Page 122 of Throwing Fire

Kez arrives a few minutes later. Lightning should be crackling around her, she’s so pissed off. Payton’s a step or two behind her and her expression’s pretty black, too, but nothing to match the rage on my kitten’s face.

Kez stalks straight to her sister and without telegraphing the move, punches Erin in the nose.

Erin lands on her designer ass. The crack of her tailbone on the ceramsteel floor makes everyone within hearing-distance wince.

“Kezzy—” Erin protests weakly. She dabs at her nose, which leaks a thin stream of blood a shade brighter than her lips.

“You fucking bitch!” Kez roars, shaking out her hand. “I left you alone! I didn’t even look for you. All you had to do was go. But no! It’s never enough for you! When will it be enough, Erin? Do you need to own the whole galaxy!”

Erin blinks up at her sister. Guess she’s never seen Kez lose it before. I have. Once at Ape. Once at me. Only the people you love can drive you this far over the edge.

“Kez,” I say, slow and deep to pull her back a little. “Hex is in there.” I tip my head at the containers, which the techs have stopped loading while they watch our little drama.

Kez’s eyes flick to the containers, then back to me. “Hex dissolves.”

“B’s evidently got a degree in chemistry.”

Kez hisses through her teeth. She turns to Payton, and as she does, Erin shifts and begins to rise. Kez swings back to her sister and pins her to the floor with a blue glare no less deadly thanErin’s. “Don’t you move or I swear to God I’ll break your neck the way I should have when we were kids.”

Erin snorts but settles back onto her elbows. She’d look in control except for the way her nose is beginning to swell.

“Any records of which containers are tainted?” Kez asks Payton. Payton pulls out her palmtop and taps rapidly. After a moment, she shakes her head.

“They must be able to tell somehow,” Kez says, and I can hear her grinding her teeth in frustration.

“It could be anything. Quality. Destination. Distributor. I’m sorry, I have no way of knowing,” Payton responds.

“What’re the losses if we dump the whole shipment?” Kez asks.

A couple of the techs gasp, but no one volunteers to be her next target.

“That’s a tenday supply to the Clouds,” Erin remarks from the floor.

“When I ask you a question, you’ll know,” Kez snaps at her. “Payton?”

“Fourteen point four million,” Payton says.

Kez runs her hands through her hair. She knows we can’t dump the shipment. Not without a whole lot of people who depend on her and haven’t done anything wrong losing their jobs.

Kez turns to me and the anguish in those big blues is something I’d do anything to end. “Kitten,” I say.

“Can we catch it on the other end?” she asks me.

We can try. I nod.

She turns to the clustered, whispering techs. “Finish loading. I want to see the manifest when you’re done. Every goddamn drop.”

One of them, a foreman by his uniform, nods. “Yes, Miz Kerryon.”

“Well, if that’s settled, can I get up off this really rather filthy floor?” Erin asks.

I grab the back of her unisuit with my good hand and haul her up. “We ain’t done—” I begin to growl at her.

It’s Payton who finishes my sentence, coming to stand in frontof Erin and stare up at her with a flat, black glare. “Not by a long shot,” Payton says.

“What’s got your panties in a knot, clone?” Erin purrs.

“You killed my family,” Payton says.