I walked a few steps behind Callighan, keeping a certain distance. My eyes didn’t stay still for a second, moving across every doorway, every shadow pooled in the corners of the corridor, every ard figure standing against the walls with their weapons loose at their sides. The Golden Nugget was quieter on the inside than I’d expected. The kind of quiet that didn’t feel peaceful so much as held in place.
Gaspar. The na kept drifting back up to the surface no matter how many tis I pushed it down. I hadn’t seen him outside, which ant nothing. He could be anywhere in this building. I’d given the others the sphere Kunta had given before we left, insurance, just in case he decided to make a move on Rachel or Sydney while I was inside. It wasn’t a perfect solution but it was the best one I had. I kept my hand loose near my side and stayed alert.
"Where are you from?"
Callighan’s voice ca without preamble.
"New York," I said, after a beat.
"You ca rather far," he observed.
"So did you," I replied.
That landed. He went quiet for a mont, and then the corner of his mouth curved, just slightly. Almost like he’d been expecting that.
"Marlon told you," he said. It wasn’t a question. "How much did he tell you?"
"Everything," I said.
"Everything from his perspective, I’d assu," Callighan replied, unbothered.
"Does that change what you did? You took advantage of soone who trusted you," I said.
He let out a short, quiet scoff, not quite a laugh, more like the sound a person makes when they find sothing less funny than irritating. "Took advantage," he repeated slowly. "That depends entirely on where you’re standing. Soone who could let go of soone precious as easily as you apparently did—" he paused, "—wouldn’t understand that, I suppose."
I frowned. "What are you talking about?"
He glanced sideways at , the look narrow. "Lucy. If you truly wanted i back, you wouldn’t have let your leverage simply walk away. Not if she had truly run away." The last part he added lightly, like a footnote he didn’t much need to make.
I didn’t answer.
He wasn’t wrong to be skeptical. The excuse was thin, I’d known it the mont it left my mouth outside. I hadn’t been able to co up with anything better in ti, anything that explained why we were suddenly showing up empty-handed without pointing directly at Gaspar. And that was the problem. Naming Gaspar ant cracking sothing open inside Callighan’s group that I wasn’t prepared to deal with yet, not while i was still inside, not while Emily was still sowhere in the picture. Callighan might be the one running things on paper, but against a Symbiote Host he’d be just as outmatched as anyone else. Gaspar had to be handled separately, quietly, on terms we controlled.
So I said nothing, and the silence between us settled like a fine layer of dust as we moved deeper into the hotel.
The main hall of the casino opened up around us, a wide, hollow space that had once been full of light and noise and the chanical rhythm of slot machines. Now the machines sat dark and still in their rows like monunts to sothing that had stopped mattering. The carpet was thick and faded, the chandeliers overhead clouded with dust but still hanging. We passed through it and stopped in front of a closed door off one of the side corridors.
Callighan stayed behind . I could feel the weight of the ard n behind him without needing to turn around, five of them at least, positioned.
Any move I made to grab i and run would turn very wrong. Even with the Ti Freeze, even with everything I could do, I wasn’t walking out of a building full of ard people with soone in tow. Not without soone getting hurt.
I reached out and turned the handle.
The door swung open on a modest sitting room, a sofa, a low table, thin curtains filtering the outside light into sothing pale and grey. My eyes moved across the room automatically and landed on the sofa.
i was sitting there.
She looked up the mont the door opened, those dark eyes of hers finding mine before I’d even fully stepped inside. For a second neither of us moved. The door drifted shut behind with a soft click, and the room went quiet.
I didn’t know what to say. I stood there and I genuinely didn’t know where to begin. The relief hit first, she was here, she was upright, she looked like herself, no visible harm, no hollow look in her eyes that would’ve told sothing worse had happened. That relief lasted maybe three seconds before the guilt moved in and took up the entire space.
Because I hadn’t co here to take her ho.
"You ca," i said finally.
"Yeah," I said. "Of course I ca."
She looked at for a mont longer. "But you’re not here to take back."
I opened my mouth. Nothing ca out. My jaw worked once, uselessly, and I closed it again. My hands curled at my sides.
Standing here in front of her, seeing her sitting in that room that wasn’t hers, in a building full of people she hadn’t chosen, I think in that mont I ca the closest I’d co to deciding I’d just hand Lucy over and deal with whatever ca after. Forget the plan. Forget the careful approach. Just fix this.
"I’m sorry," I said.
"I knew it." She didn’t say it with bitterness, or with the kind of sadness that twists a face. She said it the way soone speaks about a thing they’d already made their peace with. "It seed too good to be true. I didn’t let myself believe it from the start."
"i—"
"I don’t really care that much," she said, cutting off before I could find the rest of the sentence. She looked at steadily, hands resting in her lap. "I was never really part of your group anyway."
I stared at her. "What?"
"Rebecca said it herself." Her voice was calm, almost detached. "I had no real connections there. No friends. I just ended up pulled along into the group sohow, I was never actually in it. I don’t think my not being there changes anything for anyone."
The words landed in a way I hadn’t expected. Not because they were said in anger, they’d have been easier to answer if she were angry. But she wasn’t. She said it like it was just a fact, a thing observed and filed away, and that was sohow worse.
I didn’t move from where I stood.
She held my silence for a mont, then simply stood up and moved toward the small table near the window.
"It’s not as bad here as I thought it would be," she said, reaching for the book left on the table, flipping it open to sowhere in the middle.
"You don’t an that," I said.
"What do you know about what I an?" She turned a page without looking at , her voice carrying a light scoff that sohow stung more than raised volu would have. "Instead of standing here wasting your ti, you should leave this place and focus on finding Elena. You can’t win against them, against Gaspar, you’re outnumbered and you’re outmatched. I’m telling you that honestly."
"i. Look at ."
"Just leave," she said.
I crossed the room and reached out, my hand closing around her arm, turning her gently but firmly toward . She let it happen, didn’t resist, just looked back at with those dark, steady eyes that were doing everything they could to look unbothered. They weren’t. I could see it in the small tension at the corners.
"I’m not abandoning you," I said. "We are not abandoning you. You belong with us, not here, not with them. You really think I’m going to just walk away telling you okay and leave you in that place?"
"Why wouldn’t you?" She said it quietly. Her eyes shifted away from mine. "You already did."
Sothing in my chest pulled tight at that. My grip on her arm fird slightly, not hard, just enough to ground us both in the mont.
"Whatever happens," I said, "I will co back for you." My free hand moved slowly, hesitantly, toward her face. I barely touched her, just my fingers brushing a loose strand of her black hair back from her cheek, the contact so slight it hardly counted. But I kept my hand there, close, hovering. "Just wait for . I will not leave you here, i. I will never leave you in a place like this. You are important to us. Important to . I need you to understand that."
I didn’t like a bit how she was trying to pull away from the group. She was already an important mber of it. Everyone wanted her back, especially Rebecca.
Sothing shifted behind her eyes, brief and unguarded before she shut it down.
"Important to you," she said. Her gaze ca back to mine slowly. "In the sa way Sydney is? Rachel? Elena? Cindy?"
I blinked. The question caught completely flat-footed. "What—"
She turned her face away from my hand, pulling back just enough that the contact broke.
"Leave," she said.
"i—"
I tried to step closer and she pressed her palm flat against my chest, stopping where I stood. Her hand stayed there for just a second before she let it drop.
"Leave," she said again, and this ti she looked straight at when she said it. "And don’t co back."
"What are you—"
A knock cut through the room.
"Ti’s up."
Callighan, on the other side of the door.
"Listen to —" I started, turning back toward her.
"I don’t want to be saved!" Her voice cracked open then. She was glaring at now, real emotion finally breaking through the surface she’d been keeping so smooth. "Don’t decide things for . Don’t stand there and make a project. I am fine here. I can manage on my own."
I looked at her. Opened my mouth. Nothing ca.
The door swung open behind . Callighan stood in the fra, one hand resting against the wood, watching with that sa composed, unreadable expression he’d worn since the mont I’d first seen him outside the hotel.
i had already turned away. Arms folded across her chest, her gaze fixed sowhere past the far wall.
I stood there for a mont longer than I should have. Then I turned and walked out.
The door didn’t slam behind . That was almost worse, just the soft, quiet click of it closing.
I stopped just outside and stood still, staring at nothing in particular.
"There is still one way to get her back."
Callighan’s voice ca from just behind . I didn’t turn imdiately.
"Bring Marlon instead," he said.
I let the words sit for a second. Then I turned my gaze forward and walked, back through the dim casino hall, past the silent rows of dead machines, toward the light coming through the front entrance.
I didn’t answer him.
And I didn’t look back.
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