Page 16 of Daggermouth

She looked down at his hand on her wrist, at the scars that matched her own. “The city needs the Executioner dead more.”

She pulled her clothes back on, already erecting the walls she only let down for sex. Shadera could feel his eyes on her, could sense the words he wanted to say hanging in the air between them.

“Don’t,” she warned without looking at him.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make this more than it is.”

He was quiet for a long moment, then she heard him getting dressed behind her. When she finally turned around, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully clothed again, watching her.

Shadera reached for a half-smoked cigarette on the crate by the bed.

“How do you even know about this contract?” she asked, fishing a lighter from the floor. She lit the tip, taking a long drag, and exhaled the smoke into the dark.

“Jaeger told me. Thought I should know, in case . . .” He trailed off, running a hand down his face, then let out a bitter laugh. “You know, I might be falling in love with you and it’s fucking terrible.”

Her heart convulsed at his words but she rolled her eyes, forcing the emotion out.

“Then you’re dumber than I thought.” She scoffed and turned away from him, heading back to her weapons on the floor.

Jameson rose, walking to where she stood, and pulled the cigarette from her fingers. He brought it to his lips as his eyes scanned over her arsenal, then blew out a plume of smoke.

“When do you leave?” he asked, not looking at her.

Shadera swallowed, suddenly feeling a twinge of guilt that in the five days since getting the contract, she hadn’t told him.

“Tonight,” was all she answered.

The cigarette burned down between his fingers. Jameson stared at her weapons spread across the concrete like a surgeon’s tools, each one cleaned and calibrated for death. His jaw worked silently, processing what she’d just told him.

“Tonight,” he repeated, voice flat. “And you weren’t going to tell me.”

Shadera knelt down, and began reassembling a gun with muscle memory.

Click, slide, snap.

The sounds filled the silence between them like small explosions. “Nothing to tell. It’s just another job.”

“Bullshit.” He dropped the cigarette, crushing it under his boot. “This isn’t some Cardinal snitch or Boundary dealer. This is the President’s son. The fucking heir to New Found Haven.”

Her fingers didn’t pause their work. The gun came together in her hands like it’d been born there, every component finding its home.

“Your point?”

“My point is you’re walking into the Heart with a death wish, and calling it Friday.” His voice cracked. “My point is I might never see you again.”

Shadera’s hands stilled.

His honesty saturated the air, raw and bleeding. She could feel the weight of his stare on her shoulders, on the intricate tattoos that wound around her arms like vines of violence. Snakes and chains, roses with thorns sharp enough to cut, names of the dead written in a line that crawled up the side of her shoulder, and onto her neck.

She forced herself to look at him then,reallylook at him. Silver hair falling across his forehead, green eyes that held too much hope for a man who’d seen what they both had. The scar that ran from his left temple to his jaw, courtesy of a too drunk Daggermouth a few years back.

He was beautiful in the way broken things could be—sharp edges and jagged lines that caught the light wrong.

“Well, itwillbe just another Friday, and you knew what this was when you started fucking me. You know I don’t make attachments,” she said. “Don’t act surprised now.”

“I’m not surprised.” Jameson stepped closer, close enough that she could smell the cigarette smoke on his hands and the faint scent of gunpowder that clung to his clothes. “I’m terrified.”