The door shut behind her, and Mia didn’t move past it.
The woman who had let her in reached past and turned the deadbolt.
Mia looked at the lock, then at her.
“You planning on keeping me here?”
“No.”
The woman stepped away from the door. “If you want to leave, you leave.”
Mia kept her eyes on her for another second.
“Mercy,” the woman said. “That’s what you call me.”
“Where’s Daniel?” Mia asked.
“Not here.”
“Where is he?”
A curtain shifted at the end of the room and a man stepped through, late 40s maybe, tired eyes, sleeves rolled to the forearms.
“He’s not in this city.”
The man glanced at the blood on her side. “What matters is that he made it very clear we were to take care of you.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed. “He say why?”
“No. And we don’t ask questions.”
Mia gave him a long look, then glanced back at Mercy.
“Before Martin treats your side,” Mercy said, “we need to deal with anything that can identify you.”
She crossed to the table, pulled a steel case from beneath it, and set it down. Gray, about the size of a toolbox.
Mia watched as Mercy worked the combination dial with two fingers.
“Everything that could put a name on you goes in here. You set the combination yourself.” The woman pointed to a small button beside the dials. “Hold that down while you set the numbers. When you release it, the combination is locked in.”
She stepped back.
Mia didn’t move.
“And then what?”
“Your things stay in the case until you decide what you’re doing. If you leave, you take it with you.”
“You don’t get the combination?”
“No.”
“And nobody opens it unless I do.”
Mercy stepped back from the table. “That’s the idea.”
Mia studied her for a moment, looking for something in her face that didn’t match the answer.
She saw nothing.
She reached for the button and pressed it as she turned the dials.
Three numbers connected to Luis. Three-zero-seven. The apartment. Home, before it stopped being one.
She released the button and closed the lid, pushing the catches on either side into place.
For a second, her fingers rested on them.
Then she turned each dial away from the combination and slid the two catches outward.
Nothing happened.
Mia entered the three numbers again and slid the catches outward once more.
The lock released.
She opened the case, satisfied.
“Happy?” Mercy asked.
“Not exactly how I’d describe my emotions, but hey.”
Carla’s knife went in first, followed by the memory card, her phone, and her wallet.
Her apartment key went in last, but she kept the coin in her hand.
Mia closed the lid and spun the dials away from the combination.
For a moment, nobody said anything.
Then Martin nodded toward the chair beside the treatment table.
“Over here.”
Mia crossed the room and sat.
“I’m going to touch your face first. Just to check your eyes. Tell me if that’s not okay.”
“It’s fine.”
He waited half a second then leaned in, gently lifted her eyelid with his thumb, and shone a small light across one pupil, then the other. “Follow my finger.”
She did.
“A little concussion. You already knew that.”
“Yeah.”
Then he moved to her side. The dressing was stiff, pulling at the skin when he lifted the edge of the tape.
“This is going to hurt. I’m going to irrigate it first, then I need to look at what’s underneath.”
“Do it.”
The saline was cold and ran into the waistband of her sweatpants, and she didn’t flinch at that part. It was the second wash, the antiseptic, that made her side jump and her hand close around his wrist.
Martin glanced down at his hand.
“Going to be difficult to stitch you without that.”
Mia released him.
“Sorry.”
Martin gave a small nod and went back to work.
For the next few minutes, he said nothing. The tweezers clicked softly against the metal tray as he cleaned the wound, removed the debris, and cut away the sutures that had pulled loose. Then he replaced them, one at a time, his hands steady even when Mia’s muscles tightened beneath the needle.
Mia let him work.
After a few minutes, Martin sat back and looked over the wound.
“Good as new.”
He covered the stitches with fresh gauze and taped the dressing firmly into place, checking the edges once before he was satisfied. Then he crossed to a cabinet, took out a small bottle of antibiotics, and set it beside her.
“One every eight hours for three days.”
Mia picked up the bottle.
“Got it.”
“Now you need fluids and rest. Plenty of both.” Martin looked at her steadily. “And no more hits to the head. Another one right now, even a small one, could cause serious problems.”
“I’m not planning on fighting anybody.”
Martin smiled, then gathered the instruments from the tray.
He left the room the way he came in.
Mercy stepped forward and held out the folded clothes. “Put these on.”
Mia took them and looked through the stack.
Black trousers. A gray long-sleeved shirt. A hooded sweatshirt. Thick socks and plain shoes.
The trousers looked a little too long, but everything else matched her size.
Mia changed carefully, avoiding the fresh dressing at her side. She picked up the antibiotics and slipped them into her pocket.
When she was done, Mercy nodded toward the coin still in Mia’s hand.
“That needs to go in the case too. It ties you to Valdés.”
Mia looked down at it for a moment, then opened the case and dropped it inside.
She locked the case again and spun the dials.
The curtain at the doorway shifted, and Martin stepped back into the room.
His eyes went to Mia’s hair.
“That’s not going to work,” he said. “You’ve still got a few locks left, and the rest looks like you cut it in the dark with a kitchen knife. That’ll draw attention.”
Mia said nothing.
“A clean shave’s better.”
Martin reached to a shelf and took down a pair of clippers.
“Sit.”
Mia looked at him for a moment, then lowered herself into the chair.
Martin shook out a towel and draped it around her shoulders, tucking the edges in at the front.
The clippers buzzed to life and moved slowly over her scalp. What remained of the rough cut she had given herself in the terminal fell in short clumps onto the towel.
Martin passed the clippers over the same areas until the uneven patches and remaining locks were gone.
When he finished, he switched off the clippers and brushed the loose hair from her head and shoulders.
Then he reached for a can of shaving foam.
He shook it, pressed a mound into his palm, and spread it over Mia’s scalp with his fingers.
The razor came next, new from its wrapper.
The blade was cold and precise against her skin.
When Martin finished, he lifted the towel from around her shoulders, carried it over to the bin, and gave it a sharp shake. Short clumps of hair fell away.
He came back and wiped the last traces of shaving foam from her scalp.
Mia raised a hand and ran her palm over the top of her head. For half a second, her fingers still expected to find a dreadlock, but the skin was smooth and unfamiliar beneath her palm, broken only by a few tender cuts, one still weeping, and the faint ridges of old scars she’d forgotten were there.
The mirror in the room showed her a face she didn’t recognize, though the eyes were still hers.
The bruise along her cheekbone had faded to yellow-green at the edges. Smoke still reddened the whites of her eyes. With her hair gone, there was nothing to soften the hard shape of her face.
She searched the mirror for the woman she had been before all of this. Luis leaning against the fridge, making fun of the miserable meals she ate before weigh-ins. Pastries going stale on the kitchen counter because he always bought too many. The two of them talking about adding another bedroom to the apartment someday, when there was enough money and enough time.
She couldn’t find any of it in the face looking back at her.
“Room’s ready,” Mercy said from the curtained doorway.
Mia turned away from the mirror.
“Upstairs. Bring the case with you.”
Mia picked it up.
Mercy held the curtain aside and led her through. A narrow staircase rose beyond it, steep and dimly lit.
Mia followed, one hand brushing the wall.
At the top, Mercy opened a door and stepped aside.
“The door locks from the inside.”
Mia walked in and looked around.
The room was small. A bed stood against one wall, with a small sofa tucked into the corner and a single chair beside it. Heavy curtains covered the window, and a jug of water waited on the nightstand. Overhead, a ceiling fan turned with a slow, uneven rattle.
A small camera sat high in one corner, angled toward the bed.
Mia looked at Mercy.
“Seriously?”
“Security.”
“Whose?”
Mercy didn’t answer.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Martin appeared in the doorway carrying a plate with bread and something warm wrapped in foil.
“Figured you should eat.”
“Not hungry,” Mia said.
Martin looked at Mercy and then at Mia. “We’ll leave you to rest.”
He set the plate down anyway and they stepped out, pulling the door nearly closed behind them.
Mia listened to their footsteps down the stairs before reaching for the plate.
She ate faster than she meant to, hunger winning out over the bravado.
Then there was nothing left to do. She sat back on the bed, propping herself up with the pillows.
A memory came without warning. Luis in the kitchen, half laughing and half annoyed, holding up an empty herb jar as if she had committed some serious offense.
You forgot the rosemary again. How am I supposed to make it taste like anything without the rosemary, Mia? Seriously.
That was it. Nothing important. Just one of the hundred small things he said, expecting he’d be there tomorrow to say something else.
She listened to his voice continue in her head until even the memory of it faded back into the quiet.
Mia opened the steel case and took Luis’s note from the wallet.
The note stayed folded in her fist as she turned onto her side, facing the door.
She meant to stay awake a little longer.
She couldn’t.
***
Mia woke without knowing where she was.
For a second, the apartment was real again, Luis in the next room, the smell of coffee.
Then it came back all at once.
Light glowed around the edges of the curtains.
Mia stared at it for a moment before realizing what it meant.
She had slept, but she had no idea for how long.
The door was exactly as it had been, a crack open.
A few moments later, footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Mercy appeared in the doorway. “Daniel asked to speak with you as soon as you woke up.”
Mia looked toward the small camera in the corner.
Then back at Mercy.
“Guess he didn’t want to waste any time.”
“Apparently not.”
Mia pushed herself upright, the fresh dressing pulling at her side.
She picked up the case and followed Mercy downstairs and through the curtained doorway.
A laptop sat open on the treatment table.
Mercy pulled a chair over for Mia. Mia sat down and put the case beside the chair. Mercy adjusted the screen, then tapped a button.
A ringing tone sounded from the speakers.
Once.
Twice.
On the third ring, the screen changed and Daniel’s face appeared.
He smiled slightly, a gold tooth catching the light. Behind him was nothing she could place. A blank wall, maybe a curtain.
“So,” Daniel said, “no restraints, no mystery drugs, and nobody put you on a plane.”
Mia looked at him. “So far.”
“Fair.”
His smile widened just enough to show the gold again.
“Are they looking after you?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” Daniel settled back slightly. “You look good. Love the haircut.”
“I feel like shit,” Mia said.
“That’s still an improvement.”
Mia studied him on the screen. “You said we’d talk once I was safe. So talk.”
Daniel’s smile faded.
“I told you I saw potential in you.”
“You still haven’t told me what that means,” Mia said.
“It means I have work for you,” Daniel replied.
“What kind of work?”
“The kind where keeping your head matters.”
Mia glanced at Mercy, then back at the screen. “And you expect me to say yes without knowing what it is?”
“No.” Daniel’s voice remained calm. “I expect you to hear the offer before you decide anything.”
“So talk,” Mia said.
“I need people who function when things go wrong, and you’ve done nothing this week except function when things go wrong.”
“You’re not telling me what it is.”
“No.” Daniel’s expression barely changed. “Right now, I need to get you out of this city. Once you’re somewhere safer, we’ll talk.”
Mia stared at the screen and thought of Cruz, Valdés, all the men who had already decided what her choices were supposed to be.
“I have something for you, Mia,” Daniel said.
Mercy disappeared into the hallway and came back carrying something wrapped in a blanket.
She set it on the table beside the laptop.
Mia knew the dimensions before Mercy unwrapped it.
Valdés’s katana.
Mia looked at her. “How?”
“My people went through Valdés’s office looking for you. They found a man still there,” Daniel said.
Mia remembered Rafa against the wall, the square silver watch, one hand clamped over the bullet wound in his thigh.
“He said he didn’t know where you’d gone,” Daniel continued. “Then he started offering up anything he thought might keep himself alive. Told them you’d taken a shine to the sword.”
“Did you kill him?” Mia asked.
“No,” Daniel said.
Mia lifted the katana. The weight felt familiar in her hands. She braced the scabbard, pushed her thumb against the guard, and eased the blade free a few inches.
Steel caught the light.
Mercy watched her. “You’ve used one before.”
Mia slid the blade back into the scabbard.
“Yeah.”
Daniel regarded her from the screen for a moment. “Mercy will get you out of the city.”
“Where am I going?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Mia rested the katana across her knees. “And this job you won’t tell me about?”
“We’ll talk when you get here.”
“And I can still walk away.”
“Yes.”
Mia studied his face, looking for the hesitation that should have come with the answer.
There wasn’t one.
“When?”
“Soon.”
The faint smile returned right before the screen went black.
Mercy closed the laptop.
For the first time since Mia had come downstairs, the room was quiet.
The curtain shifted and Martin came through carrying a dark travel bag.
He set it on the table beside the katana.
“Clothes, toiletries, a few things you’ll need.”
Mia looked at the bag, then at him.
“Thanks.”
Martin gave a small nod.
Mercy picked up the travel bag from the table and took the katana in her other hand. “Come with me.”
Mia grabbed the steel case and followed Mercy toward the gray metal door.
Mercy unlocked it and cool air spilled in from the alley.
A white van waited a short distance away, engine running, exhaust clouding the air behind it.
Mia looked once up and down the alley before stepping outside.
Mercy followed her to the van and handed her the travel bag, then the katana.
“Good luck.”
Mia looked at her for a moment, before opening the van door. She put the bag inside, and laid the katana carefully along the floor. The steel case went on the seat.
Then she climbed in.
The door shut behind her.
Mercy was already heading back inside.
A moment later, the gray door closed behind her, becoming just another unmarked entrance in the alley.
The van pulled away and drove to the end of the alley before turning into traffic.
Mia watched the theater shrink behind her through the rear window until a delivery truck pulled in behind them and blocked it from view entirely.