Johnny roars and swings both fists at me at once.

I let go of Camille now, shoving her out of the way so she doesn’t get hit in the crossfire. In the time it takes to push her down on the nearest couch, Johnny hits me hard in the left ear with one of those meaty fists. I hear a popping sound, and bright lights explode in front of my eyes.

I fall on my back and Johnny tries to jump on top of me, but I kick my heels hard into his gut, flinging him backward. Then I leap up again, without even touching the ground with my hands. I’m running after him, while he’s still stumbling backward. I hit him twice in the face and once in the body.

The blood lust is on me. I can barely even feel my fists making contact with his flesh, though I can see each impact. I want to hit him harder and harder. I want to pound him into mush.

Johnny swings back at me. I dodge the first punch. The second hits me across the jaw. The pain is shocking, blinding.

I fucking love it. This is the only thing that feels real. The only thing that feels genuine. I hate this shithead, and he hates me. We want to tear each other apart.

Beating him proves that I’m better than him—smarter, faster, stronger.

I’ve killed men before, when I had to. That’s work, and I don’t enjoy it.

Fighting is different. It’s pure fun. And I’m really fucking good at it. One-on-one I almost never lose.

Johnny is a big dude. A worthy adversary. When he hits me again, square in the chest, I could almost respect him.

I’m still going to take him apart.

I watch for his next haymaker, then I duck under it and I boot him again in the chest, sending him crashing backward into Levi’s grandmother’s china cabinet. The glass doors shatter, broken dishes raining down on Johnny’s shoulders.

That’s when the Samoan hits me with a punch that feels like a redwood log upside the head. I didn’t see it coming, and there was no way to brace for it. It knocks my brain halfway out of my head, so I don’t even feel myself falling to the ground. One second I’m standing, the next my face is pressed into the filthy carpet.

I hear a scream—possibly Camille. The Samoan gives me a couple kicks to the body that rearrange some organs. That would hurt pretty bad if I were still fully conscious.

All I hear is Levi shouting, “I said no fighting in the house!”

Then I fall into blackness.

I wake up in some kind of glassed-in porch. I can see the corner of a neon sign overhead, and the edge of a high-rise. The rest is just black summer sky, dense with clouds. The humidity is so thick it’s like gauze.

I’m about to drift away again, until I hear the rumble of thunder. It pulls me back to consciousness.

Somebody is washing my face. They’re using a rough washcloth. Their touch isn’t rough—it’s gentle and careful, cleaning blood off my aching flesh.

My mother used to wash my face like this when I was sick.

She’s the only person who ever saw me like this—helpless. Vulnerable.

I try to sit up. Camille pushes me back down, saying, “Relax.”

I’m lying on some kind of shitty thin mattress, right on the floor with no bed frame beneath it. The tiny room smells damp. But it also smells like soap and gasoline—like Camille herself. I see a stack of paperbacks in the corner, and a couple of potted plants. Those, at least, are thriving.

This is her room. The most pathetic little room I’ve ever seen.

Camille is kneeling next to the bed. She has a bowl of warm water in front of her, rusty with my blood. She wrings out the cloth, darkening the water even more.

“Did that Samoan hit me?” I say.

“His name is Sione,” Camille informs me.

“Fucking hell, I’ve never taken a punch like that.”

“I’m surprised you have any teeth left in your head,” she says.

“Eh, strike that. I think Dante hits that hard. When he’s really mad.”

“You seem to bring that out in people,” Camille says.

I could be wrong, but I think there’s a hint of a smile on her face. She’s probably enjoying this. Seeing me get my just desserts for once.

“How’d you get me back here?” I ask her curiously.

“I dragged you,” Camille scowls. “And you’re not light, by the way.”

“Lighter than a transmission,” I say, grinning.

“Not by much,” she replies.

We’re silent for a minute. The quiet is broken by the patter of raindrops on the glass roof. I look up, watching each of the raindrops burst against the glass. Soon there’s too many to count. The patter turns into a steady drumming sound, that ebbs and flows in a soothing way.

“I love summer rain,” Camille says.

“You must like this room.”

“I do,” she says with a fierce kind of pride.

I look around the room again. It’s dingy and tiny. But I can see why she would like it—it’s a tiny capsule of complete privacy. A space that belongs only to her. Half outside, half inside. In the rain, and yet sheltered.

“Why do you always do that?” Camille asks me.

“What?” I say.

“Why are you so violent?”

I can feel myself flushing. The heat makes my face throb all over again, especially in the places I was hit. My ribs are groaning. Sione might have broken a few.

I want to say something cruel, to punish her. She has no right to judge me. To ask questions.

But for once, I keep my temper. Camille pulled me out of that party. She dragged me all the way back here and tried to clean me up. She did that—not Mason or Bella or anybody else. She didn’t have to help me. But she did it anyway.

I look at Camille. Really look at her, in the dim, watery light. Her skin glows like it’s illuminated from the inside. The humidity has turned her hair into a wild halo of curls, all around her head. Her dark eyes look huge and tragically sad. I see the pain in them.

I know the reasons she should be miserable—she’s poor, her mother abandoned her, her father can’t keep this shop together, and she’s trying to raise her delinquent brother all on her own.

But all that never seemed to bother her before. Why is she finally falling apart?

“What happened today?” I ask her. “Why are you so sad?”

She wrings out the cloth angrily, refusing to look at me.

“I’m not,” she says.

Even while she’s saying the words, two tears run down the sides of her face, in perfect parallel.

“Tell me what happened.”

It’s not an order. It’s just a request. Still, she shakes her head, making the tears fall down onto her lap.

“No,” she says. “It’s none of your business. And I don’t trust you.”

“Well,” I say. “That’s probably smart. I’m not that trustworthy.”

Camille gives me a suspicious look, like she thinks I’m messing with her.

“I’m not some fragile flower,” she says. “I grew up right here in Old Town, the same as you.”

“Not exactly the same. You’re a good girl.”

“No, I’m not.” She shakes her head. “You have no idea what I’m capable of doing.”

I sit up again, wincing at the pain in my ribs. She doesn’t try to stop me this time. I lean closer to her, hair falling over my eyes.