I watched to make sure Drakon was really gone, and that he hadn’t left any cronies behind. You had to watch them like termites: catch them early or sometime later the floor would fall out from underneath you. I didn’t see anyone—which didn’t mean they weren’t there. Just the best I could hope to get. I locked the door and drew the bolt across its top. I tucked Bella into my pocket for easy access and only then did I cross back into the bedroom. “Come on out,” I said.

There was a rustling, a confusion in the dark cramped space much like a caged bird, and Robin emerged. She had a too-large cap pulled down over her hair, almost shading her eyes. She was too old to believe that if she couldn’t see anyone, then they couldn’t see her. It was hard to fault her for trying, though, and I reached over and plucked it off without a word, a few static-ridden strands of hair coming with it. She blinked in the light, almost accusingly. “Is everyone here like that? Is everyone here horrible and wants to kill me?”

“No,” I said. “Some don’t know you exist. And it’s best to keep it that way.”

“You’re not doing a very good job at that,” she said. “If I hadn’t been listening at the door, then he would have found me.”

“Yes,” I said. “Very quick thinking.”

She shook her head, snatching the cap back from me. “You said I was going to be here forever. You said I couldn’t leave—that nobody could leave. If that’s actually true, Starling, then…I can’t stay looking like this. Anyone will be able to tell immediately that I don’t belong here, that I’m not supposed to be here. I don’t think you can be running around and save me every time. And...” She swallowed and ran a hand down the front of her shirt. “I don’t want to be wearing these anymore. They’re ruined and…and messy and...and…”

I’d have said she needed to be hosed down first, scrape off the grime and streaks of dirt that still lined her arm and along her forehead, the blood which had crusted on her various scrapes and cuts and around her collar where Fletcher had cut her. She was a short kid, I thought—I didn’t know how tall kids were supposed to be—with a mess of curly, matted black hair that hung down past her shoulders and would hang a bit longer if it were straightened. She was pale-skinned and scrawny and her dark eyes seemed too large for her face. Her red T-shirt, which looked like it’d once bore the image of a listless porcupine, was already illegibly faded, and both it and her jeans were torn in several places.

“Don’t I have something that can fit you?” I said. “I don’t wear half of my stuff cause it doesn’t fit right or I don’t like the color.”

“All your shirts go down to my knees and your jackets are even longer.”

“How do you know?” She looked back at the wardrobe, where she’d just been hiding. “Okay. Fair,” I conceded. “But things have got to cool first. You’ve seen it—already this morning two people trying to bother me in my office about the murder. They think I know something, and the problem is, Robin, I don’t have the ultimate defense of honesty cause I do, in fact, know something.”

“Isn’t it better not to be in the office then? So they can’t find you and can’t find me.”

I thought about it. “No.”

“Starling, please.”

She turned her gaze downwards and pouted and looked utterly miserable. “No,” I said again. She continued to look sad. “No.” Still. “Okay, fine,” I said. She brightened immediately, which of course meant she’d been faking. “But you have to do exactly what I say. If I tell you to hide, you hide. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to get in front of me and take a bullet, you get shot.”

The joke flew over her head for a moment before she grabbed it. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”

***

I knew places they wouldn’t ask me too many questions, and in return I wouldn’t ask anything. Nightmare were never children—at least not for very long, at least not that I knew—so it was rare for any store to come by children’s clothes. I didn’t even know who ran the shop. There was only a small, mailbox-size slit between the racks of shirts and pants and socks and the cashier’s till, through which I’d push the tags and a handful of bills to cover the cost. It was named, appropriately enough, the Black Box, whose dealings on either end were meant to stay opaque.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Go find five of everything,” I told her. “Except shoes—only one or two good pairs should be enough and I’m not buying more. And make sure it’s in good taste. Half of the neon pink and yellow outfits should be burned.”

“I’m trying to hide,” she said. “I’m not stupid.”

I leaned against the door with a cigarette, eyes fixed on the door. There was one way in and one way out, one wooden door with thin inset glass panes, and I’d have a full view of anyone entering. I heard rustling behind me as Robin darted from rack to rack, guessing at sizes and torn-off labels. And it wasn’t long before I spotted him, lurking nonchalantly on the other side of the street. He had ashy blond hair and a wilting mustache, and he wouldn’t have been remarkable at all except for his shiny leather boots, which I knew for a fact were police-issue and police-issue only. Too nice for anyone else to get.

He raised an eyebrow when he saw me watching him. He must have been new—a recruit, fresh on the force, who knew only how to intimidate as a nightmare and not yet as an officer. They got their authority from the city, but the city as an ideal would hate what they did with it. He should have ignored me. He should have pretended that he was doing nothing else than his civic duty and if I had a problem with it then I’d be on the hook, for the fourth time, for interfering and assaulting an officer.

He crossed the street, planting his steps so that I could see that iron bludgeon at his side. There was a slickness to him I didn’t like, a sliminess rolling over his words and his motions. “And what,” he drawled from the back of the throat, “might you be doing here?”

“None of your business.”

“No, no. That’s fine.” He smiled. He didn’t have enough teeth to fill the mouth. “I’m just here to patronize this fine business on this fine day.”

“Stop saying ‘fine’.”

He drew out that bludgeon and twirled it in one hand. “Move out of the way,” he said. “Unless you’re trying to hide something in here, in which case I’m gonna have to make you move. Which is it going to be?”

I wasn’t sure where Robin was in the store. I backed up a little from him. “Did someone tell you to come by? There’s nothing here.”

“Just a rumor. How loud it seems now, truly.” He feinted to the left, then darted to the right to try and slip past. I wasn’t a fool and tried to slam him against the wall—but he wormed his way out of my grip, as though my fingers had never truly gotten hold of him. I staggered, off-balance, and it was that motion that meant the bludgeon dealt me only a glancing blow instead of shattering the back of my skull.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. The world flashed an incandescent white around me with the pain, and I clung to the wall just to stay standing. He continued into the aisles of the store, peering between each rack and shoving them aside when they yielded nothing. “In the name of the law,” he said, “you’ll get out here or it’ll go from fine to worse…”

Robin kicked him in the shin. He shouted and took a swipe at her, the heavy rod whistling through the air just above her head. She threw the armful of clothes she’d been carrying at him and he batted them aside. “Now that wasn’t smart,” he said. “That wasn’t smart at all, and now I think I’ll have t-” I tackled him, and we crashed to the hard concrete floor. His head knocked against one of the metal stands. He tried to swing the bludgeon at me again, but this time I saw it coming and caught it, shoving it away.

Slippery as he was, he couldn’t escape now. His fingers dug into my shirt to try and push me free, but I grabbed his head by the hair and slammed it into the ground until he stopped. He’d have one hell of a concussion when he woke up—and he’d deserve it, too, for the throbbing headache he’d managed to give me like a full drum orchestra in my skull. “God damn it,” I muttered, dragging myself to my feet. “God damn it!”

“God damn it?” Robin said.

I winced at her repetition. “He saw you,” I said. “Even if we can keep him from talking for a while, he’ll tell his buddies in the police. I knew this was a bad idea.”

“I said you couldn’t keep me safe forever. I just…didn’t think it’d be so fast.”

“Well, it’s done now.” I sighed. Even if I’d killed him, it wouldn’t help—no doubt he’d let someone know where he was going, no doubt there’d be enough to place me at the Black Box and then I’d really be screwed. Then they’d have me for murder and they’d be right. I wasn’t a killer. I wasn’t a killer because I had to be a little better than the nightmares which occupied this city, because I had to hold onto something to keep me human. But, strangely, I found myself more glad I hadn’t done anything wrong in front of Robin.

She didn’t seem particularly grateful for it. “So what now?”

“Now,” I said, “the only people who can choose how far that information gets is the police themselves. So we’re going to get ahead of it. We’re going to make a deal,” I said, “and see how honest Carrion Conjager really is."