Page 45 of Queen of Volts

Harvey finally let out a sob. He’d been complicit for so long, but this task he couldn’t do. He couldn’t murder someone.

But his hand reached for the wrench.

He tried to yank it back, but his muscles didn’t listen. He was the omerta’s puppet, and so it wouldn’t let him abandon his assignment. He had no control over his life or his actions. He had never felt so helpless.

But then a cold acceptance settled over Harvey. After he finished, he would be free. The omerta wouldn’t control him, wouldn’t stop him. And even if it wasn’t easy, if itwaspainful, he would take that control back, in the most final way he knew how.

It made sense, in its own awful way. Once Harvey killed Zula, he didn’t deserve to live, anyway.

When he finished fixing the sink, he ran the water and washed the taste of vomit from his mouth. He reached into his heavy winter coat and pulled out the canister of gasoline he’d bought after leaving Harrison’s this morning. His nose crinkled as he poured it over Zula’s squalor—he hated the smell.

He made his way downstairs to find Zula at her desk, her shawl wrapped tightly around her bony shoulders. She looked up at him.

“It works?” she asked.

Harvey nodded.

“Well, that’s good.”

“Why have you waited so long to fix it?” he asked.

“I’ve lived to see a lot of things, but my friends haven’t all lived to see them with me. You learn a thing or two about trust from that.” She eyed him shrewdly. “Not many people practice the deeds anymore. Your parents raised you right.”

“They did,” agreed Harvey, a knot in his throat. He retrieved the second canister from his coat and poured the gasoline in a puddle on the floor.

Zula stood up, her eyes wide. “What are you doing?”

“It’s okay,” Harvey told her, his voice unnaturally level. “I’m staying, too.”

He struck a match and dropped it into the flames.

Fire erupted beside him across the floor, and Zula clapped a hand to her mouth, stifling a scream. Harvey approached her, smiling his Chainer smile. Her shoulders relaxed a little.

“Your card,” he said, holding out his hand. Bryce’s power over it ensured that the card couldn’t be destroyed, not even with fire, but Harvey would still leave it somewhere easy for Harrison to find amid the rubble.

Zula watched him, subdued as though transfixed, and removed the card from her desk drawer. The Sun.

Harvey took it and slid it under the crack in her front door.

With his back turned, his smile gone, Zula snapped out of her trance. She placed a hand on Harvey’s shoulder and whipped him around with surprising force. The flames behind her grew, smoke filling the air and making her cough.

“A Chainer?” she snapped. “Why do this? I have no enemies on Chain Street.” She spoke as though she wasn’t surprised to find herself approaching her own murder, however. Like she’d been expecting it.

“Someone else,” Harvey said, because the omerta prevented him from revealing Harrison.

Zula staggered back from him and lunged for the door. But she couldn’t wrench it open.

“You know how my talent works,” Harvey said softly.

She ignored him and tried a window, ripping aside the moth-eaten curtains and attempting to push it up with a low groan. It didn’t budge.

Zula whipped back around, seeming to finally realize that she had no means to escape. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Actually,” Harvey said darkly, the omerta tightening like his own Creed around his neck, “I do.”

She went to her desk next, rummaging around her disordered drawers. For a weapon, Harvey guessed. Before she could, Harvey took out his own pistol and trained it on her.

“Stop,” he warned.