So I turned the water in the shower back on, then stopped up the tub so I could wash my clothes in it, before leaving the bathroom and going back into the bedroom. The door had swung open a crack, letting me see out into the main part of the apartment. Coral was pacing back and forth in front of the couch, holding a phone up to her ear. I stayed in the bedroom, not wanting to disturb her.

“Yeah, tell Reggie that I’ve got a live one for him,” she said. “A new girl. I haven’t seen her around before, but she can’t be more than thirteen, fourteen tops. She doesn’t seem like she’s been working, so we are talking fresh, new territory here. Know what I mean?”

She laughed, but her cheerful chuckle froze me to the bone. My breath stuck in my throat in surprise, and my damp fingers dug into the slick fabric in my hands.

“So how much will he give me for her?” Coral said, her voice as hard and brittle as her face. “I want some pills too. Double what he gave me for the last girl. Enough to last me at least a month this time.”

Fear spiked through me, sweeping away the lingering warmth of the shower. She was . . . she wanted to . . . she was going to sell me to her pimp.

The person on the other end said something, and Coral smiled.

“Good. She’s taking a shower right now, so tell him to come get her while she’s clean.” She paused, listening to the other person again. “He can be here in five minutes? Perfect. I’ll be waiting.”

I gasped. Her pimp was already on his way, and if he found me here, he’d beat me and rape me and then drug me up and make me work for him.

I had to get out of here—now.

I rushed back into the bathroom and started pulling on my clothes as fast as I could with my trembling hands. It was hard shoving the dirty layers of cloth on over my damp skin, but I managed it.

I didn’t want to think about what would happen if I didn’t.

I left the water in the bathroom running so Coral would think that I was still in the shower. I couldn’t go out through the front of the apartment, not with her waiting for me out there, so I stepped around the bed and hurried over to the window.

Cardboard held up with duct tape covered the space, but I tore at the tape with my fingernails, ripping it and the heavy sheet of paper away from the frame and throwing them down. I stuck my head out through the open space, my heart lifting at the sight of the rusty fire escape clinging to the side of the building.

The door at the front of the apartment screeched open, and the murmur of voices sounded—Coral’s, along with a much lower, deeper tone. Her pimp was already here.

More panic rippled through me, and I hoisted my leg out the window, ready to step out onto the fire escape. I glanced down and saw a man strolling around the side of the building, smoking a cigarette. I froze, half in and half out the window. I didn’t know if the guy worked for Coral’s pimp, but I couldn’t risk him seeing me.

I was out of time and other options, so I ducked back into the apartment, hurried over to the closet in the corner, threw open the door, and crammed myself inside. The door wouldn’t shut all the way, not with me and all the clothes and shoes stuffed inside, so I held on to the knob, peered out the crack, and concentrated on being as quiet as possible.

“Hey, kid,” Coral called out, stepping into the bedroom. “I’ve got someone I want you to meet—”

Silence.

“Dammit!” she snarled.

Footsteps snapped against the floor, and I got a flash of her running across the tiny room before she was out of my line of sight.

“Dammit!” Coral snarled again. “She must have gone out through the window. That sly little bitch. Eating my food without paying for it.”

Silence. Then another voice spoke, that same low, deep murmur I’d heard earlier.

“So what you’re saying is that you called me over here for nothing?”

I assumed the voice belonged to Reggie, her pimp. His tone was stone-cold. He wasn’t happy with Coral—not at all.

“I’m sure I can find her again,” Coral said. “A girl like her? She’ll never make it on the streets. Hell, she’ll probably come back here in a few days, begging me to take her in.”

She laughed again, but the sound was tinged with desperation.

“I told you before that this was your last chance, Coral,” Reggie rumbled. “You promised to find me a new girl to cover your debts for all those pills I gave you.”

“But I did! It’s not my fault she bolted.”

“Doesn’t matter. She’s gone.” Reggie paused. “But you’re still here, and I’m tired of your excuses.”

“Reggie, wait. Please, man! I’m good for the money! I just need a few more days—”

Coral sucked in a breath, as if she were going to scream. A loud smack sounded. Coral let out a low moan of pain, then a strangled yelp, before I heard another sound.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

Reggie was hitting her—over and over again—and I knew that he wouldn’t stop until he beat her to death. I stood in the dark closet, frozen with fear, wondering what to do. Should I try to help Coral and risk Reggie turning his anger on me? Should I run out of the apartment while he was beating her? Or should I just stay quiet and hidden and wait until it was over?

No, I thought. That would make me no better than Coral. I had to try to help her, despite what she’d wanted to do to me. If nothing else, maybe Reggie would leave her alone long enough to chase me when I ran out of the apartment. So I squared my shoulders and sucked in a breath, hoping that I could take the pimp by surprise and then outrun him—

But it was too late.

Something slammed up against the closet door, then dropped down to the ground in front of it. Through the crack, I could see Coral’s face, her hazel eyes frozen open wide in pain, terror, and fear. Blood pooled on the floor underneath her head and started oozing into the closet, further staining my ratty stolen shoes. I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

Dead—she was dead.

And I would be too if I didn’t stay quiet.

So I swallowed down my screams, making myself stand absolutely still inside the closet, despite the skimpy satin clothes pushing at my back, wanting to shove me forward.

For a moment, the only sound was raspy breathing, although I couldn’t tell if it was mine or Reggie’s.

Then a floorboard creaked.

“Stupid bitch,” Reggie rumbled. “You should have just paid me when you had the chance.”

Coral’s eyes stared straight ahead, even as more and more of her blood seeped into the closet.

Silence. Then footsteps moving away. A few seconds later, the front door opened, then slammed shut again.

I stood in the closet, staring at the growing blood on the floor, and counted off the seconds in my head. Ten . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . forty-five . . . sixty . . .

When three minutes had passed, I felt safe enough to slip out of the closet. The first thing I did was rush out to the main room and throw the locks on the door. Then I went back into the bedroom.

Coral lay sprawled on the floor, her head facing the closet, while the rest of her was twisted the other way. Bruises blackened her face, while her blood had already soaked into her hair, turning the bright crimson strands a dull rusty color.

I crouched down and stared at Coral’s lifeless body. She’d tried to turn me into her, tried to sell me to her pimp, tried to use me the way so many other people had used her. But that’s the way things were on the streets, especially in Southtown, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her all the same—and guilty that I hadn’t done something to try to save her.

Then my stomach rumbled again, and I thought about that other sandwich Coral had said was in the fridge. I closed my eyes, hating myself for what I was about to do, but I was still so hungry. So I stepped over Coral’s body and went into the kitchen, trying to come up with some sort of plan about what to do next. When I was done eating, I would take whatever food was left, then go through her clothes to see if there was a warm coat I could swipe to stave off the chill of the nights, if not the growing coldness in my own heart . . .

The rocking woke me.

It was a gentle, steady, soothing motion, almost like I was in a swing someone was pushing, even though I was lying in a bed. A loud splash sounded, before giving way to a regular, rhythmic slosh-slosh-slosh of water, and I felt myself slipping back down into the darkness . . .

Wait a second. Why was there a splash? Why was there water here? Wasn’t I at Jo-Jo’s house? And if not . . . where was I?

I cracked my eyes open, but instead of an airy fresco of a cloud-covered sky like I would have seen at Jo-Jo’s, the ceiling was low and made out of golden wood. Worry curled in my stomach, and I propped myself up on my elbows and looked around.

I was in some sort of guest bedroom. Well, really, it was more like a spacious stateroom. The four-poster bed I was lying on took up one corner of the area, the pale blue silk sheets that covered my body providing a nice contrast with the glossy, golden wood of the frame. The other furniture was made of the same wood, all of it trimmed with polished brass accents. A living-room suite took up the front half of the stateroom, complete with two pale blue couches that faced each other and a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall between them. A door off to my left led into a large bathroom decked out in blue tile.

It was definitely a room I’d never been in before, and my head snapped over to the windows, wondering what I might see through them. But the glass panes were round instead of square, and the white lace curtains had been drawn back, revealing an unexpected sight: the sun setting over the river.

Understanding flashed through me. I wasn’t in any sort of house. Oh, no.

I was on a boat.

23

Instead of bolting out of bed, I wedged a couple of pillows between my back and the frame and propped myself up against the soft cushions. The sight of the strange room didn’t bother me any more, because I had a sneaking suspicion of exactly where I was.

On board the Delta Queen, Phillip Kincaid’s riverboat casino.

I wondered why Owen and the others would bring me here, though, instead of taking me to Jo-Jo’s salon. Maybe they figured that this would be safer, since Jo-Jo’s would be one place Benson and his men would be sure to look for me.

I sat up a little higher on the bed. The motion made a dull ache roar to life in the back of my skull, one that quickly intensified and spread through the rest of my body. I was still wearing the white hospital gown Benson’s men had put on me. Cuts and scrapes dotted my hands and arms, and the side of my face throbbed from where I’d fallen onto the stone balcony. But worst of all was my busted ankle, which sent out shooting stabs of pain with every beat of my heart.

Jo-Jo must have been waiting for the final dregs of the Burn pill to leave my system so she could heal me. No doubt, Owen had told her about the elemental magic in the drug, and Jo-Jo wouldn’t have wanted to risk using her Air power on me and making things worse. But the aches and pains that flooded my body were a small price to pay for escaping from Benson. So I would be patient and endure the discomfort while I waited for Jo-Jo to come finish the job.

And when that was done and I was well, I would get on with the business of killing Beauregard Benson.

I should have started planning the hit that very first night after he’d murdered Troy and Xavier had told me how obsessed Bria was with bringing Benson down. I should have laid his throat open with my knives the second I saw him at Northern Aggression. I should have found a way to kill him on the bridge when his men were shooting at Bria and Catalina. But I’d been tired and troubled and too damn slow, and Benson had captured and almost killed me as a result, all in the name of his f**king drug empire and his so-called science experiments.

He wasn’t going to get away with that. He wasn’t going to get away with any of it.

Not one damn thing.

The stateroom door creaked open, and Bria appeared, as if she’d been standing right outside, waiting for me to wake up. Maybe she had been.

Some of the tension in her face eased when she realized that I was awake, and she walked over and sat down in a chair next to the bed. She was still wearing the same black clothes she’d had on when she’d rescued me, although she’d taken off the vest, and the holster attached to her belt was empty. She clasped her hands together, staring at her interlaced fingers instead of at me. Specks of blood marred the pale skin of her hands. More of it had spattered up onto her face and neck, with a few drops staining her primrose rune an ugly crimson.

In a weird way, she looked just like me after a long day of killing. Then again, that’s what this had been for Bria, first at the bridge firing at Benson’s men, then at the mansion shooting everyone who came close to us so she could rescue me. It was an odd bit of role reversal, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that—or how it would affect Bria.

“Catalina?” I asked.

“She’s fine,” Bria said. “She’s here on the boat too. We were able to go through that courtyard and those buildings and meet up with Xavier, just like you said. He drove us over here. Xavier thought that the riverboat would be a good place to hide out. There’s room enough for all of us, and it will be an easy position to defend if Benson decides to attack.”

I nodded. That was smart of Xavier, and he was right. This way, we’d at least be able to see Benson and his men coming. And they would be coming. The vamp still needed Catalina dead, and he’d want revenge on Bria for rescuing me.

As for me, no doubt, the vampire kingpin would want to drag me back down to his lab to conduct some more experiments on me, since I was such a fascinating test subject. I couldn’t hold back the cold shiver of fear that swept through me. I’d been tortured before, more times than I cared to remember, actually, by some seriously nasty folks. But being strapped down to that chair in Benson’s lab, knowing that he could do anything to me that he wanted, knowing how absolutely helpless I was to stop him . . . it would take me a while to get over that.