Juliette breathed in deeply, steadying herself. Indeed, it always came back to the blood feud. It always came back to the hatred that ran through the very veins of this city, not their hearts.
“What are you doing here?” Juliette asked now, scrubbing the last of the wetness from her face. “I told you to stay inside.”
“If I hadn’t come out, you would be over there getting shot by Roma,” Marshall replied. “Nor would I have heard—” He broke off, misery flashing through his expression. “I was too late. I ran faster than the other White Flowers did, but I couldn’t stop it.”
“It’s good that you didn’t try.” Juliette straightened up, forcing Marshall to look at her. “It is not worth it, do you hear me? I cannot take Tyler down if you just give him more ammunition by revealing yourself to be alive.”
But Marshall just stared at the mouth of the alley. For someone who usually could not stop talking, he was eerily silent, his eyes tracking the flashes of violence that came near.
“Mars,” Juliette said again.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, I know.”
Juliette bit down on the insides of her cheeks, flinching when the yelling got closer.
“I must run back to Scarlet territory and get backup,” Juliette said with regret. “No matter how wicked Tyler and his men are, I will not stand by and watch them be outnumbered.” She paused, then heaved an exhale. “Go help him, Marshall.”
Marshall’s eyes swiveled back. “I beg your pardon?”
“Benedikt,” Juliette clarified. “Go help Benedikt. You look like you’re ready to claw off your own skin in helplessness.”
Marshall was already tying the cloth back around his face. When he pulled the hood of his outer jacket up, he was unrecognizable, only another part of the rapidly falling night. “Be careful,” he said.
Another spray of gunfire.
“I should be telling you that,” Juliette said. “Hurry!”
Marshall ran off, joining the fray, joining yet another fight of the blood feud that was tearing this city into pieces.
And Juliette turned on her heel, retreating to bring more forces to their death.
Benedikt could hardly see past the sheen of red in his vision. He didn’t know if the red was from fury or actual blood, splattered along his temple and dripping into his eyes.
“Get over here,” Roma hissed from some paces away. His cousin was crouching behind a car, gun in hand. Benedikt, meanwhile, was only standing behind a streetlamp, hardly covered given the thinness of the pole. Up ahead, Scarlets were in a shoot-out with the rest of the White Flowers, and the odds were not looking good for their side. The Scarlet numbers were only growing, though this was White Flower territory. Someone within Scarlet ranks had to have gathered reinforcements the moment this started. The White Flowers were not so lucky.
“What’s the use in hiding?” Benedikt asked. From where he stood, he fired off a shot. It hit a Scarlet in the leg.
“I’m not asking you to hide.” Roma, making a frustrated sound, stood suddenly, fired a shot, then ducked back down. “I’m asking you to get over here so we can leave. This is turning into a slaughter.”
Benedikt’s vision flashed. The red cleared for blinding white. Night had fallen around them, and their surroundings would have been dark if not for the fire still raging in the safe house, consuming the walls and lives within.
“We cannot just leave the fight,” Benedikt snapped.
“You’re a damn Montagov,” Roma hissed, his words just as sharp. “Know when to concede. That’s how we survive.”
A Montagov. Benedikt’s stomach roiled as if he had just ingested something rotten. Being a Montagov was exactly what had gotten him here in the first place—right in the middle of a blood feud, bitter as bone, with only his cousin by his side and no one else.
“No,” Benedikt said. “I do not walk away.” He charged headfirst into the fight.
“Benedikt!” Roma roared after him.
Roma ran to his side, giving him cover as they both fired, working as fast as they could. But the road had turned to a battleground, soldiers stationed at every strategic place. Though their bullets were running out, gangsters were not afraid to grapple, and before Benedikt could call out a warning, there was a Scarlet diving for Roma, knife in hand.
Roma cursed, narrowly dodging a heavy blow. When the Scarlet tried again, his cousin’s fight became a blur in the dark, and Benedikt needed to pay attention to what was coming at him—first a bullet that narrowly missed his ear, then a flying blade, slashing him in the arm only when he dove to the concrete.
The ground trembled: the fire had finally eaten up a gas pipe. There was a colossal shrieking sound, and then the upper half of the house burst with an explosion and collapsed in on itself.
Benedikt staggered to his feet. His mother had died to the feud. Nobody had given him the details because he had been five years old, but he had sought them out anyway. He knew that after she was killed—an accidental casualty of a shoot-out—they had burned her body right in an alleyway until only charred smithereens remained.
Maybe this was the way he would join her. The Scarlets would kill him, then throw him right into the raging fire—ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Benedikt gasped. This time, when the bullet flew at him, he felt it graze his shoulder, sending sparks of pain up and down his arm. Before he could think to raise his weapon again, something hard came down on the back of his head.
And everything went dark.
Marshall winced, catching Benedikt before he fell. Quickly, he nudged his friend over his shoulder, hoping that no Scarlet was watching them, and if they were, that the Scarlet would think Marshall was merely one of their own, dealing with a White Flower. Roma was somewhere in the chaos too, but he could handle himself. If he couldn’t, their men would surely jump in front of him. It was only Benedikt who seemed to need forcible removal. Marshall felt bad for having to hit him so hard.
“You got less heavy,” Marshall remarked, even though Benedikt was unconscious. It felt less . . . kidnappy when he talked as he ran, as if Benedikt were keeping pace beside him rather than being tossed around. “Have you been eating? You’re keeping some strange habits, Ben.”
A sudden shout nearby shut Marshall up. He pressed his lips thin, ducking under the cover of a closed restaurant. When the group of Scarlets passed, Marshall continued moving, muttering a quiet prayer up into the heavens that they were already on White Flower territory. Within minutes, he was in front of a very familiar building complex, nudging the door open with his elbow and entering, arms straining.
“Please tell me you haven’t started locking up,” Marshall whispered. “I’m going to be so mad at you if you only started locking up after I died and never when I told you to before—”
Their front door opened easily under his palm. With a breath of relief, Marshall stumbled in, taking a moment to sniff at the apartment. It seemed different. Losing an occupant would do that to it, he supposed. The air was dusty, as was the kitchen counter, like it had not been wiped in weeks. The blinds were crooked, pulled up once some time ago and then abandoned, allowing half-light to enter in the day and only blocking out the half-dark of the night.