Page 103 of A Treacherous Trade

In fact, I realized, that was exactly what I should be doing: fighting for our lives. It was that, dehydration, or poisoning.

I lunged for her, or tried to, but I remained ungainly and slow, my limbs weak and feeble.

Still, I managed a swipe at her, grasped her coat, and held on like a barnacle, clawing my way up it even as she attempted to kick me off.

Hartigan might have come to her aid if Amelia hadn’t followed my lead and launched herself at him.

I grasped her hair and wrenched her head back, finding a grim satisfaction when she screeched and flapped about like a demented corvid.

Amelia wrought havoc upon Hartigan, as well, but she’d yet to escape.

With a surge of strength I drew from devil-knew-where, I yanked Beatrice to the ground and narrowly avoided tripping over her flailing limbs on my mad dash for the door.

I made it.

I made it there.

Seven brothers had taught me to be scrappy and tough, but no one my size had a chance against a man like Butler.

He appeared out of nowhere, and with a bear-like paw, hauled me off my feet and slammed me into the wall.

The impact stole my breath, or I might have screamed. The pain blinded me. I fought to move. To breathe. But no part of me would follow commands.

I slid to the earth in a heap.

I heard a slap. A cry.

Amelia.

“I will burn this fucking place to the ground.”

I opened my eyes to see Indira with the matches I had dropped. She held one to a photo of herself, paralyzing the room.

Her lovely amber irises reflected the flame, burning with feminine fury. “I remember you told me, Hartigan, that you have film in this building that is some of the most flammable material in the world. That these photographs will burn faster than paper…” She cocked her head. “Should we find out?”

Hartigan held his arms out. “Wait. This whole block will burn, this building with you in it.”

“Do you think I care?” She dropped the match dangerously close to the table, and lit another before we watched the first one fall. Indira turned to Butler, who’d clutched Amelia in his enormous grasp. “Let. Her. Go.”

He looked back to Beatrice, who still struggled to rise from where I’d knocked her to the ground. She nodded and motioned to the door with a jut of her chin.

Hartigan retreated, and Butler released Amelia to help Beatrice to her feet before standing guard at the door.

“Do what you wish, Indira,” Bea said, wrestling the mess I’d made of her wiry hair out of her face, as if she could regain any sort of dignity in our eyes. “We won’t be here to spit on the ashes.”

With that, she turned and left, taking the lantern with her. The lock slid home, imprisoning us with nothing but each other, a swiftly dwindling book of matches, and three glasses of poison.

“Don’t do it,” Amelia begged Indira as she wiped blood from her nose. “Those photographs are evidence. They must see the light of day and indict these monsters. So these women will have justice. Alys, Jane… even Izzy. Everyone there whose names we may never know.”

Indira lifted the corner of her lip in disgust before being forced to light another match. “Hartigan told me the police aren’t even looking at him anymore. And you heard Bea, they’re in her pocket.”

“Not Grayson. Not my brother,” Amelia insisted before turning to me. “Fiona, we have to find a way out of here.”

“I can’t… I can’t move my arm.” I gasped, the pain still too raw to consider much of anything. I was tempted to drink the bloody tonic just to get it to stop.

“Oh Christ.” Amelia scrambled to me, her hands examining my cradled arm with the touch of a butterfly’s wing.

And still, it was all I could do not to snarl at her, to warn her away.