Page 34 of Queen of Volts

“Were we supposed to meet them somewhere else?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lola saw Grace and Roy exchange a nervous glance. But Lola was too furious to consider how greatly the Spirits were outnumbered, or how livid the Scarhands would be after learning that every one of their associates who Enne had brought with her was dead.

One more inch. That was all it would’ve taken, and Enne would’ve killed another of her friends.

“Well, Enne?” Lola spat out. “What happened?”

But Enne still didn’t look at her. Instead she brushed past a concerned Charlotte and made toward the stairwell.

“Wait,” Charlotte said, reaching for Enne’s hand. Enne swatted her away and climbed up the stairs. “If you don’t say something... If you don’t offer something...” Charlotte glanced warily at the other Spirits huddled at the opposite side of the room from the Scarhands, the division between the two gangs as distinct as the dirt stains on the carpet.

But realizing what Charlotte meant only made Lola twice as angry. Enne had imagined herself a queen, and her decision had put all of them in danger—not once, but twice. And now she could face a revolution of her own.

“Where is he?” Enne growled, ignoring Charlotte’s words.

“He’s upstairs...” Marcy answered, her gaze flicking—strangely—to Lola. “But—”

“I want to speak with him.”

Lola had no idea who they were talking about, but once Enne reached the top of the stairs, Lola cursed under her breath and started after her.

“Lola,” Roy said, “why don’t you let me take a look at your—”

“I’m fine,” she grumbled, even though she wasn’t. But someone needed to talk to Enne and make her see sense, and that someone was usually her.

Upstairs, Enne stormed down the dormitory hallway to the final door on the right, one of the Spirits’ empty bedrooms.

“Enne!” Lola called after her fiercely. She ran to catch up, the side of her head throbbing. “Enne, what the muck was that? There are over ahundredScarhands, and they’re each about as friendly as bone saws. You have to explain.”

Enne’s knuckles whitened on the doorknob. “We were given false information,” she growled.

Lola had been so focused on what she’d learned about Ivory that she hadn’t thought about how Enne and the others had happened upon the Mole station in the first place. “So did Grace and Roy find the Dove who went after Jac?” she guessed.

“They did,” Enne said darkly.

Lola didn’t like the grave look on Enne’s face—it didn’t suit the girl who went to finishing school and danced ballet and owned a wardrobe with every revolting shade of pink. This was the face of the girl who’d once held the shard of a wine bottle to Lola’s throat.

“What is it?” Lola asked uneasily.

“I’m sorry about...” Enne swallowed. “I don’t know why I fired. I...” She looked down at the gun in her pocket like it didn’t belong to her, as though it had betrayed her and fired on its own accord. “Why don’t you go first?” Enne suggested, so quietly Lola could only hear her from her left ear.

Lola thought back to the pitiful way Charlotte had looked at her, to the way Enne was looking at her now. And she knew. She knew even before she opened the door and saw her brother handcuffed to the bedpost.

His gaze whipped to her as she entered, and of all the injured Scarhands downstairs and Lola with her gaping, bloody ear, he looked by far the worst in the building. Bruised and scarred and swollen, his freckled skin was dappled in every shade between green and purple. His white hair was long and disheveled, falling unevenly into his eyes and sticking against his neck.

“Justin,” she breathed.

He crossed his arms and looked away. “I don’t know you,” he said, all whiney, so like him and his tantrums.

Last time they’d spoken to each other, they’d fought. Back then, it’d been a year since their eldest brother had died—it had only been the three of them for a long time—and Lola had accused Justin of being a useless muckhead who needed to get his act together because he was all she had left. In turn, he’d accused her of being a know-it-all bitch who had only him in her life because everyone else thought she was as annoying as hell. Lola had shared this memory with Tock, who’d assured her that her brother was wrong, but what he’d said still haunted her. That was the problem with loving someone. Once you let someone into your heart, they could take a sledgehammer to it.

And so, stewing on all this, Lola snapped at him, “You look like roadkill.”

“No, I don’t,” he countered like a child.

She stormed closer to him, even though stomping so strongly made her head ache. “I’ve been looking for you. For overthreeyears. Did it ever even occur to you to come back?”

“No, because you’d say this muck to me,” he grumbled.