Page 10 of Blood We Steal

I met Rubin’s eyes again. Rubin, who seemed in no hurry to pull me up. I looked down again searching for an escape. I was ten feet in the air, but I was tall. Maybe if I stretched…and then assuming I didn’t break both of my legs, I could dart to the left, maybe make my way to…where?

I didn’t know. This was a jail after all.

No, there was no outlet.

I ran the numbers anyway, weighing two broken legs if I let myself drop versus two legs ripped out of their sockets if I stayed. And the third option, the worst one of all—and my only way out of this.

Up.

Rubin still held me like it was nothing, and even though his palm was slick, he was waiting. I begged him with my eyes, knowing he saw me imploring. Something he proved when his eyes narrowed and his lips twisted up in a cruel smile.

“Ask me.”

His voice was flat, monotone, and absolutely unrelenting. It should have been simple. The words should have rolled off my tongue like nothing, but again, I couldn’t make myself say them. And for the first time, I knew it was pride. Even as I heard those things getting closer, I didn’t want to give him the victory.

It was stupid. Suicidal, really, given my current predicament. But still, I had once wanted to give Rubin all of me, back when I’d let myself believe there was some good in him, when I’d lie in the dark and allowed myself to think that someone like him might see me.

But now, those words…I couldn’t.

I wouldn’t.

I stared at Rubin, but stayed quiet.

Looked down when something brushed against my foot. I was just high enough that I was out of reach of one of those things that was directly beneath me. But if another, taller one came…

I looked back at Rubin.

He was still smiling. “Ask me.”

A cold hand closed over my shoe and pulled. I bent my knees again at the same time as I swallowed my pride.

“Please,” I whispered.

Rubin’s eyes flashed but his expression was stone. I knew what he was going to say before he spoke.

Knew the first price Rubin had put on my life.

“Ask.”

SIX

Rubin

She wasn’t going to ask.

Her usually pouty lips were shaped in a soft O of surprise, and her eyes were glassy with tears that she was too shocked or too stubborn to let fall.

When I saw her slip, I’d moved faster than I ever had in my life to catch her. We weren’t done yet, but seeing the fear in her eyes was a decent start, even if I wasn’t responsible for it.

The question—the demand—had come out without conscious thought but a deep sense of satisfaction had washed over me at the words.

Yes, the thought of her begging me to save her settled over me like a soothing balm. The raspy honey of her voice, the little flare of pride she wouldn’t be able to hold back, the exact moment that she gave in…

I’d earned that, and I would savor it. Almost as much as I would savor telling her no, watching as she realized that I’d survived her and that I’d made her pay. But what I would savor most of all was the relief. I hadn’t gotten where I was and stayed there by making allowances, by yielding anything. And once I excised Simone, I’d be who I was again, free from the weakness that polluted me when she was near.

Instead I got a halfhearted “please.”

Like that was enough. Like anything ever would be.