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When I step out into the foggy bathroom, the door is open and Barron’s there to hand me a towel. He gives me a quick glance before I wrap it around me. I try to turn to one side, but I’m not fast enough.
“What’s that on your leg?”
I realize that naked means easy to check for amulets.
“Hey,” I say, “there’s this thing called privacy. You might have heard of it.”
He grabs my shoulder. “Let me see your leg.”
I clutch the towel tighter. “It’s just a cut.”
He lets me push past him into the hall, but Anton’s waiting in my bedroom.
“Grab him,” Barron says, and Anton kicks my leg, knocking me off balance. I fall onto the bed, which isn’t bad except that Barron locks his arm under my jaw and pulls me up on the mattress.
“Get off me!” I yell. The towel is gone and I struggle, embarrassed and scared, while Anton reaches into his back pocket.
A knife blade springs up out of the ebonized hilt in his hands. “What have we here?” Anton says, poking my calf where the stones are sewn up in my skin. The whole area throbs when he presses on it. Infected.
When he cuts me, I can’t help it. I scream.
17
“SLICK,” BARRON SAYS, looking at my bloody leg. He places the remains of three wet, red pebbles into his pocket. “How long have you been using that trick?”
Even the best plans go wrong. The universe doesn’t like anyone thinking it can be controlled. All plans require some degree of improvisation, but they usually don’t go wrong right away.
“Shove it up your ass,” I say, which is pretty juvenile, but he’s my brother and he brings that out of me. “Come on, hit me so hard that you knock a couple of my teeth out. That will be a great party look.”
“He remembers,” says Anton, shaking his head. “We’re screwed to the wall, Barron. Nice work.”
Barron curses under his breath. “Who did you tell?”
I turn to him. “I know I’m a worker. A transformation worker. Let’s start with you telling me why you made me think I wasn’t one.”
They exchange a maddening glance, like somehow they’re going to be able to call a time-out, go into the other room, and discuss what to tell me.
Barron sits on the end of my bed and composes himself. “Mom wanted us to lie to you. What you are—it’s dangerous. She thought you’d be better off if you didn’t know until you were older. When you figured it out as a little kid, she asked me to make you forget. That’s how it started.”
I look down at the gory sheets and the sluggishly bleeding hole in my leg. “So she knows? About all of this?”
Barron shakes his head, ignoring the dark look Anton sends in his direction. “No. We didn’t want her to worry. Jail’s been tough on her and the blowback from her work makes her emotions unstable. But money’s been tight, even before she went inside. You know that.”
I nod slowly.
“Philip came up with a plan. Assassination is the biggest, quickest money there is. And the crazy money goes to killers who are reliable—who can get rid of bodies permanently. With you, we could do that.” He says all this like I’m going to be thrilled with my brother’s cleverness. “Anton made sure that no one knew who was really responsible for the murders.”
“And I don’t get a say? In being a killer?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “You were just a kid. It didn’t seem fair for you to go through a bunch of trauma. So we made you forget everything you did. We were trying to protect—”
“How about kicking me in the stomach? Was that the right amount of trauma? Or how about that?” I point to my leg. “You still protecting me, Barron?”
Barron opens his mouth, but no clever lie comes out.
“Philip tried to protect you,” Anton says. “You wouldn’t shut your mouth. You’ve had it easy. Time to toughen up.” He hesitates, his tone becoming less sure. “When I was your age, I knew enough not to talk back to worker royalty. My mother cut these marks in my throat when I turned thirteen and reopened them to pack them with ash every year until I turned twenty. To remind me who I was.” He touches the scars pearling his neck. “To remind me pain is the best teacher.”
“Just tell us if you talked to anyone,” Barron says.
