by V. E. Schwab
“You make it sound simple.”
Eli shrugged. It was, in theory. The task itself would be more challenging. It took all his restraint, but Eli did not suggest his own involvement a second time. That seed was too freshly planted, its roots too fragile. Besides, he knew what Stell’s next course of action would be—he’d suggested it himself. A sniper at a safe distance, a clean-cut execution. If it went well, no more innocents would die. Of course, if it went well, there would be no need to let him out.
Eli tensed. That hand on his, the subtle pressure pushing him forward, pulling him back—for so long, he’d assumed it was God, but doubt was a slow, insidious force, wearing away at solid things. Eli still wanted, more than anything, to believe, knew that to demand proof, to ask for a sign, was not the same . . . but he needed something.
And so he told himself, if God willed it . . . if the mission failed . . . if it was meant to be—
And if it wasn’t? If Eli was truly on his own?
No—he had seen his opportunity, and he had taken it. And now he had to wait.
Had to have faith.
“You know what you have to do,” said Eli.
Stell nodded. “We have to find them again first.”
“That shouldn’t be hard,” said Eli. “Marcella doesn’t strike me as the type to run from a fight.”
IX
THREE WEEKS AGO
DOWNTOWN
MARCELLA’S steel heels clicked across the lobby of the National building.
June followed a step behind, her steps muffled in her gladiator flats. She had taken on a new aspect—that’s what she called them—this time, as a lanky girl with shoulder-length black hair and wide, dark eyes, spindly legs jutting from a pair of white shorts. She was barely sixteen by the looks of it, and when Marcella had asked, June had simply said, “I heard he likes them young.”
“Can I help you?” asked the man behind the desk.
Marcella settled the sunglasses in her hair, blue eyes and long lashes on full display. “I certainly hope so,” she said in a breathy voice.
She had long ago learned how to turn men into puppets.
It was simple, no special powers needed.
She smiled, and so did the man behind the desk.
She leaned in, and he leaned in to meet her.
“We’re here to see Tony.”
Marcella didn’t have an appointment, but June was right: Hutch had been looking for her—he’d left a dozen voicemails on her cell since the card game. Half a minute later, they were on their way upstairs.
June slumped back against the elevator wall. She had gone suspiciously quiet, her mouth now pressed into a grim line. Her earlier humor had vanished, her gaze flicking nervously between the number pad on the wall, and her own reflection, and the gold trim on the ceiling.
The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open onto an elegantly appointed foyer, bookended by a pair of men in dark suits, their holsters visible beneath their tailored jackets. Beyond them, frosted glass doors led into the penthouse.
“Gentlemen,” said Marcella, stepping forward.
Her outfit left little room for concealed weapons, but one of the suits still insisted on patting her down, his hands lingering on her hips and under her breasts. When the other guy reached to search June, she just sneered, and Marcella cleared her throat. “I’m pretty sure there are laws against that.”
The suit huffed but stood down, clearly deciding it wasn’t worth the fight. He tapped a code into a wall panel, and the frosted doors slid open. The space beyond looked more like a living room than an office. Broad white sofas and low glass coffee tables, decanters arranged along a sideboard.
Tony Hutch sat behind a glossy black desk, reading a paper, the city gleaming in the floor-to-ceiling windows at his back. Beyond the glass, a slate patio gave way to a shimmering blue pool, steam rising where the heated surface met the cool spring air.
Tony looked up from his paper and smiled.
They say people grow on you, and maybe that was true, because every time Marcella saw Tony, she felt the need to scrub him off her skin.
He rose and circled the desk, arms wide.
“Marcella, if beauty were a crime . . .” he said, reaching for her hand.
“Then I’d be running this city instead of you,” she said dryly.
Tony laughed, even as his attention flicked sideways. “And who’s this?”
“My niece, J—”
“Jessica,” cut in June, holding out her hand, her accent smothered to a soft edge.
Tony took it, his eyes wandering over her. “Good looks clearly run in the family,” he said, brushing his lips against her knuckles. With his head bent, he didn’t see June’s eyes narrow to slits. Marcella wondered, again, what June had meant by personal business.
The two suits were hovering by the glass doors, hands resting on their holsters, but Tony waved them away. “Stand down, boys.” A wink. “I think I can handle things here.”
Amazing, thought Marcella. Hutch had obviously seen her handiwork at the poker game, and still he treated her like a prop, a pretty but powerless bauble.
How many men would she have to turn to dust before one took her seriously?
The security retreated, and Tony turned toward the sideboard.
“Sit, sit,” he said, gesturing at the two chairs in front of the desk. “Can I get you girls a drink?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, just started scooping ice into crystal tumblers.
Marcella sank into a chair, but June wandered the suite, restless, examining the art. Marcella turned her attention to Tony. “Did you know about Bethany?”
Tony tutted. “Oh, that,” he said, waving it away. “Look, I told Marc to get rid of her, but you know how men are. If dicks and hearts were in the same place—I mean, how many times have I tried to lure you away from your husband—but then, that’s not why you’re here.”
“Why am I here, Tony?”
He returned to his chair. “You’re here because you’ve got the sense to come when you’re called. You’re here to help me understand what the fuck is going on, because I’ve been hearing a lot of crazy shit, Marce, and all I know is three of my best guys are dead, and the other two seem to have the addled notion that it was you who killed them.”
“Because it was.”
Tony laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I’m not in the mood for games, Marce. I know you and Marcus had a spat—”
“A spat?” cut in Marcella. “He slammed my head against a table. He pinned my body beneath fifty pounds of iron, and set our house on fire with me inside it.”
“And yet here you are, alive and well, while my top enforcer is a pile of dust on Sam McGuire’s floor. So, you’re gonna help me understand what really happened.” He didn’t bother to say or else, only sat back. “Look, I’m not an unreasonable man. You help me, and I’ll help you.”
Her mouth twitched. “How will you help me?”
“You were always too good for Marcus. I could give you the kind of life you deserve. The kind you’re worth . . .”—that slimy smile—“if you ask nice.”
Ask nice.
Play nice.
Marcella was so fucking tired of nice.
Across the room June let out a short, derisive laugh.
The smile slipped from Tony’s face. “Something funny, kid?”
June turned toward them. “I asked you nice once, Tony,” she said flatly. “It didn’t make a bit of difference.”
Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Have we met before?”
June leaned her elbows on the back of the empty chair, and pouted. “Oh, Tony.” This time, when she spoke, her accent was on full display, strong and sweet. “Don’t you recognize me?”
The color drained from his face. “No . . .” Marcella didn’t know if it was shock or a denial, but one hand went for the top drawer of his desk.
“Really?” June straightened, and as she did, the teen girl disappeared, replaced by a perfect repl
ica of Tony Hutch himself. “What about now?”
Marcella watched as the Tony Hutch behind the desk drew a gun from the top drawer and fired three quick rounds into June’s chest.
June looked down as the blood blossomed, sudden and bright across her shirt, but she didn’t cry out, didn’t fall, just smiled. Behind the desk, the real Hutch gasped and clutched his chest as three perfect holes appeared, blood spilling down his front.
“What was it you said to me?” asked June, leaning on the desk. “Ah, yes . . . Don’t fight it, baby. You know you like it rough.”
His lungs hitched once, twice, body shuddering to a stop.
As the man died, June seemingly lost hold of her powers.
The reflection of Tony fell away like clothes that no longer fit, and for an instant Marcella glimpsed someone else—a girl with auburn curls and hazel eyes and freckles like a band of stars across her nose—but it was only for an instant, and then June was back again, as the skinny dark-haired teen she’d worn into the office.
Marcella watched it all in amazement as the true potential of June’s power settled over her.
The girl wasn’t just a mirror, or a mimic.
She was a living voodoo doll.
Marcella broke into a grin just as the frosted doors were flung open and the two guards barreled in, weapons drawn.
June whipped around, no longer the teen girl, but a perfect mimic of the man who’d tried to frisk her. He raised his gun but faltered at the sight of himself, and in that instant of hesitation, June swept a letter opener from the desk and drove it down into her hand. Which was his hand.
The man gasped and dropped his gun as blood poured between his fingers. The second guard wavered—the shock of seeing Hutch dead, of seeing his partner suddenly in two places—and Marcella took the opportunity to grab Tony’s gun from the desk and shoot the man in the head.
He dropped like a ball of lead. The other scrambled for his fallen weapon, but Marcella was there first, pinning his wounded hand to the floor with the heel of her shoe.
“You crazy bitch,” he bleated as she bent down and wrapped her hand around his mouth.
“That’s no way to talk to a lady,” she said, digging her nails into his skin. It withered in her grip, flesh peeling back to reveal bone that thinned and cracked until the slightest pressure made it shatter.
Marcella straightened, dusting her palms. She swore softly. There was a crack in her manicure.
June whistled a low, appreciative sound. “Well, that was fun.” She was perched on the sofa, legs swinging girlishly. She hopped down and started toward the glass doors, their surface now flecked with blood.
“Come on,” she said, passing Tony’s sideboard. “I need a real drink.”
X
THREE WEEKS AGO
EAST MERIT
MARCELLA had been to her fair share of bars, but these days, most of them had glowing stained glass, leather booths—at the very least, a menu.
The Palisades had cracked windows, wooden stools, and a grimy chalkboard.
It wasn’t that Marcella didn’t know this world—the world of astringent well drinks and tabs paid in petty cash—but she’d left it behind on purpose. June, on the other hand, seemed right at home, elbows leaning on the sticky counter. She was herself again—not the girl Marcella had glimpsed so briefly in Hutch’s office, or the one June had worn on their way in, but the one she had met at the Heights, with those loose brown waves, that long peasant skirt.
June ordered a double whiskey for herself and a martini for Marcella, which turned out to be straight vodka, ungarnished. Which, at the moment, she really didn’t mind. She stood at the bar, sipping the drink.
“Fuck’s sake, sit down,” said June, swinging around in her seat. “And stop wrinkling your nose.” The girl lifted her drink. “To a good day’s work.”
Marcella reluctantly perched on the stool, studying June over her glass.
She was brimming with questions. Two weeks ago, Marcella had been a beautiful, ambitious, but slightly bored housewife, with no idea that people like June, like her, existed. Now, she was a widow, one with the ability to ruin anything she touched, and she wasn’t even the only one with powers.
“Can you be anyone?” she asked June.
“Anyone I touch,” said the girl. “If they’re alive. And if they’re human.”
“How does it work?”
“Dunno,” said June. “How do you burn people alive?”
“I don’t,” said Marcella. “Burn them, that is. It’s more like . . .”—she considered the drink in her hand—“ruining. Wood rots. Steel rusts. Glass returns to sand. People fall apart.”
“What does it feel like?”
Like xsfire, thought Marcella, but that wasn’t quite right. She remembered how it felt when Marcus crumbled in her arms. The simple, almost elegant way he came apart. There was something raw about her power. Something limitless. She said as much.
“Everything’s got a limit,” said June. “You should find yours.”
The girl’s gaze darkened, and Marcella remembered the space between bodies, the brief glimpse of that other shape. “Did you feel it?” she asked. “When he shot you?”
June raised a brow. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Must be nice.”
June hummed thoughtfully, and then asked a very different kind of question. “Do you remember your last thoughts?”
And the strange thing was, Marcella did.
Marcella—who never remembered her own dreams, who rarely remembered a phone number or a catchphrase, who’d said a thousand angry things in the heat of passion and never recalled a single one of them—couldn’t seem to forget. The words echoed inside her skull.
“I will ruin you,” she recited, softly. Almost reverently.
Now, somehow, she could.
It was as if she’d forged the power through her own formidable will, tempered it with pain and anger and the vicious desire to see her husband pay.
And so she had to wonder: what kind of life—what kind of death—made a power like June’s? When Marcella asked, the girl went quiet, and in that quiet, Marcella felt the girl gaze into her own internal flame.
“My last thought?” June said at last. “That I would survive. And no one would ever be able to hurt me again.”
Marcella raised her glass. “And now no one can. And on top of it, you can be anyone you want.”
“Except myself.” There was no self-pity in June’s voice, only a wry humor. “Irony’s a bitch.”
“So is karma.” Marcella twirled her glass. “You know my story,” she said. “What’s yours?”
“Private,” said June shortly.
“Come on,” she prompted.
June raised a brow. “Oh, sorry, if you thought this was a girls’-night-out kind of thing, where we get drunk and bond, I’ll have to pass.”
Marcella looked around. “Then what are we doing here?”
“Celebrating,” said June, tossing back her drink and signaling for another before pulling a slip of rolled paper from her pocket. At first, Marcella thought it was a cigarette, but then, as June unfurled it, Marcella realized it was a list.
Four names in tight scrawl.
Three of them had already been crossed out.
And there, at the bottom—Antony Hutch.
As Marcella watched, June plucked a pen from the edge of the bar and struck the name out. “Well, that’s done,” she said, half to herself. And just like that, June was back, a manic light in her eyes as she spun in her seat, folded her arms on the bar. “What do you plan to do next?”
Marcella looked into her empty glass. “I think,” she said slowly, “I’ll take over the mob.”
June snorted into her drink. “Brilliant.”
But Marcella wasn’t joking.
She had only settled for a place at her husband’s side because no one would give her a seat at the table.
But she was done settling.
According to
Marcus, power belonged to the man with the biggest gun. Marcella thought of the remains of Tony Hutch’s body, staining his white carpet.
“How many of us do you think there are?”
“EOs?” June hesitated. “Who knows? More than you’d think. We don’t exactly go around advertising.”
“But you can find them.”
The glass was halfway to June’s mouth. Now it stopped. “What?”
“Your power,” said Marcella. “You said when you touch someone, you can take their appearance, but only if they’re human. Doesn’t that mean you can tell when they’re not?”
June’s smile flickered, and returned twice as bright. “You’re awfully sharp.”
“So I’ve been told.”
June stretched on her stool. “Sure, I can tell. Why? You looking to find more of us?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?” June shot her a sideways glance. “Trying to eliminate the competition?”
“Hardly.” She finished her drink and set the empty glass down, running a gold nail around the rim. “Men look at anyone with power and see only a threat, an obstacle in their path. They never have the sense to see power for what it really is.”
“And what’s that?” asked June.
“Potential.” Marcella tightened her fingers on the stem of her glass. “This ability of mine,” she said as her hand glowed red, “is a weapon.” As she spoke, the glass dissolved to sand, slipping through her fingers. “But why settle for one weapon when you can have an arsenal?”
“Because an arsenal stands out,” said June.
Marcella’s lips twitched. “Maybe it should. People with powers like ours, why should we hide? The life I had is gone. There’s no getting it back. I’d rather make a new one. A better one. One where I don’t have to pretend to be weak to survive.”
June chewed her lip thoughtfully. And then, having answered what private question she’d been pondering, June sprang to her feet.
“Come on.”
Marcella didn’t know if it was the girl’s sudden, infectious energy, or if she simply had nowhere else to go, but she stepped down from her stool.
“Where are we going?” asked Marcella.
