Page 97 of Gunslinger Girl

“Don’t.” She turned her face to his. “Whatever you’re about to say… just don’t. I don’t care.”

His eyes flickered over her, seemingly afraid to alight on any one place. But his embrace tightened, grounding her, making her feel solid for the first time that evening. He pressed his forehead against hers, the heat of him neutral, as if they shared a single skin.

As they stood like that, a silent tableau cast half in shadow, the rift between them vanished. This time, Max’s lips sought hers, the world around them receding as Pity returned the kiss, desire rising within her like fever.

Within heartbeats, there was no Selene, no Sheridan, no Cessation…

Only Max.

CHAPTER 31

Pity dozed, trying to remember when she had ever felt so perfectly warm. Max’s head lay against her shoulder, each exhalation of his breath tickling the fine hairs of her neck. Beneath the blankets, their limbs entwined. The sensation of his skin against hers was so calming that she didn’t want to move, didn’t want to disturb anything. Occasionally her hand rustled through the dark spikes of his hair, but mostly they were still.

She had no idea how long they had lain like this before Max rose up on one elbow and looked around sheepishly. The comfortable quiet shifted to one tinged by hesitance.

“I think your dress is ruined,” he said finally.

The garment hung limply off the edge of the bed, dark smudges marring the fabric. Pity also saw a streak of blue on her forearm and several across Max’s chest and shoulders. She suspected she would find plenty more like them were she to lift the blankets and look. “I don’t care. If I have to wear a costume, I’d prefer the one you made me for the Theatre.”

A spiteful shadow crossed his eyes. “Your arrangement with Sheridan and Selene—does she really need him that badly?”

“Selene seems to think so.” Pity took a deep breath. “And I tried to remind myself of that, and the fact that we’d made a deal. But with whatever everyone was thinking about Sheridan and me, and then tonight—with Halcyon announcing the next Finale… and you—it was too much.” She shook her head. “Something came over me. I didn’t even mean to come here.”

“Are you… upset that you did?”

“No.” She sat up to face him. “Are you… upset that we…?” Searching for any hint of regret in his face, she couldn’t finish. A mistake, said a fearful voice. He’s going to say this was a foolish mistake. The thought made something within her begin to crumble.

Max looked away, as if working out some complex reckoning. Then he raised his head again and leaned closer. The light touch of his lips coupled with that of his fingers, which entwined with hers.

“No.” He kissed her again. “No, I am not.”

A smile overtook her, dumb and insistent. “Still, I shouldn’t have cornered you like that.”

Max kissed the base of her palm, heedless of the dried paint there. “It feels like all you ever do is corner me.”

She felt a twinge of dread. You’re going to have to ask eventually. “Max, where were you going?” He tensed. “And what did you mean about me showing up whenever you’re trying to leave?”

“That… Forget it, okay?”

“Oh, not a chance.” She held his gaze, fed up with things left unsaid. “There’s no way I’m letting you get away without an explanation. Especially not now.”

Max sighed. “I knew you were going to be trouble,” he said. “I knew it from the moment you tried to kill me.” He let go of her hand. “Home.” He said it in a way that sounded like the complete opposite. “I was going home. Now and when we found you.”

“I don’t understand.”

Max drew his knees to his chest and worried one of the rings in his eyebrow. “If I explain, you have to swear not to say a word of this to anyone else. Not Luster, not Eva, not even Selene. No one.”

The reluctance in his voice was like a darkened doorway—one that if she stepped through and turned on the light, there would be no way to turn it off again. But she had to see what was on the other side. “I promise.”

“Swear it.”

“I do,” Pity said. “On my mother’s guns. I won’t breathe a word to anyone.”

But she could tell it wasn’t her promise he wanted—whatever he held inside, it scared him. The worry was etched into his brow, the set of his jaw, and the way he was breathing, as if he wasn’t sure he was getting air or not. Seconds ticked by: one… two… three…

“I lied to you,” he said abruptly, as if to get the words out before he could reconsider. “About my life before Cessation. I wasn’t poor, and I didn’t move around. I grew up in Columbia. My family had—has—money. A lot of it.”

“That’s it?” She almost laughed again, but the haunted look in his eyes cut it off. “What are you doing here, then?”