I look toward Halo.
The answer is not strategic.
It is Evie.
“I go.”
Arturo steps into my path again. “Margrave then waits.”
“Ron expects me at the bakery. Good.”
“That is exactly why it is dangerous.”
“Yes.”
My comm buzzes in my pocket.
For one impossible moment, I think it is Evie.
It is Darlene.
I answer instantly.
Her voice comes through low and vicious. “We’ve got purple jackets across the street.”
“How many?”
“Four I can see. Probably more being cowards nearby.”
“Where is Evie?”
“Behind the counter, pretending she isn’t scared and being mad at me for calling you.”
My chest tightens so hard I nearly cannot speak. “Put her on.”
“No.”
“Darlene.”
“No. You don’t get to do emotional theater while we have gang idiots outside. You want to talk to her, get here alive and do it properly.”
The line clicks dead.
For one second, I stare at the comm.
Then I move.
The black vehicle cannot navigate Halo’s narrowest streets fast enough, so I leave it behind two blocks out and run through rain, alleys, and market roads slick with oil. Sirens wail somewhere behind me. A distant explosion blooms orange over West Market. The city becomes fragments: puddles shattering under my boots, steam rising from grates, faces turning in fear, purple graffiti bleeding down walls, Sweet Tooth’s blue sign flickering ahead through rain.
I am not thinking like a man now.
I am thinking like a weapon aimed at one door.
The Poison Memories outside Sweet Tooth see me too late.
One lifts a gun.
I break his arm before he fully raises it, drive him into the side of a parked skiff, and keep moving. Another swings a shock baton. I catch it, crush it, and headbutt him hard enough to drop him unconscious. Two more scatter toward the alley. I seize one by the back of his jacket and throw him into the other. They hit the wall and go down in a tangle.
