Page 63 of Hell In A Handbasket
“Awfully convenient, considering you’re the one who should apologize in this instance.”
She tucks long brown hair behind her ear, gritting her teeth and stepping carefully as the roof creaks under our feet. “I can tell you I’m sorry if you want me to. It probably won’t sound very sincere, though.”
“Because you won’t mean it?”
She shrugs. “Because I don’t have a lot of practice. I would mean it, because I actually kinda care that I keep you around. But it would sound forced and weird and awkward, the same as a cake would taste weird if I baked it.”
I stop and meet her eyes. “What?”
“I could do it. I could follow the steps and get it right. I’d evenintendto present something tasty. But it doesn’t come easily to me. I’d rather buy you a cake and call it a day.”
“So…” I look up at the almost full moon and enjoy the fact that we get to see the stars out here in the middle of nowhere. The only other time I get this is when we’re at the waterfalls in the hills. The house Archer and I are kinda terrified to move in to. “You’d prefer to buy my forgiveness?”
“Would it work?”
“No. I have everything I need.”
“So you’d rather stay mad like a total baby?” She huffs.
I bring my eyes down again and firm my lips. “I’m not mad. I thought we covered this already. Remember? Earlier, when you hugged me without my permission.”
She taps my ribs with her elbow, and because we’re far enough back to not be seen by anyone on the street, she lowers to her butt, extends her legs, and leans back on her hands. “You were dealing with a whole other thing then, and you had Archer right there with you. You had a whole audience, so maybe you said whatever you had to say to make the situation go away.”
“And now you’ve got me up here alone?” I follow her lead and sit, my shoulder brushing hers and my heart thudding with nerves… because I kinda have this thing with heights. “You orchestrated this whole heist so you could get me alone, so you could tell me you wanted to apologize, but won’t, because it feels weird, but if it would make me feel better, you’d be willing to buy me something pretty to make up for this shitty weekend?”
“I mean, that’s one way to grossly oversimplify a nuanced situation.” She takes out her phone and quickly swipes the screen unlocked, navigating to a surveillance app that controls a set of teeny tiny cameras.
One monitors everything Aubree can see. Another monitors Ellie’s surrounds.
“Wanna get all juicy and awkward for a sec?” She glances across and studies my eyes. “I spent a really, really long time crippled with the guilt that my sister’s murder was my fault. Guilt transformed to a thirst for revenge, and that thirst for revenge kinda changed who I was.”
Speechless, I settle back and frown.
“I’m no scientist, so don’t go alldoctoron me, but I liken it to evolution. My trauma sped that up for me to the point that this person I am is not the person I was born to be. And I figure, your trauma—which is multi-layered, with your dad’s suicide, and the New York cases, plus the fact you deal with death every single day—probably means you’re not who you were born to be, either. Normal, functional, emotionally healthy people do not grow up with the kind of drive we do.”
I watch her in the moonlight, staring, but silent.
“We have this drive to destroy anyone who destroys innocence. It’s not revenge. It’s not an emotional response to something bad happening. It’s in our DNA, the way a lion hunts its prey. The way a snake strikes out at a threat. This is who we are.”
“You reduce me to a killer?”
“No.” She lays her phone on her lap, the screen split in two, so we’re treated to a view of Aubree nonchalantly studying the side of the building we’re on, but from the corner of her camera, we see the guys, too. The big lumps of macho muscle who can’t help but babysit us instead of participating in a fun dare.
And then Ellie’s camera, while she circles the block and comes up behind the guys. They’re too distracted by me and Soph, they’re completely blind to anything else.
“I consider Jay a killer,” she murmurs. “Troy. Any of my men will end a life when given the order. But they save lives, too, with no care for their own safety. Despite what you think of us, as a team, we’ve pulled more women out of the trafficking trade than the men we’ve harmed. And those we harmed deserved it. There’s no gray area. Like you, I collect my intel, give my target a chance to do the right thing, and only when they’ve made their choice—the wrong choice—do I make an order.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
She exhales, long and gusty and chest shrinking. “I guess I feel a kind of kinship with you. I spent my most formative years thinking Ellie was dead, and while she was gone, I changed. I became a hunter, not a dancer. A leader, not a follower. I’m pretty sure I rewired my brain and deleted the parts that are supposed to warn me of the consequences of my actions, which meanssometimes, I do things that are dangerous. Or unkind.” She nibbles on her lip and looks me up and down. “I’m socially stunted, Mayet. I see the world in black and white…” She stops and laughs, dropping her gaze. “I mean that in more ways than one. But ultimately, I like to understand things, and I struggle to take no for an answer. So the Aubree thing was about me wanting something, and when you said no, I took it anyway.”
“Makes you an asshole.”
“Mmhm.” She casts her gaze back to Ellie, with her lithe dancer feet silently moving along the street in the shadows. Her breath, controlled and undetected by the soldiers who pride themselves on their badass-ness and stealth in dangerous missions. “I’m an asshole,” she agrees, dipping her chin. “I admit it. I wrap my entire life around helping the weak and saving them from people who take without permission. And yet, I take, too.” She pauses. Then sighs. “I thought this would be a fun weekend spent with someone I feel a connection to. My curiosity about Aubree is only, like, ten percent of what I wanted out of this trip. Which meant, in my mind, I kinda assumed you’d only be ten percent mad. I miscalculated, because my ten percent was your hundred percent, and your protective instincts are literally…” She gestures my way. “In your DNA. It’s who you are. It’s whoweare.”
“You wanted to spend the weekend with me? For fun?”
Her cheeks color in the moonlight. “Sounds lame, huh?”
