NO.
Nita stared across the room, mouth open slightly.
Henry clapped Kovit on the shoulder. “Excellent!” He rose from his seat and pulled Kovit to his feet. “I have so much to show you. I’ve been experimenting with boric acid, you’re going to love it.”
Nita had to stop this. She couldn’t let him be conned back. Her fingers tightened on the gun, and she pulled it halfway out.
Then she stopped.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t kill Henry.
Oh, physically she could. She could pull her gun out and unleash chaos in the Starbucks. Shattered glass and blood in lattes.
But Kovit would never forgive her.
Hadn’t he said that Henry was like his adoptive father? Kovit couldn’t kill him, and he couldn’t let him die. Kovit would never forgive her if she murdered someone he cared about. Even if it was for his own good.
But he wouldn’t see it that way. He’d see it as her trying to control his life. If she killed Henry against Kovit’s wishes, she had no more respect for his rules and boundaries than Henry did.
Her fingers loosened on her gun. There was nothing she could do.
Henry tugged Kovit away. Kovit’s head was bowed, hair falling in his face, and his shoulders slumped. He looked back, just once, and met Nita’s eyes. His were sad, dark, and heavy lashed, and his gaze skittered away from her.
He looked down, and Nita’s phone buzzed.
I’m sorry, read the message. It’s for the best.
Then he was gone.
The door clanked shut after him, and Nita rose and took a step forward, as though to chase him, before she stopped.
He didn’t look back.
She slowly sank to her knees, the tears in the corners of her eyes finally coalescing and slipping down her cheeks as his figure vanished down the street.
Customers streamed in and out of the door, and baristas screamed out orders. It was all a buzz of noise of movement. Nita stared through it vacantly, after the vanished silhouette of a broken monster.
She swallowed, trying to understand why he’d done it. Why he’d let Henry con him back. Kovit had always been so adamant about his desire to leave, to get away, as long as she’d known him. He had so much he wanted to do out here in the real world.
Her heart sank as understanding bloomed. He’d done it all. And it had left him worse off.
He’d wanted to meet his internet friends, only to find out that in person he couldn’t handle being around them. He’d wanted to find his sister, only to realize that she was an INHUP agent, he’d probably tortured and murdered her friend, and she’d surely arrest him if they ever met.
And Nita, who was supposed to be on his side, couldn’t hide her terror of him.
Guilt swirled in her stomach, making her nauseous. Because she knew the role she’d played in this.
But at the same time, a small part of her wondered if this was such a bad thing. No matter how much Nita wanted to, she wasn’t able to ignore the monster in him—no, that was wrong. She was able to, but she didn’t want to.
Maybe it was better that they part ways.
Why had they started working together in the first place? In Peru, it had been desperation. They needed each other to survive. Nita would have worked with the devil himself to escape. Sometimes she thought she had.
But here? In Toronto?
She could work with anyone or no one. She wasn’t trapped or isolated. Neither was he. Why had they teamed up again?
Nita gazed vacantly at a coffee tumbler covered in stylized trees as her mind stumbled for answers. University students with backpacks swarmed from a subway station into the line, gasping for coffee, and she watched them for a few minutes, her eyes lingering on the textbooks peeking out from holes in their bags.
She wished she were them. She wished she could live that life, that she could go to school like them and study unnatural biology. Become an expert in her field. Go to conferences. Live her life the way she wanted, without the black market looming over her, waiting for an opportunity to capture her and take her apart. Make her just another face on a missing persons poster like the three she’d seen earlier today.
How had she managed to screw it up so terribly?
She’d spent the morning murdering an INHUP agent and trying to pretend that his screams didn’t bother her, and now here she was pathetically wishing the monster who’d tortured him hadn’t left her?
She remembered when Kovit had shown up, fresh from the disastrous meeting with his internet friends. She felt like she understood why he’d come to her. He was alone for the first time in his life, and he was lost. His “normal” friends weren’t accepting, but he didn’t want to go back to the mafia. She was the only other option he knew.
And Nita? Wasn’t she just the same? She was alone for the first time, and rather than running off and proving to her mother and the world that she wasn’t bothered by being alone, that she could take care of herself, she’d gone and clung to the person who appeared and offered help.
They were using each other to stopgap their own isolation and figure out their messed-up, broken lives.
It was pathetic.
Nita clenched her teeth, even as the yawning, gaping hole inside her expanded.
She didn’t need Kovit. She could kill Fabricio perfectly well all by herself.
She continued to tell herself that, even as small tears trickled down her face like scars.