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I blow a breath out through my teeth and step forward, catching the edges of his jacket between my fingers.
He startles and jerks his hands down.
“Mind your mettle,” I say as I work the buttons.
He blinks. Scowls. “I told you—”
“You told me a lot of things. Maybe you could shut up for a minute and let me think.”
He shuts up, but I don’t think. Not really. I keep my eyes on my task until the last of the buttons slip free. “Take that off,” I say as I turn away to tug at the chains that will make the faucets run. The rush of water roars in the silence.
“Wash your hands and face,” I say. I plug the drain and dip my hand in the water to check the temperature. Flecks of blood and dirt had clung to my fingertips from where I touched him, but they swirl away into nothing. I start to turn back around. “I’ll see if I can find a wash—”
I stop short. The breath rushes out of my lungs.
He hasn’t just removed the jacket. He’s removed his shirt, too, leaving his upper body bare, his trousers hanging low on his hips. He doesn’t look like a blood-soaked villain anymore; he looks warm, somehow simultaneously vulnerable yet fierce. Muscle crawls across his shoulders and down his arms, revealing various scars, from what looks like a puncture wound in his abdomen to what must have been a knife or a dagger bisecting his bicep. My eyes lock on to the faint tracing of hair that starts below his navel and disappears under his waistband.
Corrick clears his throat, and I jerk my gaze up. My cheeks are on fire.
“Mind your mettle,” he says.
“I hate you.”
“Hmm. Not too much, it seems.” He steps into my space, and I nearly trip over my own feet to get out of his way, but he’s only moving to thrust his hands under the flow of water.
I’m such a fool. I can’t be lusting after him. Not now. Not ever.
My heart doesn’t care. Other parts of me don’t care. My whole body is a traitor.
“Didn’t you say you were going to find a washrag?” he says pointedly.
“Oh! Yes. Of course.” This time I do stumble over my feet. But I find a washrag and bring it back to him, trying not to look at the long slope of his back, or the way his waist narrows beneath his ribs, or the long jagged scar that’s partially hidden by his waistband.
“You have a lot of scars,” I say.
“Smugglers aren’t generally a very agreeable sort.” He bends over the basin, soaks the rag, and scrubs at his face. “Sometimes I try to ask questions and they have other ideas.”
Interesting.
But it gives my brain something to latch on to aside from wondering what his skin feels like. My cheeks are burning, but I keep my eyes locked ahead, on the far wall. “Did you get a chance to question the prisoners who escaped tonight?”
“No. I was busy reading maps with you and watching the sector go up in flames.”
“So none of them?”
He scrubs at his face with the rag again and turns to look at me. “No. Why?”
“Consul Sallister made a comment about ‘roughshod laborers.’ All the rumors said the smugglers from Steel City were young and disorganized.” I consider the explosions outside the window. “This seems really organized.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “They’re getting money from somewhere. These Benefactors must be well funded. There are many theories that the money is coming from inside the palace.” He ducks his head to splash more water on his face.
I think back to the conversations we had as Wes and Tessa, when he so adamantly declared that he wasn’t a smuggler and he wasn’t in this for personal gain. He’d looked haunted then, and I thought it was for the same reasons I was. Now I know the truth. “Did you question them? The prisoners from Steel City?”
“Yes. No one led me to believe they were part of some master plot.” He rakes his hands through his hair, which is now dripping water onto his chest. “They called for revolution and . . .” He shrugs. “You were there.”
The execution turned into a riot. Prisoners escaped.
I wonder how Corrick was planning to execute them. I’m scared to ask.
