She didn’t need Kovit.
Her steps slowed, and she let out a breath. Kovit.
She’d thought that the ache of his absence would go away, that she would remember he was a monster, that he’d made her sit in a barn crying while he tortured an INHUP agent. That she’d feel better, more stable, without him there.
But the pain still clung, squishy and sharp, stinging like a jellyfish and slowly poisoning her bloodstream.
She looked up at Adair’s shop and wondered if Kovit had come back. If he’d ever come back.
And she realized, no matter what, she didn’t want this to be the end.
She didn’t want him to go. Monster or not. He was her best friend. She trusted him more than anyone else in the world.
She wondered when being able to trust someone had become more important than whether they were a monster or not.
She took out her phone, but she couldn’t think of the words to text him, so she put it away again. Tomorrow. If he hadn’t come back by tomorrow, she’d text him. She didn’t know what she’d say yet, but she’d find a way to fix this.
She sighed, the cool night air misting her breath in front of her.
She unlocked the shop with Adair’s key. The lights were off, and neither Adair nor Diana were anywhere to be found. That was fine. Adair was probably pissed at the moment because of the whole police-in-his-shop thing he’d specifically told her not to let happen.
She wove through the messy shop, trying not to knock over anything. A purple glass chicken stared vacantly at her, and she shuddered and walked past. Old-times people had terrible taste.
She clopped up the stairwell and fumbled for the key to the apartment door. She opened it and flicked on the light.
Henry sat on the bed, fingers steepled.
“Welcome back.”
Forty-Four
NO SOONER HAD HENRY SPOKEN than Nita felt the cool press of a steel barrel on the back of her neck. She turned her head and caught a glimpse of short blond hair, white bandages, and an ear full of studs. Gold. Beside her, the other man who’d chased Nita also had his gun trained on her.
Henry sat on the bed, legs crossed, a faint smile on his face. A gun hung loosely in his hand.
Nita was sure if she resisted, the gun would be in motion faster than she could react. Three against one. Nita didn’t even have the gun in her hoodie pocket anymore.
The gun barrel pressed against her neck, forcing Nita forward. Gold closed the door behind her, trapping the four of them in the small room.
Henry shifted on the pastel sheets, his eyes cool and assessing, his smile creeping wider. “So nice of you to return.”
Nita opened her mouth but he spoke before she could respond. “Don’t bother screaming. When I met Adair earlier today, he told me he had this whole shop soundproofed years ago. He seems pleasant enough. Not too happy about the police swarming his shop looking for you.” Henry flashed her a smile. “Can’t say I blame him.”
Adair. That scheming, traitorous kelpie.
Nita ground her teeth. If she survived this, she was going to make him pay.
The gun vanished from the back of Nita’s head, but before she could move, hands grabbed her wrists with professional speed and zip-tied them. Tightly. Tight enough to cut off the blood circulation to her hands almost entirely.
Nita swallowed, wondering if it was cruelty or strategy. Nita would need to waste resources ensuring the cells didn’t decay without blood, and it would be more difficult to break out of them with restricted blood flow.
More difficult. But not impossible.
She shifted her hands, testing the zip ties, but before she could make a determination, Gold dragged her over to the chair by the table, gun back at her head.
Nita bit her lip. Even if she could break out of the zip ties, she’d just be shot in the head.
Henry smiled at Nita. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Henry.”
Nita wondered how far she could spit stomach acid. “Nita.”
Henry laughed. “Hello, Nita. As you may have heard, your friend Fabricio contracted me to kill you.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do. You’re dumb enough to make an enemy of the most powerful company in the world, but at least you know who they hired to kill you.” He leaned back, shaking his head. “I have to say, I don’t know what Kovit sees in you.”
Nita swallowed. Had Kovit betrayed her too?
Henry nodded to Gold and Nita felt hands roughly pulling at her pocket. Her cell phone came out, and Gold pressed it to Nita’s finger, unlocking it, before tossing it to Henry.
“Now, what shall I say to get him to come running?” Henry’s smile was cruel. “Ah, I know.”
He typed something into her phone, then tossed it on the bed. “Let’s see where his loyalties really lie, shall we?”
“Who’s Kovit?”
Henry rolled his eyes. “Please. Aside from the fact that I just messaged him on your phone, it was painfully obvious you two were working together.”
Nita shook her head, but didn’t say anything.
“Think about it. Kovit never asked me for a ticket to Toronto—which meant he was already here. Everyone from the black market coming to Toronto right now is here to hunt you.” Henry tapped his nose. “But I know Kovit. Kovit isn’t a hunter. He’s never been a hunter.
“To be a successful hunter, you need to get inside your prey’s head. You need to get to know them, their lives and routines. To catalog their friends and enemies. To understand them enough to predict where they’ll go and what they’ll do in a situation.” Henry smiled, slow and creepy, a poor echo of Kovit. “It’s very intimate.”
Nita understood immediately. Kovit wouldn’t harm people he saw as people. The minute he humanized them, he couldn’t hurt them. Hunting someone required learning about them, and learning about them would humanize them, thus defeating the purpose of the hunt. Anonymity was a key to everything about Kovit. He could never harm people. But the shapeless, nameless, voiceless things who went into his torture chamber weren’t people.
Just like the ones who ended up on her dissection table.
“I knew right away that Kovit wasn’t hunting,” Henry continued. “But he came all the way to Toronto from the jungle, so it had to be related to you. I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Nita didn’t either.
“Then I realized, Nita, that you knew Kovit. That Reyes had been your captor and Kovit had been working with her.”
Nita’s stomach roiled. She knew where this was going. It was all so logical. Anyone who knew Kovit could have sussed this out.
“There were only two possibilities. Friends or enemies. Kovit isn’t big on vengeance—it’s too personal, you see, killing someone you know. He can’t kill people he hates just like he can’t kill people he loves.”
Henry spread his arms and shrugged. “So, it was fairly easy to figure out.”
Nita clenched her teeth. She’d been a fool.
No. Wait.
Nita’s eyes narrowed. “And you figured that out all on your own? I doubt it. You’re not that smart.”
He raised an eyebrow, and a muscle twitched in his mouth.
Nita sneered. “You know what I think? I think you had no idea we were connected until Fabricio came running to tell you I was working with a zannie.”