Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“What color band should we do tonight?” I ask him.
“Red?” he asks gently.
“Yes, red,” I say.
“Good plan,” he says.
We walk to the door. I check the knob twice, then a third time because Bob’s voice in my head is alive and well and I am my mother’s daughter in some ways that infuriate me and keep me alive. The Ring camera’s on. The hall is ordinary. The elevator is slow. The city outside is not.
Knight is there to pick us up, our getaway driver in case it’s needed.
In the car, Arrow reaches across the backseat and finds my hand. He doesn’t lace our fingers. Instead, he rests his hand on mine. The distinction matters. We drive past the store that sells locally sourced ice and Instagram regrets. We pass the mural with the magenta fish. We pass the alley where Gage once tried to adopt a raccoon and I had to explain rabies politely.
“Club Greed,” I say, as the neon swoop of the G appears in the corner of my vision like a stepmother with money.
“Hopefully Devereaux can help.”
“If I see Coleman, I will be okay,” I promise, and he squeezes my hand once like a seal on a document.
“And after?” he asks, like he knows my brain has already moved three moves ahead.
“Stonehouse,” I say. “Peacocks. Mirrors. A drink we don’t drink. And then, we make a list of who flinched when.”
“And then,” he says, “we sleep.”
“Lie,” I say with a smile.
“Yeah,” he admits.
Knight parks. We step out. The night is a sharp inhale. Club Greed’s foyer smells like bergamot and quiet power. Adele is on the rope with cheekbones and a smile that warns and welcomes in equal measure.
“Back again,” she says. “Yellow?”
“Red,” I say, holding up my wrist.
“And a chat with Mr. Huxley,” Arrow adds.
Adele’s eyes flick to the little sphinx emoji in Arrow’s text and back. “He’s expecting you. Pride, corner seat.”
I don’t plan to fight. I do plan to watch. I do plan to listen. I do plan to peel back whatever quiet the Five (well, now the Four) have wrapped themselves in and find the shape of the person who wrote the check.
The room opens. The mirrors know how to lie and tell the truth at once. Pride hums. My pulse hums. Arrow’s hand at my back is a line on a map that says you are here.
I am. And if the Four are radio silent, we’ll be the static that makes them adjust their dial and, in doing so, finally make a mistake.
34
Arrow
Club Greed always feels like the inside of a held breath. Tonight it feels like two.
The G glows against the facade like a conspirator’s wink, and the foyer smells like money and a conditional welcome.
Juno slides in at my side, red dress and red band on her wrist like a dare. Her hand finds my sleeve for one second then drops, the touch like a spark against a fuse that insists on being lit.
We move through the bar and into Pride, and the room swallows us the way water swallows a pebble—silent on the surface, ripples everywhere else. Mirrors glitter like indifferent constellations. The frames in the center show nothing and everything depending on angle. The corner banquette we like is open, and I slide in first so I can see both doors.
Juno takes the outside seat and then turns toward me, knees brushing, eyes dark with the gravity that’s been between us since a door and a morning and the word love. Her mouth is a soft problem I can solve in ten thousand careful ways and exactly one reckless one. We’re fifteen minutes early. The plan says talk. The part of me that’s been vibrating since I knocked on her door says don’t waste the room.
She must see it, because her smile cuts sideways, wicked and shy all at once. “We have eleven minutes,” she says. “Ten if you insist on punctuality.”
“Seven if I count transitions like a project manager,” I murmur, and her almost-laugh is my favorite sound the band has never sampled.
We lean. It’s not rushed. It’s not polite. It’s the slow kind, the kind that says we’re choosing this even when the world is a five-alarm problem. Her mouth meets mine and the room falls away in a soft, grateful hush. I kiss her like I promised I would—meticulous, a little bossy, hand at her jaw guiding the angle, the other warm on her thigh where the dress ends and my restraint begins. She answers with a hum I feel under my ribs. The first pass is relief, the second a reminder, the third a small declaration.
“Okay?” I whisper against her smile.
“Unfair,” she breathes, which in our new dictionary is a full-body yes. Her fingers slide up into my hair and tug just enough to make my breath catch.