Page 72 of Gunslinger Girl

“You need to sleep it off.”

“I don’t want to sleep.” Pity pulled away and listed toward the bathroom. “I want a bath.”

“Are you trying to drown yourself?”

Yes.

“Lie down.”

It was too hard to fight. Pity closed her eyes again and let the bed envelop her. A moment later, she felt Max pull her boots off.

“There,” he said. “Get under the covers.”

“Max…” Her voice sounded distant. Tendrils of unconsciousness tugged at her. “Please… please just go…”

She woke sometime later. The room was as black as pitch. She shifted.

“Pity?”

The voice had come from below. Max was on the floor, she realized, beside the bed. How long has he been there?

Staying stone-still, eyes pressed closed, she forced her breaths into a sedate pattern. After a few minutes, she heard Max stand, followed by the muted shuffle of his feet against the carpet. Her eyelids lit up when he opened the door to the hall. The vermilion glow lingered for a few moments—one breath in, one breath out—and then faded.

The door closed, and Max was gone.

CHAPTER 23

Shadowed in the upper ranks of the theatre’s seats, Pity rolled a bullet back and forth between her fingers, watching the act below slowly knit itself together. The floor of the arena was a hectic patchwork of performers and props, but with a hint of underlying reason to it, too, a pattern working itself out. By the time of the next show, order would be established, she had no doubt, and the act would emerge as another of the Theatre’s mesmerizing creations.

Already she found herself craving the day when all she had to worry about was pleasing her audience. Onstage, she knew what to expect, how to react. Onstage, her mother’s guns were as familiar as her own two hands. Nothing escaped her; she dispatched every one of the Theatre’s targets with merciless precision.

Below, oblivious to her presence, Max adjusted pieces of the blossoming set.

A pang of guilt pierced her.

The arena was simple. Everything beyond it was where her control seemed to fray.

Footsteps approached, dragging her from her thoughts.

“Hi.” It was Garland. “Mind if I join you?”

Pity’s fist tightened around the bullet. “I was about to leave—”

“No, you weren’t.” He sat down next to her. “I think we need to have a talk. You’ve been avoiding me.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Don’t look away like that; it gives away the lie. You’ve been avoiding me,” he repeated, “and you’ve been avoiding Luster. She thinks you’re mad at her.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Garland said with a mix of patience and amusement, “we’ve hardly caught a glimpse of you for days. And here you are, hiding in the dark.” He paused. “But I don’t think you’re mad at her or at me.”

“Good,” she said. “I’m not. Now I’ve got to—”

“I think you’re mad”—he nodded in the direction of the arena floor—“because what happened the other night didn’t happen with the person you really wanted it to.”

Halfway out of her seat, Pity stopped. She sank back down, defeated. “Dammit, does anything stay a secret in this place?”