“I can’t let them keep me closed,” I say. “If I do, everybody knows they can scare me. They’ll come back. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but they’ll know. And everyone else will know too.”
Nara exhales slowly. “This is not your fault.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I think of Kauss’s face in the alley, rain running over scales and old scars, fury burning in him like something ancient dragged out of the dark. I think of his hands hovering before he touched me, the way he lifted me like I was breakable in ways that mattered. I think of his voice saying my name, not as a question, not as a warning, but like he had found something he could not bear to lose even though he had no right to it.
“I know they did it,” I say. “I know Kauss stopped it. I know you helped me. But Sweet Tooth is mine, Mira. If I hide today, it feels like they get a piece of it.”
Nara closes her eyes briefly. “I hate when you make emotionally coherent points. It interferes with my righteous anger.”
“So I can open?”
“You can sit in the kitchen and supervise for two hours while Darlene does the heavy work.”
“That is opening.”
“That is my generous compromise.”
“I accept your tyrannical mercy.”
“You will not lift anything heavier than a spoon.”
“What about a tray?”
“A spoon, Evie.”
“A large spoon?”
“Do not test me.”
By the time Darlene arrives, Nara has helped me wash, change, and apply enough concealer that my bruised cheek looks merely tragic instead of alarming. My left eye is still puffy, and the cut near my hairline pulls when I raise my eyebrows, which I discover only after making too many sarcastic facial expressions at my reflection. I choose a yellow sweater because if I look like sunshine, perhaps people will be less likely to ask whether I spent the night being used as a training dummy by idiots with gang tattoos.
Darlene comes through the back door at five thirty-one, cigarette already in hand, and stops so abruptly the door bumps her heel.
“Well,” she says. “I see you’ve decided to become a cautionary tale with lip gloss.”
“I am not wearing lip gloss.”
“Still defenseless, then.”
Nara steps out from behind me. “She is under orders.”
Darlene points the cigarette at her. “Did those orders include staying upstairs in bed?”
“They did.”
“Then why is she standing in my kitchen looking like a peach somebody dropped down a staircase?”
“I revised the plan under duress.”
“I have that effect,” I say.
Both women look at me.
I lift my hands carefully. “I am going to sit down now.”
