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“No, I’m not cut out for this industry.”
He stared at me with those eyes so dark, reflecting the moon. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
Could he see the darkness inside me?
Like recognizing like.
A flicker of something sparked inside me, the smallest part that made me feel like I had found aplacein this city, something I had never had before. A place with him.
What would it feel like to run an empire like that?
Touching my fingers gently to the gun’s cold metal, I shuddered again. There was so much power in that weapon, so much power in Emrick. Did I trust myself to hold that power again? Emrick was staring at the three people in front of him, and when I managed to slide the gun from his grip, their stance relaxed.
Until I pointed the weapon at them again.
“There’s another way, Emrick,” I muttered, my hands steady and arms outstretched in front of me. “You don’t need to kill.”
The confusion was evident in the strangers’ faces until a shot rang out into the silent night, the sound disappearing quickly over the flat plane with nothing to create reverberations. One of the men fell, clutching his knee and screaming. I knew what I was doing—the part of me I didn’t want to acknowledge knew at least. Sometimes it was as though there were two people inside me, but since meeting Emrick, those two people were starting to merge.
The shot was directly to his knee.
He’d be able to walk again, one day.
Maybe.
Unlikely.
But that wasn’t my problem.
The woman dropped to her knees beside the man, throwing a terrified glance at me, as though she had been expecting me to protect her.
She had no idea that I did.
I just saved their lives.
“Go,” Emrick said.
The woman’s lip trembled. “Where?”
“I don’t care. Away from my city, away from me. You stay the fuck out ofmycity because I swear, if you’re ever seen there again, you won’t get another chance.” Emrick glanced at me, and I lifted the gun again in warning before Emrick approached them. The man on the ground cowered, and when Emrick dug his thumb into the bullet wound, he screamed anew. Emrick continued talking as if nothing had happened, blood spurting out of the wound onto his hand and the man’s jeans. “Don’t ever speak of me, orher, to anyone. Nowgo.”
The two of them helped their injured friend, supporting him between them and together they hobbled away and disappeared into the darkness.
Snatching the gun from me without looking at my face, he flicked the safety on before stashing the gun back in his pants, and I released a pent-up sigh.
Emrick started pacing as the silence grew around us, running his fingers through his hair and muttering to himself, “That was a mistake.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“It was a mistake to bring you.”
“Whydidyou bring me?”
He didn’t answer and continued his pacing. Then repeated, “It was a mistake to let them go.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
He was on me, gripping my face and smearing his victim’s blood on my cheek and neck. It was still warm, but I didn’t flinch. “What would you know of this life?”
