Page 120 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

“Are you okay?” she asks, then coughs in the dust.

Destroying the walls in the Toronto base had significantly less dust.

He gapes at her. “I thought you said you weren’t killing anyone?”

Still, they half walk-half run, now through the tolling alarm custom made to never disrupt any music above.

“We have to get to her office, we have to—”

Before she can finish the words, in between one breath and the next, with her lips forming the shapes of the letters and her hand still gripped in his, everything stops.

Everything stops, and the leash around her neck snaps tight.

Tight.

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She gags, free hand coming up to claw at her throat, nails scratching at her skin—it’s the same skin Gurlien had kissed—and she recoils back, thumping into him.

He says something, his voice meeting her ears but not registering in her mind, his tone distressed, his tone panicked, and—

White blanks out her eyes, crackling over her vision, and Gurlien’s hand closes over her wrist, cool against the fever hot skin, as the leash twists its grip on her, pulling her…

With a snap so hard her ears pop, she teleports, feet sliding along new tile, Gurlien stumbling next to her. It’s a short teleport, barely twenty paces away from where they were, but still, her mind stops, the heart stuttering in the chest until she gasps, all color blooming around her.

Nalissa always kept her office colorful.

The wall behind the desk—just a converted surgery table—is medicinal pink, glaring and bright under the white lights, up until it meets a line of skulls in the crease to the roof. There’s a riot of a flower bouquet on the desk, heldin an oversized glass beaker, and with every breath Ambra can smell them. Nalissa’s flowers were always cloying.

The tile is a dizzying design in teal and orange, and Misia had stared at it for too long to attempt to figure it out, and Ambra never wants to see something like it ever again.

In between one gulp of air and the next, Nalissa crosses into her field of vision, her face open and soft.

Behind her, Gurlien makes a noise Ambra can’t describe, before he throws his arms around her, keeping her back against him, rooting her in place.

Gurlien.

Ambra straightens, and Nalissa hasn’t compelled her to act, other than the teleportation.

Nalissa’s face creases into a smile, like she’s glad to see Ambra. Like she’s a friend, like she would soothe her with the conversation and discuss warmth and cozy things. Her hair is a little longer and a little grayer than the last time Ambra saw it, but it’s been a few months since she’s looked Nalissa face to face.

Usually, Nalissa faced her elsewhere. Usually, Nalissa faced her at a combat foe.

“Gurlien Banks, you’re definitely not who I expected,” Nalissa says, her voice extolling, like it’s some praise.

Gurlien stiffens behind her, his arm tight around her, and it’s a small protection.

Ambra cracks out a snap of power to Nalissa, but it crackles to the ground before it can reach her, bouncing off a shield.

No, not a shield, a trap.

Ambra forces herself to look down, and Nalissa had teleported them into a demon trap.

She couldn’t move out of it, she couldn’t use power out of it, just inside.

Nalissa smiles at her, gentle, like she’s a child that did something right.

Ambra hates that smile.

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