Chapter 566 | A Second-Generation Thief

Chapter 566: 566 | A Second-Generation Thief

Belle’s mouth twisted into the smile she saved for news she’d been dying to deliver. She leaned against the ruined doorframe, then jerked her shoulder away from it because the paint was still warm.

"She left four minutes ago," Belle reported. "She dried her uniform with her bare hands in your bathroom, and now your mirror has a crack down the middle. Then she walked out your front door and left a handprint scorched into the outside of it."

"That’s my security deposit, Belle."

"That’s your problem, Monroe." Belle tapped her screen, and her expression shifted into the one she wore when a column refused to balance. "She took your grey crew neck on the way out. I want it entered into the record that I stole that crew neck first, so she’s technically a second-generation thief."

Naomi snorted so hard she had to sit down on the edge of my bed.

"There’s more, and you’ll want to sit for it." Belle’s voice lost some of its edge. She stared at her own phone for a second, thumb hovering over the screen. "She stopped at the door and asked me what time Tuesday works for everyone. She asked me, and she said please, and she didn’t threaten anybody."

The room went still. Naomi’s hands tightened in her lap.

"Blair Davenport said please to you?" Naomi asked, her voice small and stunned.

"I recorded the audio, because nobody would have believed me otherwise." Belle snapped her laptop shut and tucked it under her arm. "So that’s Tuesday at seven, Summit House, and I’m bringing snacks because I refuse to have an emotional summit on an empty stomach."

She turned to go, then paused with her back to us. Her braid dripped one fat drop onto my carpet.

"For the record, you were a lot less annoying in there than I expected," Belle said without looking around. "You didn’t pick her side, and you didn’t pick Naomi’s side either. You just told her to stop running, and I didn’t know you had that in you."

"I contain multitudes, Fox."

"You contain one functioning brain cell and a parasite, so don’t push it." Belle glanced back over her shoulder, and her cheeks had gone faintly pink. "Shower before lunch, because you smell like everyone on this squad at once."

The door clicked shut behind her. Naomi flopped backward across my bed and laughed at the ceiling until she ran out of air.

"She likes you," Naomi said when she could breathe again.

"She invoices me for breathing, so I’m skeptical."

"That’s how she likes people." Naomi rolled onto her side and propped her head on her hand, my shirt sliding off one brown shoulder. "Go shower, and I’m keeping this shirt now."

I went.

The bathroom still held the heat Blair had left behind, and the steam on the mirror had dried into ghost streaks around a crack that ran from top to bottom. The crack split my reflection right down the middle. One half of me stood on the left side of the glass and one half stood on the right, and they didn’t quite line up.

I leaned on the sink and looked at the guy in the mirror.

He had a sharp jaw now, and his shoulders filled the frame instead of drooping in it. Four pale ridges ran from his collarbone across his ribs where a leopard had tried to unzip him. Bite marks dotted his neck and shoulders in a map I could read like a group chat. Addison’s mark sat high on his throat. Misato’s crescent sat under his collar. Naomi’s newest bite still shone pink on his left shoulder.

Nine weeks ago the guy in this mirror had round cheeks and a death timer and a plan. The plan had been simple and disgusting. He would find a woman, make her like him enough to let him drink from her, bank the points, and move on to the next one before the clock ran out.

He had looked at Hikaru and seen a Gold-tier long-term investment. He had looked at Belle and seen a Bronze line item who would probably say yes for money. He had looked at Naomi, the sweetest person on this entire island, and seen the easiest mark in the room.

That guy didn’t deserve a single one of them. He didn’t deserve Belle sitting by his hospital bed counting heartbeats at three in the morning. He didn’t deserve Misato crying his name into a flat military pillow, or Naomi carrying his corpse out of a collapsing dimension on national television. He certainly didn’t deserve a goth girl walking through a hospital lobby in a trench coat and spite.

I balled up my fist and pressed the knuckles against the cold glass, right over the left half of my reflection. The crack ran under my hand like a seam.

"I’d hit you so hard you’d wake up in your old life," I told him.

The guy in the mirror didn’t answer, because he was a reflection and I was a man talking to a sink. Still, it felt good to say it out loud.

A gold notification slid into the corner of my eye before I could feel too proud of my emotional growth.

BLAIR DAVENPORT: DEVOTION 45%. STATUS: ???

The question marks looked thinner today. Two of them had faded to the color of weak tea, and only the third one still burned bright. The ninth ring at the back of my skull pulsed once, hot and greedy, as if it had smelled smoke.

I turned the shower on scalding and stood under it until the water ran clear of seawater and sweat and the lingering lavender I’d brought home from Summit House. My phone buzzed on the counter while I scrubbed my hair. It buzzed again before I could rinse.

I wiped my hand on a towel and picked it up.

The first message came from a number I’d saved as PRINCESS out of pure malice three weeks ago. I had never changed it, because some jokes deserve to live forever.

PRINCESS: Your crew neck smells like lavender. You will explain that on Tuesday.

PRINCESS: I am keeping the crew neck as evidence.

I grinned at my cracked reflection, and both halves of it grinned back at me.

Past Jace would have read those texts and done math. He would have checked the devotion number, estimated the essence tier, and plotted the shortest route to a Platinum-rank extraction. He would have looked at a girl melting doorframes because she didn’t know how to want something, and he would have seen a resource.

Present Jace just typed a reply with one hand while shampoo ran into his eyes.

ME: Keep it. It looks better on you anyway.

The three dots appeared at once. They disappeared, and they came back. Then they disappeared again and stayed gone for a full minute while I stood dripping on the bathroom tile.

PRINCESS: I did not ask for your opinion on how it looks on me.

PRINCESS: It does look better on me.

PRINCESS: Do not respond to this message.