“You had your hand in my back pocket,” I said. If he moved in any way I deemed dangerous, he’d be the recipient of one my kicks to the side of his head. It might not kill him, but luck would have to be on his side or I’d have to be feeling incredibly charitable. The jury was out on whether either of those would come to his aid. “That’s a highly inappropriate way to touch a stranger.”
“I assure you,” he said, adjusting his nose back into place with a crack, “I did not actually touch you at all; not your posterior, not anything else. I was reaching for your wallet, but apparently you felt the little bit of pull on the outside of your pocket because most of the time I can keep from touching the person at all as I’m nicking their stuff.” He adjusted himself on the floor of the car and leaned back against the doors as we surged to a stop in the station.
“You’re not exactly selling me on why I shouldn’t beat the ever loving crap outta you,” I said.
“Miss,” came a voice of a man from behind me, “could you please kick that thieving git in the head for all of us?” A man behind me said it, but a few others began to clap. “Can’t even use the underground anymore without worrying some pickpocket’s going to nick all our valuables.”
I looked back at the fallen Irishman. “The people have spoken,” I said to him with a shrug, as though I weren’t in total control of the situation.
“Oh, for crying out loud …” he said, staring up at me from where he rested against the doors, head back. They opened, and he tumbled out and past the crowd that had gathered at the door to get on at this stop. I watched him roll to his feet, but something held me back from following him onto the platform. “Welcome to London,” he said with a kind of weary air, and he tipped an invisible hat to me as he gave me a slight smile, one that was shot through with sadness and relief in equal measure. I waited, and the doors slid shut. I saw him dust himself off, blood running down his face. I gave him a hard look as the train started to move. I saw fear and something else in his eyes as he stared back before breaking eye contact and shuffling off toward the staircases that led off the platform.
I retrieved my bag from where it had fallen, even as the whispers swirled both inside my head and out of it, the car alive with chatter that hadn’t been present a few minutes ago. Surprise, amazement, condemnation, and much worse.
And inside my head … the chorus and cry was loud. I shut my eyes and leaned my head back as it unfolded into a full-on conflagration, the argument blowing up as forcefully as if someone had pulled a grenade pin between my ears and let it drop where it may.
Chapter 5
You let him walk away, Bjorn said, his thick accent bleeding through over the train noise, making it recede in the background. I could almost see his face hovering in front of me, the flat monstrosity that he had been before I had drained the life out of him.
“I didn’t let him walk away,” I said, massaging the skin around my eyes and speaking low in the back of my throat, without moving my lips, “I made a decision not to kill him for picking my pocket while I’m in a new country for less than an hour.”
Seems strategically sound to me, Bastian piped in, his tone clipped. It’s new territory, unfamiliar ground, and making a big splash out of the gate is a bad idea.
As though she weren’t just covering for her weakness, Eve Kappler chimed in, and I could almost see the snide, snarky look she would have been wearing.
“I killed you, didn’t I?”
But didn’t have the guts to finish the job on yourself, Eve taunted.
There was a triumphant silence for a moment before Wolfe spoke. The Little Doll was just being cautious, careful not to stir the pot. She’ll find him later, this little creature, track him, and then—
“Do you even know me?” I asked, fingers digging into the sensitive flesh at my temples as though I could break my skull open and let the voices escape.
“Next stop, Russell Square.” The voice spilled in through the fog that seeped in around my senses, dampening them and forcing me into a sort of cloud that covered me. My feelings of taste, of touch, of smell were all muted, and it was almost as if I could see the six people in my head hovering in the air around me, ghostly, like a wave of fog around me. I could still see the train car, but everything was darker, less clear, and the rattle and shake of the train was much less noticeable now.
She did what she had to do, Zack said, becoming clearer in my mind. His arms were folded; he was stern, my bulwark against all the other voices in my head. Getting into legal trouble in England would be stupid, especially over such a trivial thing.