The Grey Blood #2

Red

"Go fuck yourself," she says, her lips forming around each word so Oliver doesn't mishear them.

"There's nothing here for you anymore, Katya. Your brother is dead."

A muscle in her cheek twitches, but she doesn't lower the gun. "He was meant to be at this meeting."

Oliver shrugs.

Her gaze flicks to the men by the door. "My guards?"

"Not yours."

She stands, rounds her chair, and presses the barrel of her gun to his temple, digging it into the deep cut until blood trickles over his cheekbone. "I could take you down with me."

Oliver looks at her from the corner of his eye, her lips pressed together, her slanted gaze sparking with fury. "I didn't just buy your guards, Katya. The servants who clean the blood from your clothes, who buy your cigarettes, who put the bullets in your gun or take them out, all of them wanted something. The Zalanas gave me their fortune to save this city from people like you."

She presses the gun harder into his temple, pain biting at his split skin.

Then she pulls the trigger.

The gun clicks, hollow and useless, confirming that all of his words are true. Katya lowers the gun, her shoulders trembling with each unsteady breath. "Someone else will just take my place."

"And they'll be dealt with."

"I gave you everything. You were an insignificant boy when I recruited you. I saved your life after you killed Alexios."

Oliver tilts his chin, the reminder of what happened to his sister just another pain in his chest he doesn't need to focus on right now. "Don't pretend you did any of that out of the kindness of your black heart."

Her shoulders straighten as she stands taller, her jaw shifting as she grinds her teeth. "Why not kill me?" she asks, her eyes chips of obsidian and wrath.

Oliver watches her stand there trying to keep her emotions in check. He sees a flicker of another face as he blinks. A face within the low light of a dingy apartment, her hazel gaze bright with hope and understanding. He feels her soft hands clasping his, her voice a gentle caress against his sharp edges.

She's with him even with the distance between them.

"Because you were going to let me live. Because the killing needs to stop."

"Why now? Nothing's ever stopped you from doing every horrible thing before."

His eyes narrow, his own darkness within them, evident in the steel grey like the abyss between the stars. "Don't tempt me." She opens her mouth to spit more venom but Oliver stands before she can. "You have no more options here, Katya. Walk away while you can."

Katya turns away from him to look out over the racetracks of Muovea. Sometime during their exchange the race had begun, the crowd shouting as horses tear across the grass with jockeys on their backs. "I never liked this city," she says. "My grandparents came here from Igorek, hoping to find their fortunes in the soot and shit of this place." Katya tilts her head back and spits on the window, curling her lip at the world spread out before her. Then she turns and meets Oliver's eye. "But I made this city mine, and no one will force me out of it."

She attacks like a viper, whipping her empty gun across his face. It cracks into Oliver's cheek, causing blood to burst across his tongue and agony to rock his senses. Katya grabs his own gun from under his arm but he manages to knock it from her hand before she can get the hammer pulled back. Her nails dive for his eyes, he catches her wrists, twists her around until her back is to his chest, and presses his forearm against her throat with her wrists held in one hand.