Her mother’s face immediately shuttered. “Nita—”
Nita sighed. “That’s what I thought.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Then explain.”
Her mother shook her head.
Nita nodded and rose from her bench. “Thanks, Mom. For getting me out of the station. For being here for me.” She brushed a leaf from her pants. “I’ll keep in touch. Visit. But I still have things to do.”
Going home was the easy choice. And the easy choice was almost never the right one, in Nita’s experience. The easy choice was hiding, letting other people make decisions for her.
Nita didn’t want that.
As much as her mother said she cared, as much as her words meant to Nita, her mother was still the same person. The person who had started some sort of turf war with Fabricio’s father, who wouldn’t reveal what she knew about her father’s killer. The person who’d terrorized Nita for so many years, who haunted her nightmares. Kind words didn’t erase facts.
Besides, Nita had things to do.
Fabricio was still on the loose, and she wanted to handle him herself. It wasn’t that she needed to prove herself to her mother. She just didn’t want her mother fixing it. Nita wanted to handle him her own way.
After she’d handled Fabricio, she would deal with Zebra-stripes. Her father’s murderer wouldn’t escape justice, no matter what Nita had to do.
And when all of the blood she needed to spill was spilt, when her vengeance was complete and her enemies were ashes, she wanted to live.
She wanted to build her own life. A life where she went to school. A life where she knew more people than just her mother. A life where, if Kovit came back, she could see him without fear he’d be murdered when her mom came home. Because her mother could never ever know about Kovit.
Her mother squeezed her hand. “I’m always here if you need me.”
Nita nodded, still unable to say anything. Her eyes burned with tears, and she didn’t know why.
Finally, she whispered, “I love you, Mom.”
Her mother rose and embraced her. “I love you too, Nita.”
Nita sank into the warmth of the embrace for a long moment before she finally pulled away with a shaky breath. She nodded at her mother, lost for words, then quietly turned and walked away.
Forty-Three
NITA TOOK THE STREETCAR back to Adair’s place. About halfway, she realized she’d forgotten to get her passport from her mother, and she swore viciously at herself. But there was no helping it now. She would have to email her mom and set up a time to pick it up later.
She turned her mind to more immediate concerns: Fabricio. Adair’s words played over in her head, and she wondered: Why had Fabricio sold her out?
Vengeance? Then why not go after her mother?
Money? But as Adair said, he was the heir to a very rich, very powerful man.
Fabricio had said he wanted a new life, to disappear into INHUP’s protective program. At the time, she’d assumed it was a lie, meant to explain away his connection to his father, to make him seem like a good guy.
But again—why jeopardize everything with INHUP to sell Nita? INHUP would have taken care of him. He didn’t need money to gain their protection. Nita in a cage actually hurt his chances, if she ever got out, or if INHUP confiscated his phone.
So why?
Her mind circled around, and it stalled again for a moment on the Argentinian-Chilean hostilities. But she let it go quickly. If he’d done it out of hate, surely she’d have seen other signs of it. He would have made annoying barbs about Chileans like her father used to about Argentinians whenever the soccer games were on.
No, whatever reason Fabricio had for betraying her, it was something much more complicated and dangerous than that.
She remembered that moment in the car with Fabricio, where she’d said she’d do anything to survive, and he said he would too. He’d confessed to selling her then, but he’d also confessed to being desperate.
But again, the question was: Why?
Maybe Adair was right and she should ask Fabricio some questions before she murdered him and dumped his body in the Don River.
She got off at her usual stop and stepped into the cool night air. The light was fading, and darkness had begun to sweep through the city like a gentle cloak. Streetlights popped on, casting a too-orange glow on everything. The gray sidewalks faded until they looked like long strings of giant polished pebbles and the road was a great river of darkness between them.
She took a deep breath, and she could still hear her mother telling Nita she was proud. Words she never thought she’d hear.
For the first time, she really felt like she could do this. She could survive on her own, she could eliminate Fabricio, make her reputation so powerful she was untouchable, go to school and become the researcher she’d always dreamed of being.
She didn’t need INHUP. She didn’t need her mother.
She didn’t need Kovit.
Her steps slowed, and she let out a breath. Kovit.
She’d thought that the ache of his absence would go away, that she would remember he was a monster, that he’d made her sit in a barn crying while he tortured an INHUP agent. That she’d feel better, more stable, without him there.
But the pain still clung, squishy and sharp, stinging like a jellyfish and slowly poisoning her bloodstream.
She looked up at Adair’s shop and wondered if Kovit had come back. If he’d ever come back.
And she realized, no matter what, she didn’t want this to be the end.
She didn’t want him to go. Monster or not. He was her best friend. She trusted him more than anyone else in the world.
She wondered when being able to trust someone had become more important than whether they were a monster or not.
She took out her phone, but she couldn’t think of the words to text him, so she put it away again. Tomorrow. If he hadn’t come back by tomorrow, she’d text him. She didn’t know what she’d say yet, but she’d find a way to fix this.
She sighed, the cool night air misting her breath in front of her.
She unlocked the shop with Adair’s key. The lights were off, and neither Adair nor Diana were anywhere to be found. That was fine. Adair was probably pissed at the moment because of the whole police-in-his-shop thing he’d specifically told her not to let happen.
She wove through the messy shop, trying not to knock over anything. A purple glass chicken stared vacantly at her, and she shuddered and walked past. Old-times people had terrible taste.
She clopped up the stairwell and fumbled for the key to the apartment door. She opened it and flicked on the light.
Henry sat on the bed, fingers steepled.
“Welcome back.”
Forty-Four
NO SOONER HAD HENRY SPOKEN than Nita felt the cool press of a steel barrel on the back of her neck. She turned her head and caught a glimpse of short blond hair, white bandages, and an ear full of studs. Gold. Beside her, the other man who’d chased Nita also had his gun trained on her.
Henry sat on the bed, legs crossed, a faint smile on his face. A gun hung loosely in his hand.
Nita was sure if she resisted, the gun would be in motion faster than she could react. Three against one. Nita didn’t even have the gun in her hoodie pocket anymore.
The gun barrel pressed against her neck, forcing Nita forward. Gold closed the door behind her, trapping the four of them in the small room.
Henry shifted on the pastel sheets, his eyes cool and assessing, his smile creeping wider. “So nice of you to return.”
Nita opened her mouth but he spoke before she could respond. “Don’t bother screaming. When I met Adair earlier today, he told me he had this whole shop soundproofed years ago. He seems pleasant enough. Not too happy about the police swarming his shop looking for you.” Henry flashed her a smile. “Can’t say I blame him.”
Adair. That scheming, traitorous kelpie.
Nita ground
her teeth. If she survived this, she was going to make him pay.
The gun vanished from the back of Nita’s head, but before she could move, hands grabbed her wrists with professional speed and zip-tied them. Tightly. Tight enough to cut off the blood circulation to her hands almost entirely.
Nita swallowed, wondering if it was cruelty or strategy. Nita would need to waste resources ensuring the cells didn’t decay without blood, and it would be more difficult to break out of them with restricted blood flow.
More difficult. But not impossible.
She shifted her hands, testing the zip ties, but before she could make a determination, Gold dragged her over to the chair by the table, gun back at her head.
Nita bit her lip. Even if she could break out of the zip ties, she’d just be shot in the head.
Henry smiled at Nita. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Henry.”
Nita wondered how far she could spit stomach acid. “Nita.”
Henry laughed. “Hello, Nita. As you may have heard, your friend Fabricio contracted me to kill you.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do. You’re dumb enough to make an enemy of the most powerful company in the world, but at least you know who they hired to kill you.” He leaned back, shaking his head. “I have to say, I don’t know what Kovit sees in you.”
Nita swallowed. Had Kovit betrayed her too?
Henry nodded to Gold and Nita felt hands roughly pulling at her pocket. Her cell phone came out, and Gold pressed it to Nita’s finger, unlocking it, before tossing it to Henry.
“Now, what shall I say to get him to come running?” Henry’s smile was cruel. “Ah, I know.”
He typed something into her phone, then tossed it on the bed. “Let’s see where his loyalties really lie, shall we?”
“Who’s Kovit?”
Henry rolled his eyes. “Please. Aside from the fact that I just messaged him on your phone, it was painfully obvious you two were working together.”
Nita shook her head, but didn’t say anything.
“Think about it. Kovit never asked me for a ticket to Toronto—which meant he was already here. Everyone from the black market coming to Toronto right now is here to hunt you.” Henry tapped his nose. “But I know Kovit. Kovit isn’t a hunter. He’s never been a hunter.
“To be a successful hunter, you need to get inside your prey’s head. You need to get to know them, their lives and routines. To catalog their friends and enemies. To understand them enough to predict where they’ll go and what they’ll do in a situation.” Henry smiled, slow and creepy, a poor echo of Kovit. “It’s very intimate.”
Nita understood immediately. Kovit wouldn’t harm people he saw as people. The minute he humanized them, he couldn’t hurt them. Hunting someone required learning about them, and learning about them would humanize them, thus defeating the purpose of the hunt. Anonymity was a key to everything about Kovit. He could never harm people. But the shapeless, nameless, voiceless things who went into his torture chamber weren’t people.
Just like the ones who ended up on her dissection table.
“I knew right away that Kovit wasn’t hunting,” Henry continued. “But he came all the way to Toronto from the jungle, so it had to be related to you. I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Nita didn’t either.
“Then I realized, Nita, that you knew Kovit. That Reyes had been your captor and Kovit had been working with her.”
Nita’s stomach roiled. She knew where this was going. It was all so logical. Anyone who knew Kovit could have sussed this out.
“There were only two possibilities. Friends or enemies. Kovit isn’t big on vengeance—it’s too personal, you see, killing someone you know. He can’t kill people he hates just like he can’t kill people he loves.”
Henry spread his arms and shrugged. “So, it was fairly easy to figure out.”
Nita clenched her teeth. She’d been a fool.
No. Wait.
Nita’s eyes narrowed. “And you figured that out all on your own? I doubt it. You’re not that smart.”
He raised an eyebrow, and a muscle twitched in his mouth.
Nita sneered. “You know what I think? I think you had no idea we were connected until Fabricio came running to tell you I was working with a zannie.”
Because he would have. Nita was a fool not to have thought of it earlier. She knew Fabricio was in contact with Henry. Obviously he’d warn Henry about Kovit. And Henry would put two and two together.
Henry’s lips curled, and Nita knew she was right.
She laughed. “Aww, did I spoil things? You wanted to look like a genius who was so great at profiling Kovit’s personality, hmm? You’re pathetic.”
He smiled, wide and vicious. “Call me as many names as you want. It won’t change what’s going to happen today.”
He nodded to Gold, and the pressure from the gun barrel disappeared from the back of Nita’s neck. Gold came around in front of Nita and took a series of pictures of Nita in the chair. Nita glared, and Gold looked to Henry.
“Good.” Henry took out his own phone. “Let’s see how much we can sell her for.”
How was she back in this situation? Sure, this time her captor didn’t want to eat her—just sell her to someone who did. This was going to be her life. Always captured, no matter how hard she tried to protect herself. Always sold for someone else’s desires. Always trapped like a rat in a cage.
Nita clenched her jaw and leaned forward, zip ties slicing her skin so deeply it bled. She was not some ignorant, weak child. She’d escaped before, she’d escape again.
She had to do it before Kovit came. Otherwise he was walking right into the lion’s den. She didn’t know why Henry was setting a trap for Kovit when he’d already won Kovit back, and she didn’t want to find out.
Nita’s eyes found Henry as she began to calculate trajectories. She might be able to get out of the zip ties—might—even if it meant dislocating her thumbs and shedding some skin and muscle to fit through. But in the time she took to do that, Henry would have shot her.
Nita didn’t want to be shot again.
Her eyes flicked to Gold and the other man, both with weapons. Could she use one of them as a shield and then shoot Henry?
“Ah, I’ve already got a response.” Henry grinned and leaned forward, the bed creaking with the movement. “You’re going to make me a lot of money.”
Nita’s eyes narrowed.
She lunged forward, hooking the chair with her foot as she did and toppling it sideways into the man beside Gold. He fell with a crash, and Nita sprang through the air.
Something smashed on the back of her head.
Her cheek pressed into the wooden floorboards. She didn’t even remember falling. She blinked, trying to focus, but the world tilted and swirled. Or maybe she did.
Concussion.
She blearily tried to repair the damage, but she couldn’t hold her thoughts together long enough to issue orders to her body.
“Well, now you’ve gone and killed her, Gold.”
“She’s not dead.”
Nita needed to focus. Needed to. Before her brain began swelling too much.
She closed her eyes, but that made her sleepy, so she opened them again.
Focus.
Words swirled around above her. Someone grabbed her arms and roughly yanked her up and into the chair. They zip-tied her already bound arms to the chair. And her ankles.
Nita lay limp, not resisting. Her mind was too fuzzy.
Head wounds. Bad.
Focus.
She clenched her teeth. Lower the swelling. Lower it. That will help clear the fuzziness.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, drifting in and out, before she managed to beat back the fuzziness enough that the world stopped spinning and she could actually start fixing herself.
It was dark outside, and the moon hung like a flashlight beam on top of the world.
For the f
irst time, she hoped whatever text Henry sent, whatever plea he’d made as Nita, that Kovit ignored it. That he didn’t return to her. Nothing good would happen if he came.
As if summoned by her thoughts, there was a click as the door unlocked.
Kovit walked into the room.
Forty-Five
KOVIT STOPPED in the doorway and stared. The skin around his eyes was faintly red as though he’d been rubbing at them, but his hair was glossy like a shampoo commercial, and his skin was smooth and almost seemed to glow.
He’d eaten recently.
If ever there was a time for comfort food, she supposed now was it.
Nita forced herself not to think about it. Now was not the time.
“Hello, Kovit.” Henry’s voice was warm, and he smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “We’ve all been waiting for you.”
Kovit’s head slowly turned away from Nita and over to Henry.
“Henry.” Kovit took a step forward, but Gold and her partner both raised their guns. Kovit stopped and lowered his hands to his side. “What are you doing here?”
“Meeting Nita, of course,” Henry said, eyes never leaving Kovit. “I think it’s always important to introduce the girl you bring home to your parents.”
Kovit’s voice was scraping and harsh. “You’re not my parent.”
“Oh my.” Henry touched his heart as though wounded, but kept smiling. “I’ll forgive you for that. Under the circumstances.” He ran his hands over the sheets of the bed. “I had no idea you had it in you, Kovit. You’ve never showed any interest in the fairer sex—or any sex, really.”
Nita’s face heated up at his implications, but she remained silent. He was just trying to get a rise out of her, and she wasn’t going to let him succeed.
Kovit’s face didn’t change at all. It was like his expression was frozen, like Henry had caught him in the middle of reading a book he wasn’t enjoying.
“But, Kovit.” Henry turned faux-sad eyes on him. “I thought better of you. Consorting with merchandise! You know that never ends well.”
Kovit ground his teeth. “Neither does sending people who displease you to the middle of the jungle.”
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