City of Saints & Thieves(8)

He’s standing before the bookcase, which has opened on hinges. It’s a door that would never show up on a city council house plan. An escape route. I should have known. All snakes have one.

I turn my attention back to the boy.

Of course. Who else could it be?

“Hi, Michael,” I say. “Been a while.”

? ? ?

Rule 6 is, of course: Don’t get caught.

? ? ?

Once when I was about nine, my mother discovered me on the Greyhills’ firing range, learning from a security guard how to shoot a hole in the center of a paper man’s chest. I was using a gun just like the one in Mr. Greyhill’s drawer. Every time I squeezed the trigger I was in danger of being knocked onto my butt. I loved it. I felt like there was a tiny monster inside of me, and the explosions made it howl with glee.

Mama waited until I had handed the gun back to the security guard and then grabbed me by the shoulder. I could feel her hand trembling. She hauled me up to the servants’ cottages, instructing the guard through clenched teeth to never let me near a gun ever again, at pain of her getting him fired. Or worse. My mother was a small woman, but her temper was legendary, her memory long. She didn’t look at the boy beside me, who had, of course, instigated the shooting lesson. She may have been tough, but she was still his maid.

I waited a year until the boy was good enough to be allowed to shoot without the security guard hovering directly over him, and then had him teach me.

And he was good.

This boy who’s pointing a gun at my chest.

? ? ?

My greeting has its intended effect.

“Ti-Tina?” he stutters.

I nod slowly, force my mouth to curve upward in a small smile. Time has made him tall like his father, thick with muscle that didn’t show up in the hallway photos. I tell myself not to get distracted looking for my sister in his face, in his pale eyes or the set of his lips.

His brow furrows with confusion. The gun wavers as he unthinkingly moves it away from my chest, and at that instant I lunge. I go for the gun with one hand and jab his windpipe with my other fist. He gags but keeps his hold on the gun, so I settle for pushing his arms to the side and hooking his ankle with my foot to unbalance him. He tries to grab me, but I twist out of his reach and scramble backward over the desk, snatching my phone as I go.

It only takes him a second to recover from my hit; he’s quicker than I figured he would be, and I hear him coming over the desk. I’ve sprinted halfway across the room when his arms wrap around me and we slam face-first into the carpet. My phone falls from my hand.

I try to squirm free, kicking and elbowing, gnashing my teeth toward his bare hand. I manage to scrape the side of my foot down his shin and hear a satisfying yelp. But then he yanks my arms up and presses his knee into the small of my back. I start to fight, but the pressure sends a streak of pain up my shoulder.

“Ow! You’re hurting me!”

He hesitates but doesn’t loosen his hold. “Is that really you? What are you doing here?” he croaks, lapsing into coughs.

“Let me go!”

“Tina! Stop fighting!” He keeps coughing but still doesn’t release me.

“What are you doing here?” I shout.

“What?” He sounds genuinely confused. Of course he does. This is his house.

I stop thrashing but don’t answer. Half my face is up against the Persian rug, and all I can see are elegant patterns winding away from my line of sight. I can feel the earpiece pressed into my chest, which I managed to shove into my bra while I ran. I’m breathing hard, and my arm is on fire, but all I can think is, how much of the data did Boyboy get? Did it transmit? Was it enough?

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I say through my teeth, more to myself than him. He’s supposed to be tucked into bed in his Swiss boarding academy. I checked already to make sure there weren’t any school holidays.

“What are you talking about?” He tightens his hold on my arms. “What am I doing here?”

I wipe my running nose against the carpet. “Let me up.”

He doesn’t move.

“Let me up. I’ll explain.”

I feel him hesitate, but then his weight shifts and he lets my arms go. I slowly stand and turn around to find the gun leveled at my chest. I straighten my shirt, using the few seconds to debate whether to try and take him out again. I’m close enough that I could grab the gun’s muzzle, pull him off balance, and hit him again in the neck, where I’ve already hurt him. Probably. But he’s quick, and now he’s expecting it. So instead I raise an eyebrow at the gun, focusing all my energy on trying to look more in charge than I feel. “Can you put that thing down?”

He doesn’t lower it. “I won’t kill you,” he says, after a pause. “But I will shoot you in the leg.”

His face tells me he’s not lying. He’ll put a bullet in me. So I’m not the only one who’s changed in the five years since we’ve seen each other. I thought it was a softy Swiss boarding school, but maybe it’s a military academy his parents have got him in. That would explain the muscles. It would also make him ready for any dirty move I might throw at him. My fighting repertoire basically consists of unbalancing my opponent and going for an N spot: nose, neck, nuts, or knees. It’s not pretty, but it’s effective, and like Bug Eye said when he taught us, fighting pretty’s overrated.