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saved you.”
    “She arrived soon after I paid out. At least, that’s what she tells me. From what I can figure, I was only dead for a few minutes.”
    “So she brought you back from the dead,” I say, my voice rising a notch.
    “Yes,” he says. “I tried to get her to bring back Michael, but she wouldn’t. She said he was gone. She reached into him, but she said it was too late. I didn’t believe her. I begged her to bring him back. I was crazy with grief. But I know now that she really did try. She would have done it, if she could. But he was dead long before she arrived.”
    “But Ophelia said you can’t bring back someone from the dead,” I say. “If she brought you back—”
    “She doesn’t believe I was really dead. She doesn’t want to believe. But I know what I saw, little bird. I know what I felt. And I sure as hell don’t ever want to feel it again.”
    I take a step back and bump into the door behind me. With the intensity of our words, I didn’t realize I had been backing away from him the whole time. I don’t know if Valac’s right, but I’m certain that he believes it. My mind starts to fuzz over, shutting down with the idea that Kolek’s mob might be the right place for me after all. That days of collecting at the casino are my future. An endless future, if Valac is right, because we’ll need to keep collecting or we’ll die. Forever.
    “The best thing that your psych officer ever did for you, little bird, is send you here.”
    That jolts me. “My psych… what the hell?”
    Valac looks genuinely surprised. “You didn’t know?”
    “Didn’t know what ?”
    “Candy sold you out. You and Ophelia both.” He shrugs. “I don’t know why, but she’s the one who told Kolek where to find you. You only escaped because Nico was an idiot in that alleyway. The others don’t have a brain between them, so you got lucky Nico was the one you knocked out first.”
    My mouth is hanging open. I shut it. “But why? Why would Candy…?” I know she doesn’t exactly care for her debt collectors. She’s a nasty piece of work who lies and manipulates us. But selling us out to the mob? “What could my psych officer possibly get from selling out Ophelia and me?”
    Valac tosses his hands up. “Beats me. But it’s not the first time Kolek’s gotten a tip from her. You should ask Ophelia. Maybe she knows.” Valac looks supremely unconcerned about this and flicks open his palm screen. “Speaking of whom, she should be done by now. If not, I’ll be happy to interrupt whatever’s going on in the congressman’s bedroom. If he wants a sex worker, he’ll have to pay separately for that.”
    I scowl at him, still breathless with the idea of Candy selling us out. He taps the button to slide open the door, then pauses to look at me over his shoulder. “And remember, little bird. Whatever Kolek asks you do to, don’t hesitate. He’s looking to see if you’re willing to do whatever he says. You hesitate, you’re dead. And that’s no place to be.”
    He gives me a short nod and strides out of the room, not waiting for a response.
    I’m not sure what I would say to that anyway.

 
     

    I run my hand over my clean-shaven face. The mirror shows a young man dressed for a club, cheeks no longer sunken, flushed like I jogged back to my room. The dark circles under my eyes are gone, and my lips are full, almost red, like I just thoroughly kissed a girl. Only Ophelia was in no mood for kissing on the way back from her payout in the senator’s bedroom.
    I haven’t looked this good… ever. And it’s not because I kissed someone. It’s because I have years of stolen life in my body, filling out my bones in a way I’ve never felt before. Years that don’t belong to me.
    Only my eyes are dull. Flat. The slate-gray-blue of a storm that deadens the sky.
    Looking in the mirror is always a mistake.
    I straighten the collar of my black silk shirt, tucking it into my dress pants, then smoothing them as