Lace & Lead

The large, exhausted man didn’t even look up at her. He just grunted his acknowledgement and went into his own apartment a few doors down. Emmaline sighed with disappointment and turned to go back inside.

Only to run into the door.

“Ouch,” she grumbled, rubbing her shoulder where she’d rammed against the metal. She looked down at the key pad.

“Oh, gods...no!”

It required a palm scan. And a code. And a retinal scan.

And Peirce wasn’t here for any of those.

Emmaline bit her lower lip, wishing she had thought ahead, hadn’t just rushed out into the open. Gods, hadn’t Peirce always complained about her inability to plan ahead for situations while he was living at the estate?

Watching the sunset from the library window: Miss Gregson, a sniper could have just taken you out through that window and your blood would ruin that first edition of Dust to Dust: A History of Lailian Burial Rites.

Yelling as she went to greet another dog abandoned thanks to the wars: Miss Gregson, did you ever think that an enemy combatant could have attached explosives to that mangy dog you just ran to pet?

Watching her as she tried to chop carrots to give to the horses: Miss Gregson, please put down the knife. If I wanted you to kill yourself, I’d just hand you my gun.

She could hear him in her head right now. Miss Gregson, did you ever think that trying a palm scan you already know will fail might set off one of the flags Mr. Stone has set?

Her hand hovered above the pad, but she didn’t put it down to touch the glass. There had to be another option. She could figure this out.

What if she left the apartment? She closed her eyes and tried to run through her mental map of the neighbourhood. She couldn’t remember everything—it had gone by too fast as they’d driven to Peirce’s—but she was pretty sure there was a restaurant of some kind just down the street.

If she got there, maybe she could wait until she saw Peirce coming back up to the apartment. And if he wasn’t coming back, she’d be away if her father sent his men to find her there.

“Okay, Emmaline,” she muttered, “prove you aren’t worthless.”

What had Peirce told her over and over all afternoon in the garage? You know this. Just breathe and choose.

A slow, deep breath. She was terrified she’d make a mistake, but she couldn’t let fear keep her down anymore. Too much was at stake now. Her freedom was within reach.

She headed toward the elevator.

Peirce ended the comm and stepped out of the booth. The fresh air was more than welcome and he tried to unwrinkle his nose, wishing he could scour the scent of days-old urine and sweat and other bodily fluids from his memory.

“What’d he say?” Douglass asked.

“He was scared shitless,” Peirce reported. “Said he’d meet me in a few days.”

“Didn’t think we’d survive the mercs? Too bad for him the price went up.” Kai grinned.

“Always read the fine print,” Peirce confirmed with a smirk.

Arthur Gregson, the arrogant prick, hadn’t read the contract when he’d hired them. He was greedy and short-sighted and—judging by the vein that had been jumping in his forehead during the conversation—short-tempered as well. The funny thing wasn’t that the insults launched at Peirce and his men hadn’t been upsetting, but it was the man’s absolute lack of concern about his daughter’s whereabouts or welfare which had riled Peirce unexpectedly.

“How long are you going to keep her at your place?”

Douglass looked a little concerned and, to Peirce’s surprise, Kai dropped his jokey act and waited with equal gravity for an answer.

“I’m not sure,” Peirce said slowly, not liking the change in his men. He counted on his ability to read them, both in battle and out, but they weren’t giving him any signs to go off of now.

“Why not?”

Peirce shrugged, wishing he wasn’t in civilian clothes. He felt naked, totally exposed with his armour off. Years of surviving bombings and guerrilla attacks had left him wary of having his back exposed and with the way Douglass and Kai were acting, if he answered wrong he wouldn’t have either of them around to watch his back.

“Look, Emma and I get along just fine. I taught her how to work on the cruiser today.”