Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
“No thanks.” She tossed it back on the table. “Your time is up.”
Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the sushi place.
Unfortunately, he followed. “Can you open the door?”
“Leave me alone.”
He grasped her wrist and pulled her to a stop in the middle of the busy street. “Can you open it?”
“No,” she spat, jerking away from him. “Stop touching me.”
“All right. I shouldn’t have touched you.” His hands went up in surrender. “This isn’t even about you and me. I’m not trying to force you to work with me. I’m suggesting that we’re what created the door, so we might be able to open it. That’s it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And you don’t know, either. So we should try.”
She didn’t want to consider it. The last thing she wanted was to work with Lorcan. Not after what he’d done to her. Still, he might have a point.
“Only as a last-case scenario,” she told him with a sneer. “Once again, your time is up.”
She moved away from him, blending into the crowd like she’d done as a thief a million times. She jogged to the subway, tossing a twenty at the slumbering troll, slipped through the doors to the train, and felt it pull away.
And even as she got farther from him, it didn’t feel as if there were any distance between them. But one good thing had come out of that conversation—he was no longer in her head.
Chapter Sixteen
The statue of Coraline LeMort stared down imperiously at Kierse from the steps of the MET. She was on her third black-and-white cookie from her favorite bakery on the Upper East Side. With Rosh Hashana coming up, the bakery had been packed, and she’d been “talked into” a round loaf of challah in addition to her favorite cinnamon babka.
Coraline was just a benefit to Kierse’s afternoon pickpocketing tourists and mulling over Lorcan’s words. This was her favorite place to think in the city. It held a reminder of the war but also hope.
Coraline had been the spark that started the whole thing. A vampire visionary who ignited the fire to bring all the monsters out into the light. Vampires had come out first, and one of the top companies in the city, Visage, hired humans as blood donors. And it had fallen apart so spectacularly. But at one of her own rallies, Coraline had been killed by a rival werewolf. The entire thing had gone to shit from there.
But what she stood for still warred in her city.
Still warred in Kierse.
Monsters and humans lived together in the world now. For a few short years, they’d lived almost peacefully. But now when she spotted a pair of Men of Valor wings on a sign nearby—they were getting bolder above ground, too—that was being threatened. Just like her new spot in this world.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she reached for it as she shouldered her bag and headed into Central Park.
Laz named the chat Heist Group Chat.
Kierse snorted. Of course he did.
Laz: texted boss man already. meeting in an hour.
Gen: Team Holly activate!
Schwartz: This is the lamest name.
Laz: admit it. u fucking love it
Walter: Why am I here? I hate group chats. I’m going to leave this immediately.
Lyra: Wait, are we having another heist? I have rehearsal in an hour, but I can get out of it.
Laz: yeah. deets incoming.
George: I am with the boss now. He wouldn’t say it, but he is confused why he is not included in the Heist Group Chat for the heist that he himself orchestrated.
Gen: Did he say that?
Schwartz: Doesn’t sound like him.
Walter: If Graves isn’t here, I don’t have to be here either.
Laz: i got u boss man
Laz has added Graves to the chat.
George: That isn’t what he meant but is equally hilarious.
Graves: …
Kierse chuckled. The last heist had been a group effort to break into Monster Con and steal the cauldron. They’d succeeded, and it had been incredible to watch Graves open up about his plans and let other people in on the action. Now she had a bigger family. In addition to Gen and Ethan. She’d missed them.
Laz: see u in an hour
Gen: Can’t wait! I made Team Holly T-shirts!
Walter: Baseball caps by any chance?
Gen: I could make you one!
George: You should see his face right now.
Laz: I would kill for that. take a picture
George sent a picture.
Kierse opened the image and saw Graves bent over his phone with a book open in his lap in the back of his limo. He had a grimace on his face.
Schwartz: You’re the man, George.
Lyra: I’m saving this. Don’t ask questions.
Walter: We shouldn’t share unauthorized images online.
George: He’s still upset about the merch.
Graves: We’re not wearing merch.
Kierse: I’d wear merch.
Graves: We’re not wearing merch.
Gen: Okay, maybe not Team Holly for you, Graves. But I sketched out Anne Boleyn and think she’d look great on a black shirt. I’ll get that in your size.