Shada was on the floor. A blow from Habib had put her there, but she was okay. Vince was a different story.
“You didn’t have to stab him!”
“Shut up!” the Dark shouted back at her.
Vince lay on the floor next to her, bleeding badly, and Shada went to him. The knife had entered somewhere beneath his rib cage. Possibly a punctured lung. Blood from his left side had soaked through the shirt, and a dark crimson pool was gathering beside him. Shada removed her coat and used it to apply pressure to the wound.
“He needs an ambulance,” said Shada.
“Why do you pretend to care?”
“You can’t let him die. I warned you about the tracking chip. I brought you the money myself. I did everything you wanted.”
Shada heard a whimper from across the room. The girl-the one Habib called McKenna-was in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest. She seemed to know better than Vince or Shada that the Dark had never intended to simply take the money and run.
The Dark stepped closer to Shada. “Tell him, Shada. Tell Paulo the truth.”
Vince lifted his head at the sound of his name. Shada took it as a good sign that he was not only conscious but listening.
“This man needs a doctor,” said Shada.
The Dark tightened his stare, his exclusive focus on Shada. “You’ve known it was me for a long time. Haven’t you?”
Shada didn’t answer. She suddenly wished Vince weren’t able to listen.
“You definitely knew yesterday,” he said, “when we were having sex. When you looked in the mirror and saw what I had written on your back with red lipstick. The letters were backward in the mirror, but I saw it register on your face. Tell Paulo what it said, Shada.”
She kept pressing on Vince’s wound, but her hands were shaking. The Dark aimed his pistol straight at her head. He was just five feet away from her.
“Tell him!”
Shada swallowed hard, then said it slowly, each letter filled with hatred: “F-M-L-T-W-I-A.”
Vince let out a noisy breath, one that was wet with blood. The sound gave Shada chills, and her feelings of shame and disgust for the things she’d done with the Dark forced an image into her head-that of Vince kneeling on the floor beside McKenna three years ago as the life drained from the stab wounds in her body. A thousand times over, she would have taken McKenna’s place. Now she wished it were her own life on the line, not Vince’s.
“Please don’t die, Vince.”
“Tell him why,” said the Dark. “Tell him why McKenna said Jamal did it.”
“I don’t know why!”
“You do know! Tell him what you told me.”
She knew exactly what he meant, but she tried to keep the focus on saving Vince. The Dark would have none of it. He stepped closer and pressed the gun right against her head.
“Tell him!”