“Help him how?”

“He’s sick.” A long pause. “I made him sick.”

“How could you make him sick?”

“I thought I could save him. I tried. But it didn’t work. Not the way it should have.”

June hesitated then. She’d seen Sydney save small animals, knew what her intervention meant. “You resurrected Victor?”

The answer was barely a whisper. “Yes. I’ve brought people back before . . .” And then, still so softly, “But it’s harder, when they’re like us. You have to reach so much farther into the dark. I thought I grabbed hold of all the thread, but it was frayed, pieces everywhere, and I must have missed one, and now . . . his power isn’t working right.”

That last bit, like an opening in armor, a chance to ask the question that had plagued June since the day she brushed arms with the man in black. The mystery of his power—she’d glimpsed something, in Mitch’s mind, the vague shape of it anyhow, had gleaned more from the big guy’s fear, and from the careful way Sydney spoke, that Victor could do more than start cars or solve puzzles with his eyes closed.

“What is Victor’s power?” she asked now, heard the girl swallow audibly.

“He hurts people.”

A small shiver. “Sydney,” June said slowly. “Has he ever hurt you?”

“No.” And then, “Not on purpose.”

Anger cut through June like a knife. Anger, and the grim determination to pry Sydney free from Victor’s vise.

So far, she hadn’t succeeded.

It didn’t stop her from trying.

“If you ever want to leave . . .”

But June always knew the answer before it came.

* * *

JUNE sighed. Sydney still blamed herself for Victor’s situation, and until June could find a way to separate the girl from her shadow, Syd would say those same two words.

June put the phone away, turning her attention back to the task at hand, and the issue of Marcella Riggins. She plucked a framed photo from the dresser. No question, the woman was a stunner. Black hair, pale skin, long limbs. Pretty in the way that made nothing else about you matter. June had been that kind of pretty, once.

It was overrated.

June tossed the photo onto the bed and went to the window, intending to keep watch for Marcella.

Instead, she spotted a black van idling at the mouth of an alley.

That wouldn’t do.

She donned the Mr. Gosterly costume a second time and went back downstairs. As she stepped through the revolving doors, she shed the aspect in favor of something even less form-fitting—a middle-aged man, haggard from too many nights spent sleeping rough. The homeless fellow staggered, as if drunk, and caught himself against the hood of the idling van. Then, without looking up, began to unbuckle his worn belt and relieve himself against the vehicle.

A door swung open, slammed closed.

“Hey!” shouted a voice, grabbing her borrowed body from behind.

June turned and stumbled forward into the soldier, as if losing his balance, and as she did, a switchblade slid out from her fingers with a neat little snick. She drove the blade up into the soldier’s throat, then eased his body down against the alley wall.

One down.

How many more to go?

MEANWHILE, ACROSS TOWN . . .

MARCELLA sat on the patio of Le Soleil, sipping her latte as rain dripped from the awning and a hundred strangers passed beneath black umbrellas.

She couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched. She was, of course, used to being noticed, but this felt different. Intrusive. And yet there was no obvious source.

Despite her concern, Marcella wasn’t in disguise—lying low had never been her style. But she’d conceded to a more subtle aesthetic, with her black hair in a simple high ponytail, her trademark stiletto pumps exchanged for more functional heeled black boots. Her nails, freshly painted gold, rapped against the side of her cup as she studied the subway station across the street. Marcella mapped out the station in her mind, envisioning the escalators that led down one level, and then two, terminating at the bank of storage lockers that ran along a white tile wall.

The locker in question was one of five they had, scattered across Merit. It had been Marcella’s idea, to skim off the funds, in case a situation arose. Admittedly, she’d never envisioned a situation quite like this.

A siren wailed, and Marcella’s fingers tensed on her coffee cup as the patrol car whipped around a nearby corner. But it surged past without stopping, and Marcella exhaled and brought the latte to her lips.

It was strange—in the days since her confrontation with Marcus, she’d been on edge, waiting for the cops to show up at any moment. She wasn’t a fool. She knew they were the ones who’d kept her survival a secret. Knew her departure from the hospital was anything but subtle. And yet no one showed up, either to kill or to collect her.

She wondered what she would do when they did.

“Anything else?” asked the waiter.

Marcella smiled up at him from behind her sunglasses. “Just the check.”

She paid and stood, flinching a little as she did—the burns were healing, but her skin was still tender and tight, aching with every motion. A useful reminder of Marcus’s crime, and a shortcut to summoning this new power, if and when she needed it.

Marcella crossed the street and into the station.

She made her way to the lockers, found the number—the day they met—and spun the code Marcus had habitually used into the combination lock.

It didn’t open.

She tried a second time, then sighed.

Her husband continued to disappoint her.

Marcella wrapped her fingers around the lock, and watched it rust away, the metal crumbling in her palm. The door swung open, and she pulled a stylish black-and-gold purse from the cubby. She drew the zipper back and examined the stacks of cash totaling fifty thousand.

It wasn’t enough, of course, but it was a start.

For what? she asked herself.

The truth was, Marcella wasn’t sure what to do next. Where to go. Who to become. Marcus had gone from being a foothold to a shackle, a hindrance.

Marcella took the purse and made her way back up to the street, and hailed a cab.

“Where to?” asked the driver as she slid into the backseat.

Marcella sat back and crossed her legs.

“The Heights.”

The city slid past, innocuous enough, but when Marcella climbed out of the cab ten minutes later, she felt it again, that prickle like eyes against the back of her neck.

“Mrs. Riggins,” said Ainsley, the Heights’s concierge. His voice was steady, but his gaze lingered on her as she crossed the lobby, a careful tension in his face. He was standing too stiff, too still, working too hard at seeming calm.

Shit, thought Marcella, stepping smoothly into the elevator. As it rose, she unzipped the black-and-gold bag and reached past the money, fingers closing around the familiar grip of a handgun.

Marcella drew the weapon out, admiring the sleek chrome finish as she ejected the clip, checked the rounds, slid the safety off, each gesture performed with studied ease.

It was like wearing heels, she thought, racking the slide.

Just a matter of practice.

VI

TWO YEARS AGO

MERIT ARMORY

IT was her birthday, and they had the whole place to themselves.

Marcella could have picked a restaurant, a museum, a movie theater—any place she wanted—and Marcus would have found a way to make it hers for the night. He’d been surprised when she’d chosen the gun range.

She’d always wanted to learn how to shoot.

Her heels clicked across the linoleum, the bright fluorescents glaring down on case after case of weapons.

Marcus laid a dozen handguns on the counter, and Marcella ran her hands over the different models. They reminded her of tarot cards. When she was young Marcella had gone to a carnival, snuck into a little tent to learn her fortune. An old woman—the perfect image of a mythological or mythic crone—had spread the cards, and told her not to think, just to reach for the one that reached for her.

She had drawn the Queen of Pentacles.

The fortune teller told her it symbolized ambition.

“Power,” said the woman, “belongs to those who take it.”

Marcella’s fingers closed around a sleek chrome Beretta.

“This one,” she said with a smile.

Marcus took up a box of bullets and led her through into the shooting gallery.

He lifted a target—a full silhouette, head to toe, and marked by rings—and clipped it to the line. He hit a button, and the target skated away, five, ten, then fifteen meters before it stopped and hung suspended, waiting.

Marcus showed her how to load the magazine—it would take her months to manage without chipping a nail—and offered her the gun. It felt heavy in her hand. Lethal.

“What you’re holding,” he said, “is a weapon. It only has one purpose, and that’s to kill.”

Marcus turned Marcella to face the target, and wrapped himself around her like a coat, tracing the lines of her body with his own. His chest to her shoulders. His arms along her arms, hands shaping hers around the gun. She could feel his excitement pressing against her, but the gun range wasn’t just a kinky setting for a birthday fuck. There would be time for that, later, but first, she wanted to learn.