Iron Cast(111)

Revolutionaries and poets. Intellectuals and industrialists. Soldiers and politicians. The Cast Iron had hosted them all throughout the decades, reg and hemopath alike.

Seeing all that had come before made Ada realize how far the Cast Iron had fallen.

“Touching.” Johnny’s voice, somehow both achingly familiar and terrifyingly strange in the midst of the shifting apparitions, made Ada whirl.

The illusion fell away, and she saw Johnny standing in the doorway of the storage room. Corinne saw him too, but before she could move, he lunged forward and dragged her off the stool. Ada ran forward, and Corinne cried out in pain, but she quieted abruptly. Johnny held her tight in front of him, his knife against her neck. Ada froze.

“If you even think about singing, I’ll cut her throat,” Johnny said.

He was in the same clothes he’d worn in the warehouse, unkempt, eyes bloodshot. Corinne made a cursory attempt at struggling but winced as Johnny pressed the blade harder against her skin. In her gauzy party dress, with her gold headache band askew, she looked like a porcelain doll in his hands. She looked helpless.

Ada tried to breathe. After Haversham and the sunrise by the waterfront, drenched in Madeline’s blood, Ada had thought that nothing could scare her. But as she stared at the knife against Corinne’s neck, there was terror burning in her veins. For a few moments the only sounds in the club were Johnny’s jagged breathing and Corinne’s short gasps.

“If you kill her,” Ada said slowly, “you’ll be unconscious before she hits the ground. I only need a few bars. You know that.”

She spoke with as much force as she could muster, but really she was just figuring it out. Of course Johnny knew what she could do. That was the reason Corinne was still alive. The second he lost his leverage, he was at Ada’s mercy. But she couldn’t risk anything while he had Corinne.

Movement in the corner of her eye. Ada looked to see that Saint had taken a few steps backward, closer to the front door. His eyes were wide, and she could see that he was trembling. She jerked her gaze toward the door, willing him to leave. For a split second she thought he would obey. But then he shook his head, his anxious eyes angling back toward Corinne.

“You could have just left,” Ada said to Johnny, fighting to keep her voice steady, fighting for more time to think. She was keenly aware of a weight in her coat pocket that she had forgotten until now. “No one would have been able to find you.”

“I’ve been stockpiling my fortune in that warehouse for years,” Johnny said. “I’m not going to walk away and let a bunch of slagger kids take my club.”

Ada flinched at the slur from Johnny’s lips. She couldn’t stop thinking about Corinne, curled up on her bed, weeping because he was gone. All that thundering rage and pain, and for what?

“You should have left it alone,” Johnny went on, his grip on the knife tightening. “You two wouldn’t be able to keep it open during Prohibition anyway. The Cast Iron will never be what it was.”

Corinne squeezed her eyes shut, and Ada saw a thin trickle of red running down her neck.

“We have to try,” Ada said.

“No,” Johnny said simply. “It’s over now.”

In that moment she believed him. They’d dodged the Hemopath Protection Agency, survived Haversham Asylum, and outsmarted a councilman. And now the end had come, at the hand of someone she had once trusted with her life. With her mother’s life. With everything.

The storage room door flew open behind Johnny. He spun around, jerking Corinne with him. The newcomer was Guy Jackson, looking worse for wear and beyond furious.

“You lying son of a bitch,” he shouted at Johnny. “I’m going to kill you!”

He stormed into the room, and even though he didn’t appear to be armed, Johnny took a few steps back. Corinne clutched at his arm and stumbled back with him, still trapped in his grip.

“What are you doing here?” Johnny asked, suspicion rising in his voice.

“I know it’s a real shock,” Jackson spat. “You figured I’d just rot quietly in prison—well, I’m not taking the fall for you, Dervish. I’m getting every penny you owe me, even if I have to take it off your corpse.”

With Johnny’s back still turned, Ada slipped her hand into her coat pocket. Jackson’s gun from the warehouse was still there. It was a sliver of a chance. She gripped it, her finger questing for the safety. She flicked it off and lifted the gun, aiming it at Johnny’s back. She had the power to end this. All she had to do was pull the trigger. She didn’t have a choice.

In her mind’s eye, she could see the tree from Charlie’s childhood and the wildflowers swirling in the breeze. She was a liar and a thief, but she had never killed anyone. She’d thought that the day she shook hands with Johnny Dervish was the day that everything had been irrevocably lost, but maybe there was more to lose. She still had one choice she could make.

She didn’t pull the trigger.

Jackson had seen the gun, and at his expression Johnny spun back to face Ada. He stared at the raised gun in her hands, confusion melting away. He smiled thinly.

“You always were too hesitant,” he told her.

“Shoot him,” Corinne said.

“Go ahead,” Johnny said, giving Corinne a shake. “I hope your aim is good.”

Ada met Corinne’s eyes, saw the fatalistic determination there. She really wanted her to do it. She was ready to die if it meant taking Johnny with her. Ada shook her head.