章 42: Chapter 42

Behind me, two regulators drag the dead man away from the foot of the steps, and I hear Delia moan softly, her hand on her throat. “I’m not,” she starts, and then, losing that thought, she tries again. “I can’t…”

“Some of these men are hurt.” A wave of nausea rushes through me and I reach for the banister that’s no longer there. My hand closes over empty space and I jerk away from the opening before I can fall. “Dee, please—”

She sees how unsteady I am and is already hurrying down to me before I think to tell her to put something on her feet. When her cool hands press against my face, though, I notice she’s wearing her old pair of high-top sneakers, black with ink where she scribbled on them when she was a child; she couldn’t have been more than eight or ten when they were new.