Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)(49)



“I’d sooner burn a painting than sell it to you,” he’d told Hennessy.

Hennessy’s fault.

She’d have given up by now if it weren’t for the rest of them.

She was so tired.

“Heloise,” Jordan said. Hennessy wasn’t looking at the girls, but she knew it was Jordan; only Jordan called her that. Hennessy’s name was not Heloise. That was the joke. “Your face.”

Hennessy knew about her face. Wiping it wouldn’t change it. She lay on her back on the tiled kitchen floor, smoking, a small rivulet of black running from her nostril down her cheek.

It had been too long since she’d dreamt.

And since their plan had fallen through, there’d be another copy of her soon. Another flower on the tattoo encircling her throat. Another step toward dying. Another step toward every girl in this kitchen going to sleep forever.

Hennessy’s fault.

“Did that just start?” June asked. Poor June. She mostly tried hard and was the second most likely to show up if you called and was the best at holding down a legal part-time job. Like Hennessy, she drank too much and liked dogs. Unlike Hennessy, she had straightened her hair and also liked cats. She was the second oldest living copy, which meant she was the most complex copy after Jordan.

Poor Jordan. She didn’t deserve this. None of them did, but especially not her.

“If you think about it metaphorically,” Hennessy said, “has it ever really stopped?”

The girls were cleaning the mansion’s white-and-copper kitchen, which was trashed. It was always trashed. It was used by six forgers to form pastels, mix pigments, make glue, stain paper, and reheat pizza, and all of these components were scattered across the floor and counter, along with some hair and teeth from the Breck break-in. Long evening light through the garden windows illuminated paint spattered over marble floor, cobwebs trailing through the copper pots hanging overhead, take-out boxes covering the marble island.

“You know who I hate?” Madox said. She sounded pissed. She always sounded pissed. It was like Hennessy’s temper was the main thing that made it to her. “That fucking junk handler Busque.”

“You want to run your mouth?” June said. She tended to be practical. It was like Hennessy’s problem-solving was the only thing that had made it to her. “Then fuck off outside. What’s the move?”

“The kid has it. The Lynch kid,” Hennessy replied.

“He lives here,” Madox said. “I saw his swish town house. I still vote we jump him.”

“You are the stupid one. He works for a senator,” June said. “You don’t think that won’t be headlines on some shock blog? That’s a risk.”

“June’s right,” Trinity said pensively. She always sounded pensive, down on herself, like Hennessy’s self-hatred was the only thing that had made it over to her. “We’d have to split town, which is only worth it if The Dark Lady works.”

Hennessy exchanged a look with Jordan, who leaned against the counter with a handful of brushes. It was hard to say what Jordan was thinking. She was looking at the black ink running from Hennessy’s face and touching the floral tattoo on her own neck, the one that matched Hennessy’s.

Jordan, of all the girls, should have had a life of her own. She wasn’t Hennessy. She was Jordan. Her own person, trapped in Hennessy’s shit life.

Hennessy’s fault.

“I’m tired of naming you girls,” Hennessy said.

“Can we buy it off him?” Brooklyn suggested, standing by the sink with a dustpan full of obliterated pastels. This was a shock of a suggestion, but mostly because Brooklyn’s suggestions ordinarily tended toward the sexual, the only part of Hennessy that had really rubbed off on her.

“If he doesn’t want to sell it, then we’ve tipped him off, haven’t we?” June said.

“Maybe we should just give it up. It might not work anyway,” said Madox.

“Bad take, Mad,” said June.

“Or at least go into it knowing it’s an unpopular opinion,” Trinity muttered.

The principle behind acquiring The Dark Lady was simple. Her legend was well documented: Whoever slept under the same roof as her would dream of the seaside. Hennessy, therefore, would be forced to dream of the seaside instead of her usual recurring nightmare, and would bring back a gull or sand or some other beach paraphernalia, all of which would cost her less physically than producing a copy of herself.

Jordan finally spoke up. “What if we just swap it again?”

Trinity asked, “What … break into his house?”

“Same plan,” Jordan said. “Exactly same plan. Nip in, leave our copy, nick the real one.”

The girls thought.

“You’re round the twist,” Madox said.

As if she hadn’t said anything, June mused, “Still risks exposure.”

Brooklyn chucked the pastel dust into the garbage disposal. “Not if we break a window and then replace the glass when we’re done.”

“We’d need time,” Trinity said. “He’d have to be out of the house for a good long while.”

All this fucking trouble, Hennessy thought. All because Hennessy couldn’t stop having the same damn dream.

Hennessy’s fault.

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