Chapter 29 · Marked in Ash

Chapter 29: Marked in Ash

"Not a word." The gun grinds into my temple, barrel still warm from firing somewhere else first. "You call his name, I paint the wall with you."

I don't call his name.

I reach up like I'm steadying myself, like I'm about to faint, pretty and useless, and I pull the steel pin out of my hair instead. The one that's held this stupid chignon together since six this morning. Six inches, sharpened on a concrete step in a bathroom nobody watched me use.

I drive it into his eye.

He screams — a sound that doesn't belong in a ballroom, wet and high — and the gun goes wide, firing once into the ceiling. Plaster rains down with the smoke. I twist away from him, blood on my hand that isn't mine, and Luca is already there, already turning, already seeing.

"June." My name comes out of him like a verdict. He doesn't ask if I'm hit. He grabs the man by the collar and slams him into the overturned podium hard enough to crack the wood, one hand pinning his throat, the other ripping the earpiece out of his ear.

"Who paid you."