“Looks like it’s just you and me now,” I said, taunting her. “Let’s hope you have more fight in you than Opal there did. Why, I didn’t even break a sweat cutting her down.”

Clementine’s lips flattened out, her nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed to slits. It was the same murderous expression I’d noticed earlier, when she’d been browbeating Opal and Dixon outside the vault. The mottled flush of her skin and her low, breathy snarls told me just how fully enraged she was, like a bull about to charge at a matador waving a red cape—or rather me in my ruined red dress.

“Come on,” I taunted her again. “Come on, already. What are you waiting for? Let’s dance, bitch.”

“You wanna dance?” Clementine asked, her hands closing into fists as she slowly advanced on me. “By the time I get done with you, there won’t even be any bones left to feed the fish.”

“Come over here and say that again, sugar.”

She let out a loud roar and charged forward.

Chapter 25

25

I raised my blades and let her come to me. I also reached for my Stone magic and used it to harden my skin. Despite my mockery of her, Clementine was a dangerous enemy, made even more so by the grief, rage, and adrenaline pumping through her veins right now. I needed to put her down as quickly as possible, or I’d be in a world of hurt.

When she was in range, I stepped forward and slashed out with my knives, determined to end her with that first strike. But Clementine anticipated my plan and sidestepped me at the last second, so my weapons only sliced through empty air. I whirled around for another strike, but Clementine was already moving, moving, moving. Her fist slammed into my jaw, spinning me around and making a few stars wink on and off before my eyes. I stumbled back, but I managed to stay upright and keep my grip on my Stone magic.

Clementine came at me again, her fists raised in a classic boxer’s stance. For the better part of a minute, we bobbed and weaved back and forth, each one of us trying to end the other. Clementine wanted to plant her fist in my chin again, while I wanted to slice her from guts to gullet with my knives. But we both dodged this way and that, trading shallow, glancing blows and never giving each other a clear opening.

The longer we bobbed and weaved, the more I felt the dreaded exhaustion creeping up on me. My breaths grew hoarse and raspy, sweat trickled down my face, neck, and back, and my legs twitched with the effort of staying upright. It had been a long night already, and now here I was, locked in another fight to the death. Sometimes it just didn’t pay to leave the house.