Page 16 of Gunslinger Girl

“We’re only borrowing it.” He handed her a bowl. “My turn for a question. Why did you run away? You did run away, right?”

“Yes.” She lowered her gaze. “My father was trying to send me to another commune.”

“Why?”

Pity shrugged, wincing at the pain that accompanied the gesture. “Spite, mostly. He hated my mother, never mind she’s been dead for years. Not that there was much in the commune for me anyway… except… except for Finn.” Her breath snagged in her lungs and trembled there, trapped. She gripped the edge of the counter.

“Hey.” Max dropped the cup he was washing. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine.” She gasped, unable to get enough air. “It’s… it’s just she…”

“Sit down,” he ordered. “You shouldn’t be on your feet yet.”

Pity backed up against the cot and collapsed, hardly feeling the pain that rippled through her. Tears filled her eyes once more. “She shouldn’t have been with me.” The leaden words tumbled from her tongue, unbidden. “She should be on the commune right now, elbow-deep in an engine. That life was killing me, but she was the one who ended up dead. It’s all my fault.”

“Don’t say that.” The sharpness in Max’s tone pierced her daze. “You weren’t the one who pulled the trigger.”

“But I didn’t do anything to stop it, either. And now…” Pity shuddered as reality bit deep, a warped inversion of her brief, hopeful dream. First east, now west—from the stalwart CONA cities to the biggest den of sinners on the continent. Her brief, hopeful dream was as dead as Finn. Even her guns weren’t in her possession anymore. “Oh, Lord, what am I going to do?”

Max went down on one knee beside her. “You’re going to come with us,” he said calmly, “and figure things out from there. Cessation is… It’s not like what you’ve heard. I mean, it is, but it’s more. There are all sorts there—dissidents and drifters, Ex-Pats, CONA citizens, and free folks. Don’t worry. There’s always work for a girl who—”

Her head snapped up.

“That’s not what I meant!” He searched for a moment. “Look, if you change your mind when we get there, I’ll put you on the train myself. I promise.”

His gray eyes were earnest, without a hint of malice, but Pity recoiled. Everything suddenly seemed like a terrible idea. Maybe it wasn’t too late to go back. Maybe her father wouldn’t kill her.

“Why are you being so nice? I don’t know you… any of you.”

“You don’t,” Max said quietly. “But we helped you when we could have left you behind.”

The door to the cab opened, and Olivia stepped through. She stopped short. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No.” Max got to his feet. “We were discussing what Pity might do once we get to Cessation.”

“Oh, yeah?” Olivia went to a storage bin and fished out an apple. “Did you get around yet to telling her what you do?”

“No,” Pity said, tensing with suspicion. “He didn’t.”

But Max swelled with pride. “I’m with the Theatre.”

She waited. “The Theatre?”

“Don’t they know about us in the communes?” Some of the pride evaporated. “The grandest show since before the Pacific Event? Cessation’s crown jewel of entertainment?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Damn, I really thought you would have heard about us…”

“Heard about who?”

Max threw out his arms with a flourish. “Halcyon Singh’s Theatre Vespertine.”

The name meant nothing. “So… you’re an actor?”

Olivia snickered and took a wet bite of apple.

“Uh, no,” Max replied. “I mean, it’s not that kind of theatre. I do costumes and painting—backdrops, sets, skin.”