Chapter 10
Mason makes it back to the brothel at what I assume is light speed. Our arrival is anticipated and several people file out of the red-tinted entrance toward the van to assist us. Taylor hooks her arm around my waist for support and waves off offers to help.
“Good Lord, child, you’re covered in blood!” Delilah emerges from behind the others. Instead of her crimson dress, she’s clad in a scarlet satin kimono and matching stiletto heels that make her nearly as tall as I am. “Come, around the back.”
“Not all my blood,” Taylor says as she and I hobble to the side door. She’s gingerly limping, favoring her left leg, which must’ve taken the brunt of her fall. “I got stabbed.”
“You were stabbed?” Delilah’s eyes widen in alarm as she pushes us into what turns out to be an extension of the lobby, possessing an elevator.
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s a little stab,” I scoff. “And it happened before she jumped three stories onto the hood of a car.”
Taylor meekly offers, “I also may have bruised a rib.”
Delilah rings for the lift. “Why on earth did you jump three stories?”
“The elevator was broken,” Taylor deadpans with a wince. One of the soldiers escorting us chuckles under his breath, until Delilah straightens him with a stare.
Inside Taylor’s room, Delilah and Faith take charge, ordering the others to retrieve supplies. Armed with enough medical paraphernalia to cure several terminal diseases, everyone leaves except for them.
“You can get cleaned up,” Faith says to me. “She’s in good hands, I promise.”
The protective surge thrumming through my muscles roots me in place. I don’t question it. “I’m not leaving.”
“I can do this myself,” Taylor calls from the bed.
“No, you can’t,” Delilah and I reply in tandem. We share a long, challenging look. Taylor lets out a low groan in the meantime, breaking our standoff.
“Let her stay,” Taylor says. “She could be hurt.”
I shake my head. “I’m not. Just help her.”
Faith and Delilah get to work. They clean Taylor’s bloodstained arms, apply salves, gather bandages, care for her as she grouses about how she can do it faster, because she can’t possibly need another person’s assistance.
The world might reverse on its axis. When Delilah pries Taylor’s bullet-resistant tank top off her, a gasp resounds throughout the room, which embarrassingly belongs to me.
The entire left side of her body is a shocking landscape of red bruising.
Someone hurries in with lapis-colored ice packs and Faith applies them to the wounded flesh.
Taylor flinches, white-knuckling the bedsheet without a noise.
Faith cleans and patches up the stab wound below Taylor’s ribs with gentle care, murmuring to her in low tones.
It makes Taylor smile despite the pain in her eyes.
Once Taylor is gingerly re-dressed, Delilah lets out a long sigh and places a hand on Faith’s shoulder.
“Faith, darling, you may go to bed.” The robe-clad madame nudges me toward my room.
She follows me inside and sits down in the dressing chair near the window.
“She’s going to be fine,” she assures me in a soft voice.
“Bruised ribs, but the stab wound is not too deep. No stitches needed. It’s going to be painful for her to walk for a bit, but she’ll be back to her normal, brusque self in no time. She should stay in bed for a few days.”
“That’s not going to happen. We have to make good time to Reed or she’ll blow a gasket about efficiency.
” Delilah studies me with an impassive expression for a few long beats.
I’m not sure what I’ve done to garner this intense scrutiny, but I keep my face straight.
“And you know as well as I do, Taylor won’t stay still for long. ”
“Only a few weeks ago you were an heir without a care. Suddenly, Luciano Piccolo’s lovely daughter is an Order member, my oh my. I’ll say one thing about being in this rebellion business: you truly never know what’s coming next.”
“That makes two of us,” I reply with a shallow laugh. “I never expected it to be so…diverse? HQ is crawling with soldiers and quasi-military. And here…I mean, what’s the deal? Part-time escorts, part-time espionage?”
“Something like that. We’ve always operated on the outskirts of society, and a full integration into the rebellion felt like the natural next step.
I think it helps the men and women here to believe that their work has more purpose than giving pleasure to those whose fortunes are so much better than their own. ”
“I know it’s probably not worth much, but you have my respect. I can’t imagine how difficult the balance must be.”
“I can’t imagine it’s much different from what is expected of the region leader’s heir.
Be seductive but accessible, be smart enough to know when to use intelligence or ignorance, and don any persona necessary to do the work that must be done.
” I’ve never had my life so directly compared to that of a sex worker, but Delilah makes a compelling point.
“Whether that means you’re the femme fatale or the darling innocent, the dutiful daughter or the heartless assassin.
We’re connected by the idea that what we are, and what we are capable of, is merely a fraction of who we are. ”
Faith returns, popping her head in from the door that adjoins my room to Taylor’s. “Mason is in the hallway. He wants to know her status.”
Following Faith through the doorway, Delilah glides to Taylor’s side, peering down at her in deep concern.
Graceful fingers sweep Taylor’s unruly blond hair out of her eyes.
It stings my heart, the blatantly maternal gesture.
“Luciana, watch Taylor overnight. If she awakens in pain, there is a pill on the dresser. Ring me in the morning if Taylor isn’t well enough to walk.
Let us assuage Mason’s concerns so he can sleep. ”
The women make their exit, and desert me with the slumbering assassin.
Lack of noise allows the crescendo of ringing to return to my ears.
I will be quite displeased if this “adventure” leaves me with permanent hearing damage.
I cast an anxious glance to Taylor before locking her hall door and heading for my bathroom.
In the spacious walk-in shower, I palm the tiles as hot water scalds my skin.
Bruises form in the shape of fingerprints where Thorne held me.
My body shakes, teetering on the edge of the breakdown, but there isn’t time.
I survived, we survived, and so I let the burning water wash away his breath on my neck, his hands on me, the feeling when Taylor told him to kill me, watching people die at the end of my gun.
That’s a healthy way to deal with trauma, right?
Ignore it and hope it swirls down the drain?
After re-dressing in silk pajamas and braiding my hair, I return to Taylor and find her sleeping soundly.
Enough room exists in the bed for someone to sleep between us so I don’t feel like I’m intruding when I crawl under the covers.
In close proximity and unguarded, I study her features.
Whispers of faraway lands ripple across her cheekbones.
It’s not uncommon for Underclass kids to be mixed race; only the Upperclass care about racial homogeny.
Abandoned, the only connection she has to her parents is whatever exists of them in her face.
Who has the eyes like gold rings? Or the flaxen hair?
I see my mother in the mirror, but Taylor can only see herself. How freeing, and how lonely.
A miniature remote sitting on the side of the bed catches my eye.
It’s outfitted with bizarre controls for the bed and the room, faded white text on worn black buttons.
After some fruitless button-pushing I finally find one for the light—not before opening the window and making the room smell like vanilla and black licorice—and I click it off, swallowing us in darkness.
Taylor’s slow, steady breathing is like a metronome, gently lulling me to sleep.
About an hour later, she shoots up out of a dead sleep, chest panting and hair wild around her face. She grunts and holds her side with a free hand. “Ow.”
Once my heartbeat stops thumping in my ears, I blink over at her. “Geez, do you always wake up like that?”
With a groan, she slowly lies back down. “I do not usually have an audience.”
“Usually?”
“Why are you here?”
“Delilah told me to stay.”
The fight in her wanes and she relaxes, expelling a deep sigh. “You can go.” I don’t move, and she doesn’t say anything. She reaches over and flicks on the bulbous lamp next to her. “You surprised me tonight. You saved both our lives. Thank you.”
Shyly, I blink my eyes away and heft the blanket over my legs, swinging them off the bed. “That’s high praise.”
“Is it? From an ‘emotionally stunted murderer’?”
Tensing, I pivot and start, “Taylor, I—”
“I’m kidding. You do not owe me anything, Miss Piccolo, least of all an apology. You were frightened and I responded unkindly. You have every right to be angry with me.” Taylor exhales a shaky breath. “I am sorry I lost my temper. It is unlike me.”
“What about Thorne?” I ask. “What you did to him…is that unlike you?”
“I’ve never—” She cuts herself off. “I am sorry you witnessed my loss of composure. I allowed my emotions to get the better of me. I’m embarrassed, to be honest.”
The spot on my temple where Thorne whacked me throbs. “I apologize for, well, being totally like me and using a painful piece of your past against you. It was cruel.”
“I will gladly deal with fear-induced snarkiness if it means we live to see another day.” She rubs her face and looks through her fingers to stare ahead. “I feel compelled to tell you I knew about the party.”
“You did?”