Chapter 2

  I still had to worry about cops.

  One of the downsides of keeping myself sort-of disconnected from Darius' gang was that I didn't enjoy all of their protections. Darius had an understanding with the cops. Our gang actually worked to keep the streets clean, and made sure their product was safe to use. After a sense, we were the real enforcement in these districts, since so many people were hooked. Nobody would dare risk getting on our bad side. If they did, they got a visit from Darius' men.

  If they really stepped too far, they got a visit from me.

  In turn, the cops mostly ignored us, unless any of ours stepped out of line. They had enough to deal with, and already outsourced a ton of work to security firms owned by the big corps anyway. Darius worked with the police and the prosecutors, discreetly getting our people out of any jams. New cops on the force quickly got the picture from the veterans—nothing was official, but whatever Darius said, went. Even the corps knew it, and knew Darius was their best choice to keep things quiet and profitable.

  Problem was, most people didn't know Snipe the assassin was part of that group.

  It was by design. For one, it gave me even more of a scary reputation. If I was this good, and I worked solo, I had some real power. Like Darius said… except I was trying not to think about Darius.

  The cops weren't in on it. Darius said they couldn't overlook murder—that was where they drew the line. Anytime I was around a cop, I always got nervous. What if they figured out I was the same wanted killer they were all looking for? Everybody knew Snipe was a teenage girl with a sniper rifle. That sort of description gets everybody's attention.

  Worse, somebody else was in town: another young female assassin. She used the same cartridge as me, a pretty uncommon new variant of the .338 Lapua, and she had no problem killing cops when their jobs got messy. The police hadn't realized there were two different rifles, and now they assumed I was a cop killer.

  It bothered me a lot. Besides the obvious—I'd never kill cops, unless they fit Darius' list—the other killer was just… bad. Whoever she was , all her kills were really sloppy. She was taking jobs I'd seen but turned down, and none of them were for cops, so all of it was just… unnecessary.

  We're not in this for money. We're filling a need, and doing it in a way that still helps everyone. If we weren't here, somebody else would do it, and they wouldn't care how many people they hurt.

  Except he hurt me, and I still didn't know why, or how much.

  The closest safehouse was a squat condemned apartment building at the end of the street, situated in a row of other unremarkable buildings. The whole block looked seedy, like it was just begging to get torn down and replaced with something new and shiny, like they were always doing in most of Seattle.

  They had the money, after all, since most of the world still used the software and technology developed in the Silicon Forest. Cascadia was a powerhouse on the world stage, the Switzerland of the Pacific Northwest, staying out of all the erupting wars and keeping tightly secured borders. Refugee applications were an ever-growing nightmare for the government, as so many fled the civil war still raging on the East Coast or tried to escape dystopian nightmares in Asia.

  At least I knew all of that was real.

  I stole into the alleyway next to the building. The front doors were boarded up tight—and I'd added my own extra layer of security behind the wooden boards—while the alley was fenced off. I just pulled the gap aside. Sometimes, a simple fence was all I needed to keep people out.

  Above the alley was an old-fashioned metal fire escape. I looked up into the rain, closing my real eye and letting the other one do the hard work. It could filter out the thick rain to let me see clearly, even as water soaked into my face and my hair. I ran at the wall and then up, using a kick to propel me high enough to grab the bars. The ladder slid down, quiet and easy thanks to how often I oiled and cleaned it.

  I scurried up the cold metal, wishing I'd remembered to put on my gloves. Every rain-slicked step was slippery and dripping with rain, but I made it to the top floor without any problems. The first and second floors were still boarded up, and I didn't bother to use them.

  Instead, I kept to the third floor, because—thanks to the last enterprising occupant—it still had power. This was actually one of my favorite safehouses, since many of the others didn't share the same amenities. Power fed into the building through a combination of discreet, ancient solar panels still installed on the roof, plus an illegal tap into a neighbor's power supply. I'd never used enough to impact their bill, but it was good to know I had it when I needed it.

  At the top of the fire escape, I drew my pistol out of my bag, just in case, and I waited. I'd pressed the button next to the door. Now, after a mental count to five, I opened it, and immediately closed it again. Another mental count to five, and I opened the door again. A quiet little chirp of electronics greeted me, confirming I'd disabled the security system. It was a sing-song tune… one Darius used to hum when he tucked me in.

  Everything in my life pointed to him. Wasn't there anything that was just me? Where was Kara in Darius' life?

  This safehouse was mine. I held to that. Darius didn't know about it. He'd given me the rifle, the eye, the arm, even the bag on my shoulder and the clothes on my back. I hadn't really picked any of them. I liked them… I think.

  Did I like them, or was this just me convincing myself to make Darius happy?

  Oh god…

  I felt bile rising in my throat. I started walking down the hallway toward the bathroom. Like the electricity, it still functioned, though not very well. I tried to avoid using it, but right now, I was going to throw up. Halfway across, I broke into a run.

  The door slammed open. I rushed inside, dropped the pistol on the ground, flung the toilet seat up, fell onto my knees, and let go.

  An instant later, I noticed the terrified girl next to me.

  She was crouched in the decrepit bathtub, eyes wide, clutching the shower curtain in a vague attempt to hide. I guessed she was probably my age, maybe a bit older. She wore ragged clothes, a few holes in her shirt, torn jeans. Only her thick jacket really seemed okay. To my surprise, though, she didn't really give off the typical homeless smell, and as I looked closer, her clothes were well-kept, although long-past their expiration date.

  As I sat up a little, she flinched away.

  "...Hi," I choked out finally. I dropped my bag on the bathroom tile and reached over for the toilet paper to wipe my face.

  She was still frozen in terror. Her eyes were locked onto my own. For a moment, I thought she was staring at my other eye, but I was still wearing my shaded glasses, so that couldn't be it. She couldn't see that one.

  The cybernetic one.

  One of those memories Darius had probably taken. As far as I could remember, my right eye had always been that way. I'd never had a real eye there, but I didn't really mind. The cybernetic one did so much for me. It had three lenses, two for sight and one for thermals, and contained a full operating system linked to the inlays built into my right arm.

  I could use it for all sorts of things. I kept books on it, notes, pictures, recordings, all sorts of things. It didn't have any kind of network connection—both Darius and I thought having a device with that much connection to my body and an internet hookup was a terrible idea—but on the whole, it was an incredible piece of technology, and one-of-a-kind.

  Cybernetics were still pretty new, even in Cascadia, and most were huge ugly pieces. My eye actually fit into my socket, even with all the additional sensors and whatnot. They'd tried to color it to match my real eye, even giving it a sort of blue tint for the center, but there was no real concealing what it looked like, not this close up. If I didn't have the glasses on, it'd be obvious.

  "How'd—" I started, but was cut off by a coughing fit. I cleared out my throat, wiped my face with another sheet of paper, and tried again. "How'd you get in here?"

  The girl didn't answer. She was still frozen, shivering slightly. I wondered if she was cold. I thought about offering her my jacket, but I didn't want to scare her any more than I already had. The pistol was still sitting on the floor next to me, so I picked it up and put it back in my bag.

  "I'm not gonna hurt you, okay?" I said carefully. "I just want to know how you got in." After all, she'd gotten past my security without setting it off. No alerts, no alarms, and all my stuff was intact, even my toothbrush on the counter next to the bomb implanted in the wall.

  "I watched you," she mumbled.

  "Huh?"

  She cleared her throat. "The last few times you've come here. I watched you go in and out. Memorized your whole thing, all the timing." The girl shrugged. "Seems kinda dumb not to have a password or anything on it. Aren't you supposed to be a big-shot assassin?"

  I raised an eyebrow. "You've heard of me?" It wasn't that surprising, but this girl didn't really seem like the connected type.

  "Snipe, right? Scary teenage girl with a sniper rifle who'll kill for a price but's super picky about jobs. Where's the big gun, anyway?" she added, glancing around. She seemed to be less scared now that we were talking. Her stringy brown hair kept falling into her mouth as she talked, and she brushed it away every time. I wondered why she didn't just put it up.

  "Somewhere else." I hesitated. Something didn't quite add up. My hand tensed up, ready to jump back into my bag for my pistol if I needed it. "So wait, you know who I am… and you were still going to try and steal from me?" It was the only explanation I could think of. I kept a good pile of emergency cash here, along with ammo and other supplies.

  "I wasn't gonna steal from you," she said, a little indignant. "I just took some food, used your shower—"

  "You used that?" I asked, dumbfounded. I'd never wanted to use it, partly because I didn't want to use that much water here and risk it being noticed, but also because it just looked gross.

  "Yeah. It actually gets warm, and it's not actually dirty, it just looks awful. You know how hard it is to find a warm, clean, private shower?"

  "I—"

  "And of course I wouldn't take your money," she went on, barreling over me without a moment's hesitation.

  Suddenly, she was getting more bold. I'd never really met someone like her. I was used to people listening to me very carefully, since they knew what I could do to them, but this girl both knew… and didn't care, I guess. It was weirdly refreshing.

  "I bet you're great at tracking people down who don't want to be found. Stealing money from professional hitmen seems like a bad life move. Err, sorry. Hit-women."

  I shrugged. "Probably smart."

  "Besides, even if I did, how'm I gonna explain carrying that much cash? I don't put out and I don't got a job. I'm just a homeless kid in public high school. If I got picked up, I'd be screwed."

  I wondered what high school was like. I'd never been to one. I'd caught snippets from TV shows, but I didn't watch much TV either. Only bits and pieces occasionally when I was scoping out a target.

  The girl winced. I guess some kind of look crossed my face, stealing her momentum. "So yeah," she finished, looking cautious again. "...What happens to me now?"

  "I haven't really decided yet," I said carefully.

  Truthfully, I knew I wasn't going to kill her. Like I said before, we only killed people who needed to die. This girl didn't need to die, as far as I knew. It might be a risk, and put me in real danger, but I couldn't. Darius might disagree, might put operational security above the life of a homeless teenage girl, but I wouldn't.

  Especially after everything I'd learned over the last few days.

  "Screw it," she said, the beginning of an outburst. Like a breached dam, words flowed out in a crashing stream, but still perfectly articulated. If nothing else, the girl was an amazing speaker, and she had lungs of steel. I wished I could hold my breath as long as her.

  "You're gonna kill me, right? You're the badass gangster sniper assassin. Nobody can see you up close and live to tell the tale, yeah? So here I was, going to school, living day-to-day and saving up whatever I can. You ever lived on a single school lunch a day? God, it sucks. Then, there's the older guys kicking me out of their alleys 'cause I won't sleep with 'em but can't fight 'em off. I finally find my own alley in the middle of nowhere but still kinda-close to my school, next to some god-forsaken apartment, and look at that? It's got food, power, and hot water. I hit gold. But yeah, of course it's a weapons cache for the deadliest chick this side of I-5, who catches me just a day after I move in."

  She was out of breath, panting after her rant. I took the moment to jump in before she could keep going.

  "I'm not gonna kill you."

  "Bullshit," she shot back immediately. "Prove it."

  My first instinct was to just toss my gun out—but luckily, I realized how dumb that'd be. Instead, I started thinking of the real possibilities. This girl was obviously intelligent, and she knew the streets. Someone like that was an asset. She'd be too proud to take straight charity, and I didn't blame her for that, but I could pay her to work.

  Besides, something about her was really sticking to me. I just wanted her to keep talking. I needed someone to fill the silent, musty air of the hideout.

  "You can help me."

  She clearly hadn't expected that. Her eyes flicked over to the bag, where my pistol had gone, then back to me.

  "Why?" she asked. "Couldn't you just kill me right now, and not really have a problem?"

  I shrugged. This girl was too smart for me to lie, and I didn't want to anyway. I'd been dealing with too many lies lately. "Yeah, probably."

  She hesitated. My answer had done the trick, keeping her off guard. "Are you gonna let me go?"

  "If you want."

  Again, she was thrown off. "So you'll let me leave, unharmed, even though I stole your food, and knowing I could just give away your hideout to the police, to other gangs besides yours, anybody who might want you dead?"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "Yes."

  She grinned. "Is this the part where you tell me you're in love with me or some bullshit like that?"

  I rolled my eye. "You're not my type, sorry."

  "Oh good. You had me worried for a sec. You don't want to go down that road, trust me."

  "Only for a second?" I asked, trying for a joke.

  "Well, the whole I-just-ran-in-here-with-a-gun-and-could-kill-you-right-now bit was pretty terrifying, but I got over it." She laughed.

  I got up and strapped my bag over my arm again. I trusted her enough to turn my back, and splashed some water on my face from the sink. I could still see her with my other eye, turning it upward to watch her out of the mirror. She hadn't moved, but she did finally drop the shower curtain and look a lot more relaxed.

  "So you're Snipe, huh?"

  "Yeah." I turned off the faucet and leaned back against the wall casually.

  "How'd you get such a dumb name? No offense."

  "Somebody with a dumb imagination."

  "That sucks. If I were you, I'd've come up with something way better. Something cool and intimidating. Who's scared of Snipe?"

  "Something like what?" I asked, smiling slightly. I'd thought the same, but I'd never come up with anything either, and by now, I was comfortable with it anyway. And it wasn't from Darius… right now, that was a positive.

  The girl hesitated, puzzled. "Huh. Nope, I can't think of anything. You got me. I guess it's harder than it looks, coming up with a cool name. Guess I sympathize with parents more, actually. I mean, Faith? Who names their kid after a concept? Some neo-hippie freaks, probably. Glad I never met 'em, child-abandoning assholes. Oh, hell," she added, glancing at me.

  I knew a look had crossed my face that time. I glanced away, back into the hall, avoiding Faith's gaze.

  "Sorry… I didn't mean to bring up anything rough."

  "It's fine."

  Faith didn't look convinced. She seemed even more uncomfortable than I was. Her eyes fell to the ground, with brief flickers toward the door. She was thinking about making a run for it.

  I really didn't want her to leave.

  "Do you want to stay here?"

  Her head snapped back up. "Huh?"

  I shrugged. "This place is pretty safe for now, and like you said, power, water, and food." Besides, it wasn't my most valuable hideout anyway. Just the best one Darius didn't know about. I had a couple more if I needed them.

  "...For now?" she asked pointedly. She didn't miss a beat.

  "Yeah."

  "Meaning… what, you're not sure you're good with your people?"

  I glanced back at the hallway, which was still empty. Rain continued to pound on the ceiling, and seemed to be getting louder, but there were only a few leaks in this building. Nothing too serious. "They don't know about this place."

  "If I found it, somebody else could," said Faith thoughtfully. "That fire escape isn't super stealthy. Of course, it doesn't gotta be the only way in and out. There's another way."

  "What?"

  She grinned. "You never noticed? Why do you think this place smells so awful? There's a chained-up sewer grate in the basement, under all the scrap metal. It looks like it got backed up or something."

  "Ugh," I groaned. That explained so much about this place. I'd seen the padlocked grating, but I'd just assumed it was a crawlspace or something, not a sewer exit.

  "Yeah, no wonder nobody ever wanted to live here." Faith shrugged. "Works for us though, if we gotta make a getaway. Both of us are small enough to squeeze out that way, long as you got some bolt cutters in your stash." I must have made another face, because she grinned again. "Speaking of which, you cool if I grab some food? I hadn't eaten dinner yet."

  I nodded, glad to get off the subject of sewers. "Go for it."

***

  Faith carefully stepped out of the tub and onto the bathroom tile, and slowly made her way out of the room. I was too distracted to pay much attention, as my eye had just flashed up a low-battery warning. I started digging in my bag for one of my backups, only to realize I'd forgotten them. I'd been missing a lot of things lately… I'd considered calling off the job tonight, but I knew that would flag up a warning for Darius.

  I couldn't risk him realizing yet. I also couldn't risk going near him. If I saw him, I don't think I could keep it in.

  I walked out into the hall and sat down on the dusty carpet next to an outlet, stretching out my legs. Faith peeked out a moment later, holding a box of cereal way past its expiration date. She was eating straight out of the box, clearly not bothered in the slightest by how stale it was.

  "Got any milk?"

  I shook my head. "It expires too fast, I don't get out here very much. Just a bunch of water."

  "Bottled water?" she asked, smirking. "Breaking the law, aren't ya?"

  "They're reusable glass bottles," I said, rolling my eye.

  She grinned and went back to the refrigerator in the little kitchen room, leaving me alone again. I felt weirdly relaxed, after how stressful the last few days had been. Something about Faith was making me feel safe. I wasn't ready to call her a friend or anything, but… this felt different, and right then, I really needed different.

  The battery alert flashed on my other eye again. It still had probably a half-hour to go, but I wasn't going to let it run dry. That was the worst feeling, suddenly losing almost all my sight. My other eye was way better than my eye, even at just the normal seeing part. It was a part of me. I never called it a cybernetic eye, or anything like what Darius and the other people who saw me did. To me, it was just one of my two eyes.

  I took out my charging cable and plugged it into the wall, then carefully set it into my eye. It took a couple hours to charge for a full week's life. I couldn't plug it in while I was asleep, so I always had to set aside a bit of time to charge. It wasn't good at quick breaks, either—if I stood up without disconnecting it, it pulled at the socket hard. I'd had a really sore face for a long time after doing that. I went for every day rather than once a week, preferring to keep it in the higher ranges and never have to stay still for too long.

  Of course, this week, I'd completely forgotten. Now I had to spend a whole hour at least, if not longer, with the cord trailing out of my vision. I pulled up a book to distract myself, while the tiny meter in the corner of my vision started trickling back upward.

  "What the hell?"

  Faith dropped the two glass bottles of water she'd just come back with. I winced, but to my relief, they didn't shatter. She ignored them, transfixed by my face. "You've got a cord sticking out of your face. You know that right? I mean, yeah, of course you do, it's not like somebody just plugged it in without you knowing. Why do you have a cable going into your face? Are you a robot?"

  I snorted. I couldn't help it. "No. I'm still human. Mostly." I waved my hand to dismiss the book.

  "Okay, not a robot." Faith's shock was subsiding a bit now. "Android, then. Wait no, cyborg. That's the one. Replaced body parts. And you've got an eye replaced. Okay then. Why do you have to plug it in?"

  "It's low on batteries."

  It was Faith's turn to snort now. "Low on batteries," she echoed. "You've got a cybernetic eye and it runs on rechargeable batteries like anything else? Whose dumb idea was that?"

  "Dunno."

  "That seems super impractical. What if it runs out in the middle of a fight or whatever? Are you just suddenly blind?"

  I frowned. "I've got another eye."

  "Right, sorry. One-Eyed Sue, that's you." She laughed. "One-Eyed Sue with a big-ass gun." She seemed completely comfortable again. I felt a wave of unexpected relief. For whatever reason, it was super important to me that Faith was okay with my eye. "Well, since you weren't stabbed in the eye like I thought for a second there, I guess I can keep eating."

  She dropped back onto the floor, this time next to me. Faith carefully avoided the charging cord, digging into her cereal again. She handed over one of the water bottles.

  "Any other fancy electronic bits you got, or do you want to keep 'em a bedroom surprise?"

  "Huh?"

  "Sorry," said Faith. "I've got terrible friends."

  I shrugged, and pulled up my sleeve, showing my forearm. They'd done their best to disguise it, but there was still clearly a few patches of metal mixed in with the skin, along with the couple of ports where I could plug in drives for updates, along with the sensor patch.

  "Shiny. Super strength?"

  "Only a little. It mostly just lets me control my eye."

  "Booooring. They couldn't come up with anything cooler than that?"

  I frowned. "I kinda like my arm as it is, thanks."

  Faith rolled her eyes. "Screw that. All this cutting-edge, top-of-the-line super secret tech, and the best they got is a replacement for the mouse and a rechargeable battery eye. I'm genuinely disappointed in our black market mad scientists." She gave me a sidelong glance. "That is where you got this stuff, right? 'Cause I've never heard of anything like this that wasn't super experimental."

  "Yes."

  Faith's eyes twinkled. "Don't suppose they could set me up with something too? I could use a boost to my legs. It's agony just walking around most days."

  I glanced over, curious. I hadn't noticed anything wrong with her.

  "Oh god, the Cyclops is staring at me." I rolled my eye. She grinned. "Yeah, I've got leg issues. A car hit me way back, screwed me up. I'm more annoyed that the asshole driving didn't even slow down. I had to drag myself to the emergency room. They never worked right since."

  Faith spoke so quickly and matter-of-factly, I knew it was bothering her a lot more than she let on.

  "What happened to the driver?"

  "Who knows?" She sighed. "Probably off living a normal life. If they can afford a car and gas, they were gonna win any court battle I might've had. So I just go on as a cripple. C'est la vie." She must have noticed my unease, because her face got more serious, and the half-sarcastic tone dropped. "Look, I know you're super-assassin girl and whatever, but don't bother with this. Please. I'm good. No need to go righting my wrongs or whatever."

  "I wasn't planning that," I said, though truthfully, I had considered it for a brief moment. It would be way below my pay-grade, but I felt real anger toward this person already.

  "Uh-huh. You've got that mindset. And hell, you probably could find 'em, whoever they were. But trust me, it's not worth it." Faith sighed. "Another body on the pile isn't gonna fix anything. Besides, unless I'm mistaken, you're in your own trouble right now, aren't you?"

  I took a breath. "Kinda, yeah."

  "Mind explaining what?"

  "It's…" I hesitated. "It's personal."

  Faith shook her head. "Okay, yeah, it might be, but your problems are now my problems too, miss proprietor. Besides, I might be able to help you out."

  "How?" I asked. Before I could think about it, my eye flicked down to her legs, splayed out across the hallway carpet.

  Faith looked offended, and I immediately felt awful. "Hey, I might not be winning any marathons, but I'm not totally helpless. I figured you out, didn't I?"

  I shrugged. She really hadn't, at least in my opinion, but she was still already closer to me than the majority of people I'd met in my life.

  "Fine," said Faith. "I'll do this the long way." She flipped her stringy brown hair back and tucked it behind her ears, then drew a long, overdramatic breath.

  "You're on the run. You're also Snipe, assassin for the street gang who runs this whole district and the next one over, but you're not good with them right now. Maybe it's 'cause of one of the side jobs you do, maybe not, I dunno. Point is, you're avoiding them, so you came to a hideout they don't know about, and this happened recently 'cause you're just showing up now. More importantly—and trust me, this isn't common knowledge but I got my sources—this runs all the way to the top, 'cause you run all the way to the top."

  Faith paused for breath. I was already a little shocked. It wasn't common knowledge, but there was a vague sense on the street that I was more connected to Darius' gang than most others. Faith somehow knew I was directly connected to Darius himself, though. How did a nobody street kid learn something like that?

  "So if you're in hiding from the gang and you're super-connected, we got two options: either there's a major restructuring about to go down and you're avoiding the rest of the gang to save Darius, or he's the one you're running from."

  Faith took another breath, looking deadly serious. "Either way, you're in deep shit."

  I let out my own breath, one I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

  "So what's our next move?" she asked.

  I shook my head. "I don't know."

  "Well, can you at least tell me which of those two we're dealing with?"

  "...Running," I whispered.

  Faith let out a low whistle. "Well… all right then."

  "If you want to get out of here, I don't blame you," I said after another pause.

  She grinned. "Screw that. I'm not giving up my new home that easy." Faith frowned, glancing at my bag. "When's the last time you spoke to him?"

  "Yesterday."

  "And you did a job tonight, right?" After I nodded, Faith glanced at the bag again. "Wouldn't you normally check in with him?"

  "...Yeah." A shock like a burst of electricity shot through me. I needed to check in. Darius couldn't know anything was wrong, not yet. I couldn't face him yet, but I could call. That much, I could handle for now. I tore the cable out of my eye, ignoring Faith's wince, and dug through my bag.

  My personal phone wasn't there. I started panicking. Where was it? Did I leave it somewhere? If Darius found out I'd lost my phone…

  I dumped my bag out onto the carpet in a panic. The contents spilled across the floor—water, ammunition, my rifle, a couple snacks, and other personal keepsakes. I didn't have time to feel embarrassed though. I should have called Darius over an hour ago. He was meticulous about time. He'd already be worried.

  "What are we looking for?" asked Faith uneasily.

  "My phone."

  She nodded and bent forward over the pile, avoiding moving her legs. "Well, a phone should really stand out in all this. Is that a hand grenade?"

  "Yes," I answered impatiently, digging through the magazines. Bullets clinked against one another, but the phone wasn't buried between them. Faith lifted the grenade aside gingerly, avoiding the firing pin like it was burning.

  "Definitely not a typical teenage girl's bag…" she muttered to herself. Faith spotted my half-open diary, the old handwritten one I used to keep before I fixed my virtual keyboard, and quickly handed it over. "I'm no spy."

  I took it gratefully and put it back in the bag.

  "Well…" said Faith dejectedly. "No phone."

  I nodded. "And I don't have any other way to contact him."

  "So what's our next move?"

  "You're really serious about joining up with me?"

  "Well yeah, Kara, I'm on your side now."

  I froze. "...How do you know my name?"

  "Huh?"

  I was more forceful. Nobody knew my name. "How did you find out my name?"

  Faith glanced at the bag, embarrassed. "It was on one of the pages of the diary. I didn't really think it was a big deal. I mean, yeah, everybody calls you Snipe, but you said it yourself—dumb name. I figured you'd prefer Kara. Is it short for something?"

  "No."

  I felt exposed. Faith had a piece of information I'd kept secret for six long years now. Only two people in the whole organization knew my real name, Darius and his closest lieutenant. The diary normally never left my home—and honestly, I forgot I'd ever written my name in it—but I'd brought it along tonight.

  I wasn't expecting to go home ever again.

  How stupid could I be, dumping out my whole bag in front of Faith? I'd had this protection my whole life, an escape Darius guaranteed for me. If I ever wanted to leave, adopt my real name and be normal, he'd made sure it was never linked to anything in our line of work. Except now… Faith knew it. Someone I'd only just met.

  "Look," said Faith carefully. "I'm sorry. Really. I wouldn't've mentioned it, but I figure you should know I saw it. I can totally forget it too. Look, you're Snipe again. All good, yeah? No names here, just hippie-cripple-girl and dumb bird, that's us."

  I let out a sigh, finally. I'd live with it. And if Faith ever became a problem, or if I decided I couldn't trust her… well…

  "It's okay. Just keep it to yourself."

  Faith grinned. "Keep it better hidden next time, huh? But hey, secret keeping is my business. Your secret identity is safe with me."

  I rolled my eye. "You make me sound like a superhero or something."

  "What kind of superhero kills people for a living?" asked Faith, her tone oddly light for a question that had been weighing on me for days, one haunting my thoughts and keeping me awake long into the endless rainy nights. I killed people for a living, but I'd always considered myself a good person. Was that just something else he'd put in me?

  Was Kara even my real name?

  I didn't have an answer for her.