Page 39 of Spade

“He’s not going to turn me in, Jenna. We have an agreement.”

“You fucked him, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“I do what I have to do to survive.”

Jenna stared, her mouth twisted. “I always thought you’d be the smart one. I always said—she’s the only one of us who’ll live to see forty.”

“Maybe I will.”

She shook her head, letting the hair fall over her eyes. “No you won’t. Not if you keep doing this.”

The orange light ticked over a notch as a car passed outside, making her look like she was on the inside of a slow-spinning carousel. She plucked at her cut, running her thumbnail along the edge of a fresh patch. “Tell me what it’s like,” she said. “The killing.”

I expected her to spit it like a dare, but her voice had lost its point. She sounded… not vulnerable, exactly, but too direct for comfort.

“It’s work,” I said. “Every time it’s the same. You pick, you prep, you wait. When the moment comes, there’s a click, like you’ve just solved a combination lock. And then you’re done. Everything after that is cleanup.”

She snorted. “You never even get a rush out of it?”

“Not anymore.”

“Then why?”

I set the beer on the table, letting the condensation pool under it. “Because the world needs people who do the things no one else will.”

“That’s your excuse? That’s it?”

I shrugged. “What’s yours?”

She didn’t answer, just watched me with her wolf-pup eyes. Finally: “How many?”

I thought about lying, but the energy it would take to sell it seemed excessive. “Twenty-four,” I said. “Maybe twenty-six.”

Her mouth curled up at the edge, not quite a smile. “You know your count better than your age.”

“I keep records,” I said.

“You always did.”

She reached into her pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Lit one. She blew smoke at the ceiling, eyes never leaving mine.

“You want to know why I came tonight?”

“No,” I said again.

“Tough,” she said, the smoke curling between her teeth. “I came because you don’t know how to ask for help, and I know you’re in over your head.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. You would’ve kicked me out by now if you weren’t.”

I leaned forward, elbows on knees to match her posture. “What do you want, Jenna?”

She met my eyes, all performance stripped out, just the bone underneath. “I want you to stop being a fucking martyr for people who don’t know your name. I want you to come with me. Or at least get rid of the cop.”

“He’s not going to stop,” I said. “He’s obsessed.”

Jenna flicked ash onto my floor. “He’s a badge. They always want to own the thing they can’t destroy.”