Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1)(89)

Lola pulled herself onto the beam and slid forward on her stomach toward the window. She motioned for Enne to hurry, but Enne was frozen. A bullet clattered off the beam below her feet.

Enne recited Lourdes’s rules to herself.

Don’t let them see your fear.

She took her first step on the cord. She was steady. Breathe.

Never allow yourself to be lost.

She took another. A gunshot whizzed past her outstretched arm.

She ran. Quickly, lightly.

One stride. Two strides. Three strides. Then she slipped.

She caught the rope by her underarms, and for a few seconds, no one shot. They thought that she was about to fall.

Trust no one unless you must.

She raised her arms so that the cord slid into her hands. It was a miracle she hadn’t touched bare wire. One kick forward turned into a swing. Two swings and she got her legs on the beam.

Lola jumped through the window while Enne lay down and kissed the metal of the rafter. Enne stood up and followed hurriedly, her acrobatic grace failing her in her rush to escape. Her foot caught the windowpane, and she toppled over the other side onto a roof. Enne landed on her back, and it knocked the wind out of her.

Lola, lying beside her, punched her shoulder. Good job, Enne thought she meant. You’re shatz, she probably also meant. She couldn’t argue.

Enne sat up and leaned against the wall. She was breathing hard and fighting down the urge to either laugh or cry.

The Scarhands gawked, gathered around a different window, where they’d watched Lola and Enne brave the cord. The girl who’d known Kelvin covered her face with the coat she’d used to cross, her shoulders heaving.

“We should still be moving,” Enne said. “The whiteboots saw us leave.” She looked out into the distance, at the unappealing view of the Factory District.

Someone tapped her arm. It was one of the kids. “Who are you?”

“Séance,” Lola answered for her. Enne shot the blood gazer a furious look. What sort of game was she playing?

“Are you one of the Scarhands?” She looked at Enne’s unmarked palms with confusion.

Lola grinned. “Would Scavenger be brave enough to do that?”

“No way,” the girl said. She looked at Enne with the kind of reverence she had once seen Mansi direct at Levi.

Enne had nearly forgotten why they’d come to Scrap Market in the first place. Ignoring them, she pulled the newspaper from her pocket and flipped through the pages until she found Lourdes’s article.

Lola nodded urgently. “We should leave.” But Enne wasn’t paying attention.

The ink was too blotched to read anything but the title: “Not Forgotten.” The paper looked as if someone had submerged it in water.

Enne stared at the incomprehensible words and balled the newspaper in her fist. “That. Horrid. Man.”

This had been her last chance to hear Lourdes’s voice, and it had been a trick. Tears blurred her vision. Usually she’d feel embarrassed for crying in front of others, but now she no longer cared.

Lola put her arm around Enne’s shoulder. It was an intimate gesture for someone who carried such conflicted feelings about Enne’s well-being.

“We need to leave,” Lola said. “You’re the lord.” Her words sounded forced—an act. She leaned down closer to Enne’s ear. “They’re waiting for you to move. And we all need to get out of here.”

The others surrounding them watched Enne hesitantly, as if waiting instruction. As if Enne really was a street lord.

Lola’s desperate look urged her into action. They crawled across the sloping roof of the warehouse, then jumped to the building beside it. Enne landed gracefully on her feet. Lola, however, crumbled to her knees as soon as she hit the cement.

Unsurprisingly, hopping roofs was an exhausting activity. When they reached a rooftop several blocks away from the factory, Enne and Lola huffed for breath, and the blood gazer’s hands were covered in scrapes from repeatedly stumbling and bracing herself. They were a safe enough distance away that the kids had begun to scatter. Now it was just the two of them.

“There are thousands of them in the North Side, just like that,” Lola said. “Pulling stunts. Haunting gang territories. Hoping to be noticed by the Guild or by their lords.” She grimaced. “They’d be the most vulnerable if another war broke out on the North Side. There’s no one to protect them.”

Enne’s heart twisted into something painful and ugly. She didn’t have it in her right now to listen to one of Lola’s accusatory tirades.

“Why did you call me Séance?” she asked, fighting to keep the tension out of her voice.

“All lords have a street name.”

“I thought you wanted me dead. ‘A weapon to whoever owns me’ and all?”

“I still think you’re dangerous. Maybe more dangerous than I first believed. I thought the city would claim you—break you.” Lola paused, looking intensely into Enne’s eyes. “Now I think the city could be yours to claim.”

Enne grimaced. “That wasn’t your decision to make.”

Lola was too late, anyway. Enne was already broken, already claimed.

“Do you want to know the real reason I dyed my hair white?” Lola clenched her fists and turned toward the skyline. “After we lost our parents, my brothers and I swore we wouldn’t go near the gangs. We were young, so we worked under the table. My oldest brother was attending a music conservatory on the South Side, and once he finished, he was going to take care of all of us.