Chapter 6 · The First Blood Job

"You're not going in there."

Iris grabbed my sleeve before I could knock. Her fingers were cold, and they dug in hard enough to leave marks.

"You said seven jobs," I said. "That voice gave me an address. So I'm doing the job."

"Not this one."

"Then which one?" I pulled my arm back. "You want me to stand here and wait for another voice from a dead guy? Because I don't think that's how your curse works."

She didn't let go. Her nails bit through the fabric.

"This debt isn't like the others," she said. "The debtor's dangerous."

"They're all dangerous. That's why they owe."

"Cade—"

"You're stalling." I turned to face her fully. We were standing in a narrow hallway that smelled like mildew and old carpet glue. The address the dead voice had given me led to a walk-up in the Flats, the kind of place where the landlord stopped caring twenty years ago. "What aren't you telling me?"

Her jaw tightened. She was close enough that I could see the pulse jumping in her throat.

"If you go in there," she said slowly, "you might not come back out."

"I've died four times already.