Page 37 of Make Them Bleed (Pretty Deadly Things #1)
The Five . In a room with mirrors and rules and a ceiling that reflects our faces back at us when we look up for help.
Paul startles like the finger-shot grazed him. It didn’t. That’s the point. He forces a smile, the kind you give a boss you don’t like at a party you didn’t want to attend. The woman in sequins pats his arm; her eyes are wide above the mask.
“Names,” I whisper, this time audibly. The word tastes like a dare.
Arrow’s mouth hardly moves. “Not yet.” His hand slips off my knee and finds my fingers instead, lacing them, which might be the only thing keeping me anchored to the couch.
Staff drift closer to the Five like planets nervous about a gravity well. I catch a half-soft greeting: “Good evening, gentlemen… your usual table?” Not names. Greed is too careful to toss those around like confetti.
“Look at their wrists,” Arrow breathes. “Cuffs, watches, habits.”
I do. Man One’s onyx ring sits low; the scar on his index—left hand—matches the angle in the freeze-frame in my head from Arby’s feed when a glove elbowed and a hand curled, index straight, thumb flicked.
Man Two’s red band reads like a man who wants to be off-limits until he chooses to be a problem.
Man Three’s gold chain catches in his throat when he laughs; his pinky ring is engraved—tiny letters I can’t read on sight.
Man Four never stops scanning—door, bar, exit, frames, door again.
Man Five’s shoes squeak. It’s stupid, but I file it: youth buys bad varnish.
“Breathe,” Arrow reminds me, and it turns out I need the instruction.
We watch. Pride watches. Felt eyes behind masks watch.
The Five don’t touch anyone. They claim a low table near the center like a chess piece planted deep in your side of the board.
The servers bring them something amber and expensive.
Man Three talks with his hands. Man Two nods once, which in some languages is a paragraph.
I return my attention back to Paul. The woman in sequins excuses herself, hand warm on Paul’s shoulder, and Paul stands like he remembers where he is.
He doesn’t go to the Five. He goes to the bar.
The bartender asks him something with her eyes.
He shakes his head minutely. The Five don’t watch him go. They don’t need to.
“Field notes,” Arrow says, clinically calm and a little vicious.
“Man One: onyx ring, knuckle scar, watch—black ceramic, likely Hublot or Rado. Vetiver and smoke. Man Two: military habit, red band, no tie, slight limp left foot on the pivot. Man Three: pinky ring engraved, tassel loafers—idiot—laughs like a microphone. Man Four: touch to ear every thirty seconds like it’s programmed.
Man Five: fidgeter, too much cologne, jaw clench on the downbeat. ”
I file them like poses on a police lineup, like saints in stained glass if saints were rotten.
Pride shifts again. Someone changes the track. A Greedy Girl drops a napkin and Man Four notices and gives the woman a look that would make a lesser person apologize to their ancestors. The Greedy Girl doesn’t flinch. Club Greed trains its staff well.
“Do we leave?” I ask, because I want to do anything but sit.
“We observe,” Arrow says. “Then we learn their exits. Then we leave. We don’t poke a hive indoors.”
He’s right. I hate him for it for exactly one second and then I love him for it so much I want to start a fight and make up in the same breath.
“Hey,” a voice at my elbow says, and it’s Desire again, Brad hovering like a patient tide. “You look like you’re deep in thought.”
“Occupational hazard,” I say, tighter than I mean to.
She follows my line of sight, sees the Five, then sees my band and Arrow’s tied hands. “Ah. First night, big energy. Perfect storm,” she says softly. “Do you need water? Do you need… to sit somewhere with less mirror?”
“We’re okay,” Arrow says. She studies him and nods, apparently satisfied that he knows his yeses from his noes.
“If you need staff,” Brad adds, “raise your hand. Black cuffs. They will ghost problems without a scene.”
“Thank you,” I say, grateful for the kindness of strangers.
They drift again, and I store the tilt of the world where kindness still fits.
Man One leans back, glances at the art, and in the mirror his face goes so empty for half a second I can’t tell if he’s bored or calculating who dies next.
He taps a finger against the side of his glass—one-two-three—then taps again, faster—one-two-three-four-five.
My skin prickles. Code, or habit, or both.
Paul pays his bar tab with cash. He doesn’t look at the Five again. He doesn’t have to. They’ve already looked at him enough.
I squeeze Arrow’s hand hard enough to hurt us both. “We have them,” I whisper.
His eyes connect with mine and turn a shade darker. “And we’ll make them bleed.”
“Make them bleed,” I echo, and the part of me that wants blood is already sprinting laps in my skull.
The Five eventually rise. They ghost out the way they came in, the room inhaling the space they leave like someone skimming a ring off the surface of a drink. Pride loosens by degrees. People start kissing again the way they were born to do in magical rooms with rules that protect them.
Arrow’s hand is still laced with mine. His thumb draws one slow line across my knuckle. “Ready?” he asks.
“Let’s go.”
We pass the bar on our way out. Adele smiles the kind of smile that both blesses and warns. “Good first night?” she asks.
“Educational,” I say.
She tips her head. “It always is.”
Outside, the night is bright but I can’t see any of it. All I see in my head are the Five.
“We need to learn everything about them,” I say, steady now. “Everything.”
“We will,” Arrow says. “We’ve already started.”
I slide my hand into his without looking. The Five are living, breathing men who walk through doors like they built them.
I’m afraid. Also, for the first time since a scream bled through my phone screen, I can feel a path under my feet. It’s not straight. It’s not lit. But it’s there.