his worries from the past few weeks surged inside him. That Charles would come for them. That the North Side would crumble. That Levi’s stunts would finally get him killed. All the scenarios he’d dwelled on returned to him in such vivid detail that he could almost convince himself they’d already happened. His heart beat furiously, his pulse anxious and all over the place. His lungs felt tight. His life might be different now, but he was still trapped, still overwhelmed.
And part of him still wanted the fix.
He tried to pull himself out of it. He thought about the smell of gasoline at the den he’d burned, and how good it had felt to destroy a place so like the others that haunted him. But still, he didn’t let go of the syringe. He didn’t move at all.
He thought about how he’d almost died. About the man whose name Jac now used as his own, and how cold he’d been when Jac had found him...only a few hours too late. Jac shivered, but it still wasn’t enough to let go.
And so he thought about Levi. Who had dragged him unconscious to New Reynes North General. Who had trusted him. Who would blame himself.
Jac dropped the syringe on the floor and shattered it beneath his boot.
“Muck,” he choked out, running his hands through his hair. He took several deep, steady breaths, but he couldn’t stop himself from shaking.
I didn’t do it, he thought.I crushed it.
But another thought was louder.He hits where you are weakest, and he hits until you break.
Vomit bubbled up his throat. His fears were all he could see. The North Side falling. Levi dying. Himself fading.
