“Not to you. Because to you, he is a whole person. The little boy who kept you safe when the world was burning to the ground. But come on, Daph. You are basically becoming a doctor, and he is a prince of the Seattle Underworld. There is no ending where you two live happily ever after.”
I rolled my neck and moved into the living room.
“Daphne?” she said my name like it meant something. “Daphne, stop.”
“No.” I met her eyes with a clear order. The green in mine crashing into the fear in hers. She would drop this, or I would drop her.
It was that easy.
That simple.
That broken.
Everything inside me twisted.
“Fine,” she conceded, shaking her head with a wink, but it did not make me feel better. “Well, at least tell him you love him. Because this in-between shit is killing you.”
An icy terror settled low in my stomach when I shut the door and locked it.
We lived in a two-bedroom, two-thousand-per-month, eight-hundred-square-foot piece of shit apartment that looked out over dumpsters, fast-food joints, and a boutique ribbon shop that somehow thrived in this economy. Capitol Hill was Seattle’s version of Haight-Ashbury, if it had zero charm and a thousand hypodermic needles. You could not walk down the street without stomping over one or running into pain.
There was no middle in Seattle. You were either the product of the tech boom, the corporate hippie hikers who ate gluten-free and drove a Land Rover, or you were choosing whether to pay rent or eat dinner. But this was home: Rain clouds. Sadness. Fish guts. Poetic grit.
My phone buzzed, and I glanced at it.
Thay: Don’t come tonight.
Kandy threw a look over my shoulder and giggled.
“Oh, tell him you are definitely coming tonight.” She hugged me from behind, pulling me down the hall. “All over his face.”
two
Daphne: Distortion
Three major factions ran the Seattle Underground, leaving the smaller crews to crawl into the holes no one else wanted to deal with. There were no oaths, no banners, no clean lines in the dirt, but everyone knew where the shadows leaned. The Black Wings flew in Marianne’s pocket, which made them rivals by default to Karsten’s crew. Not that it was by choice. It was inherited loyalty, one that Wolfe had been trying to break since he took over for his father five years ago after being raised in the club his entire life.
“They sure pick peculiar venues,” Kandy grinned at me from the sidewalk in front of the deflated building.
As with all things in the Underworld, parties had to move to avoid becoming sitting ducks. Raids, drunk targets, and opportunistic enemies were always lurking, and being stationary meant death.
“Let’s make this quick,” a chiseled shadow of Robin Hood cut a path ahead of me. “Nikki’s waiting, and I fucking hate this shit.”
Kandy watched the rogue move to the front of the line, and I followed her gaze, knowing instantly he wasn’t one of mine.
“Hope they all look like that,” she winked, and I smiled.
The night was dark, wet, and the strange lines the streetlights cast across the forming puddles created a sense of nowhere that came with being part of this city. My boots sloshed through the mud as we approached, kicking up water as we stomped toward the door.
“Blade!” I smiled, ignoring the groans from the people beside me.
Blade’s real name was Christopher, and like Threx and Wolfe, he’d been given a new moniker to hide behind. Threx wasn’t too thrilled when I pointed out that his sounded like it belonged to a dinosaur, or that I continued to call him Thay whenever I wanted to poke at the soul they took from him that day.
“Daphne!” Blade shouted, lifting off the brick wall to snag me in a hug. The strands of blonde hair dripped down the collar of his club jacket, but he didn’t seem to mind as he pulled me close.
“How did you land door duty? Isn’t this job for the recruits?” I asked, throwing my arms around his neck and planting a kiss on his cheek.
“Pissed off Wolfe today. Guess you shouldn’t fuck his sister.”