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“For now. Will you at least think about what I said? Thefts and heists are one thing, Paul, but the drug trade is a dog fight. Don’t drag your wolves into it.”

“I’ll think about it.”

I run on anger and adrenaline all the way to the streetcar. When I sit down, however, I slowly deflate. By the time I’m unlocking the door to the loft, I’m exhausted. I emptied the drugs down a sewer drain before going up, and I feel like I aged ten years.

“Abe?” I call out.

“Yeah?” His voice sounds from his bedroom.

I rap my knuckles on the doorframe before entering.

“Hey, Kat.” He picks up a joint from his desk, thumbing his lighter.

“Put that down and do not light it,” I tell him firmly.

“Why? ”

“I need to talk to you. And don’t you work at the hospital tomorrow? You need to be careful with that shit.”

“It’s just hash, Kat. Geez.” But he puts the joint down and collapses on the bed. “What’s going on?”

I walk over and sit next to him. “I just ran into Paul at Ray’s.”

“And?”

“Did you know he’s been moving drugs?” I watch Abe closely. He won’t lie to me. When he sighs, I know.

“Not at first,” he admits, “but yeah, I’ve known for a while. I figured you did too, after Farley’s.”

“What about Farley’s?” My head snaps to attention.

“You heard Farley ask us to get the powder out. He wasn’t comfortable with it. You heard me tell Paul.”

“I thought he was talking about gunpowder . Are you saying Paul had drugs stashed at Farley’s?” I’m aghast.

“Yeah.” Abe shrugs. “Not a lot, but some.”

I slap him on the forearm. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Why didn’t I? Why didn’t you ?”

“Because I didn’t know! Not until now.”

“You’re the only one he listens to, Kat. All that stupid king and queen shit. Don’t bullshit me and say you didn’t know. You’re a smart gal. You know one plus one doesn’t equal five.”

“All right, fair point, but Paul wouldn’t tell me what he was doing. And you didn’t tell me either.”

“You were happy to look the other way and distract yourself with Matthew.” He shakes his head. “Which only made it worse.”

“Don’t lecture me.”

He throws his hands up. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me how to fix this, Abe! ”

“We don’t fix this, Kat. This is broken. It’s been heading this way for a long time, slowly picking up speed. That’s why I took a job at the hospital. It’s time for an extraction plan. I’ve been working on mine for a while. I hope you have a good one up your sleeve too. You’re going to need it.”

“This is such a mess,” I moan.

Abe is silent. He glances at his joint with longing.

I roll my eyes. “Oh, just go ahead and light up if you want it that bad.”

“No, I’ll wait until you’re feeling better.”

“You’ll be waiting forever then.”

“Maybe you should take the first few puffs,” Abe says. “It’ll help.”

I laugh and fall back on the bed. “Tempting, but no. I’m meeting Matthew tonight, and I don’t want to show up half-baked.”

“Why show up half-baked when you could be fully baked?”

“Abe!”

“Lighten up, Kat.” He chuckles. “I’m teasing.”

I manage a small smile, then sigh. “So what’s your plan? For…extraction, did you call it?”

“There’s the job, for one, and I’m getting a place of my own downtown. I toured a spot I like this morning, actually. I may sign the papers this weekend, just in case. Then there’s my relationship with you, but I think we’re going to be fine.”

“We will be,” I whisper.

“I’ve been talking to Tony too. Trying to nudge him in the same direction, because the implosion is coming. It’s only a matter of time.”

“I don’t want things to change.”

“Things were always gonna change, Kat. We just thought it would be a different kind of change. That you’d come back here to us after you finished at the Academy, screwing Paul every other night so we’d have to buy earplugs. That kind of change.”

“I really made a mess of things, huh?”

“No, you didn’t. You made the best choice you could for yourself. I told you before Christmas this life wasn’t built to last. It’s been great, a real rush, but you and I can’t be climbing up buildings and sliding down drainpipes forever.”

“I probably have a few more years left in me, if I want to,” I observe.

“Maybe, maybe not. But you don’t have to. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve been working on an extraction plan too. Matthew is a good man. He’ll treat you right. Better than Paul, in the long run.”

“Paul always treated me fine.” I feel oddly defensive.

“You really think so? You think sharing you with me when he was feeling adventurous equates to taking care of you? Matthew’s not interested in sharing, right? He wants all of you.”

“That’s not fair,” I say, frowning. “Paul was only willing to share me with you . It was an exception, not the rule.”

“And lying to you about moving drugs? Using you for jobs when it was convenient for him? Without listening to your concerns when you didn’t feel good about it—like the Magpie hit? You think that equates to taking care of you?”

“There were problems, of course, but I still care about him. He’s not a bad person, so don’t vilify him.”

“I’m not. Paul is one of my best mates, but he never fully appreciated what he had with you. Now it’s time to face the music. Remember the bedtime adventure story we used to read when we were kids, Peter and Wendy ?” He looks at me, and I nod. “How does it end, Kat?”

I’m silent.

“Peter loses Wendy.”

The words fill me with terrible sadness, but Abe isn’t wrong.

“I’m not one of Peter’s Lost Boys any longer,” he continues. “I’m not going down with this ship when it sinks. I hope you don’t plan to either.”

“Believe me, I don’t.”

“Did you have a good day, darling?” I ask as Matthew steps into his kitchen after a shift that evening.

“I did.” Amusement flickers in the lift of his brow. “Are you cooking?”

“I am. I’m trying my hand at domesticity.” I step back from the stove and cock my hip. I’m wearing a horrifically frilly apron I found shoved away in one of his cupboards. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s the culmination of every fantasy I’ve ever had about you.” He laughs. “Although, if I truly had my druthers, you’d be wearing the apron and nothing else.”

I laugh and return to the stove, stirring in the pot, around and around, as Matthew trots over.

“So what’s for supper, my darling domestic Katarina?”

“Buttered noodles.”

“Dilly. Super domestic. They teach you that at the Academy?”

“I dropped out of home ec before we got to the really fun parts,” I admit, pulling a joking face. “I could call Florence though, and she could probably put together a roast.”

He laughs again. “Noodles will be fine.”

“Good.” I grab a bowl and dish out a hulking portion for him. He takes it to the table and starts inhaling it.

“How was your day?” he asks between bites.

“It was good. I ran into Paul at Ray’s shop this afternoon…” I trail off, the drugs looming large. So dangerous.

“What was he doing there?”

“Oh, Ray runs a black market out of the back of his shop a few evenings a week,” I say offhandedly. “Paul uses him to move some of our stuff. It’s how I got my position there. ”

“What?” He looks up from his bowl, surprised.

“You said yourself that Ray’s is a prestigious place to intern. Well, he’d never apprenticed an Academy girl before. He only took me on because he had a very specific and vested interest.”

“Huh.” Matt slurps his last noodle. “Ray is pretty old these days, isn’t he?”

“Pushing past sixty, I gather.”

“Is he going to retire soon?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it. He’s like one of those ancient tortoises, you know? The ones that live forever, just plodding along, spending their days in the same sunspot for all eternity. I can’t imagine him going anywhere or doing anything else.”

Matthew laughs. “I was only wondering because you seem ideally placed to take over for him someday. If you want.”

I put my fork down. “You think I could run Ray’s?”

“Why not? I’m sure you could. He doesn’t have kids, so whenever he calls it quits, he’ll have to close up shop.”

“I don’t particularly enjoy front-of-house sales though. Ray keeps me in the back, making pieces, both real and forgeries. It’s what I’m good at.”

“So you hire someone to run the floor. It wouldn’t be challenging. Hold on…did you say forgeries?”

“Yeah, black market out of the back room, remember? And jewel thief?” I point to myself. “It’s not exactly an honest operation all the time over there. I’m good at what I do, trust me. Ray trained me himself.”

“Christ, Kat, I don’t doubt it. I just…there’s this whole other world out there I didn’t even know existed before I met you.

Sometimes, it feels like a sinkhole, getting bigger and bigger and sucking everything into it.

You duel in gunfights by night, make forgeries by day, scale walls to break into my friends’ houses in your free time…

it’s far from needlepoint, that’s for sure. ”

“Most of those things are Paul’s idea of fun. Paul’s plans.”

“That you execute.”

“Yes.”

“He couldn’t do anything worthwhile without you,” Matthew says. “He’s not going to let you walk away, Kat.”

I don’t have a response. Because per usual, I’m worried Matthew is exactly right.