Then she breathed in sharply, her eyes fixed on the clock in the train station’s tower in the distance. Her parents’ voices disappeared. Gunshots were the only sound, and she couldn’t tell if they were all in her head or somewhere in the streets beyond. She watched the dial on the clock move until the gunshots faded.

Though she yearned to escape the Stacks, something about watching the streets splayed before her, spreading miles southward, comforted her and made the gunshots ringing in her ears disperse. At night, especially in the spring and summer, she had played with the other kids on this street while the adults gossiped and passed around plates of food. Her parents usually shared rice and beans, but on special occasions when they could afford it, they brought fried plantains or sudado de pollo cooked with recipes from their hometown in Mil Cimas. As candles flickered in the windows, both moons rose high in the sky, adults reminisced about times before the war, and the local gang watched every street corner to keep them safe throughout the night. Wounds were healed and mistakes forgiven. Sometimes, the lack of anything made people appreciate everything.

Had she gotten too selfish? Had she climbed too high? But if her parents’ ghosts came back one day and asked if she was proud of herself, she wanted to have something to tell them.

Maybe she had climbed too high. But this job was her only chance at not falling to the bottom once more.

After what felt like hours, the creak of metal sounded nearby. Teo appeared at the edge of the roof.

“How did you know where to find me?” she asked.

“This is your favorite hiding spot, isn’t it?” he asked with no sign of judgment in his eyes.

“You remember?”

“Of course, I do. The first time we met.”

When she was sixteen, a year after her first kill, Aina had had more confidence than common sense. She’d learned which streets specialized in drug deals and which specialized in muggings, she’d started to get involved in diamond sales, and she’d learned all about the different types of people in Kosín: the mercenaries, the thugs, the gangs, the addicts, the pimps, the Inosen, the slavers, the thieves, and everything in between. With Kohl’s training in addition to her knowledge, she’d felt invincible.

That was, until she’d entered an alley one day and watched a tall boy a few years older than her being bested in a fight by three opponents. He was clearly skilled, but his gun—strapped to his belt—was probably out of ammo since he wasn’t using it, and he appeared to have no other weapons while each opponent bore knives and brass knuckles. She’d thought it stupid of him to only have one weapon, but the blood on his face and arms struck a seldom-played chord within her. He was too young and strong, like her, to die at the hands of cowards who relied on numbers instead of skill. She’d made her decision, taking out two of the boys before they even knew what was happening, but the third had plunged a knife into her side. She’d fled, leaving the boy she’d saved to deal with the third opponent. She should have returned to the Dom to have her wound treated, but her survival instincts had flicked on, and there was only one place she retreated to when that happened: her old rooftop, the one place in all of Kosín where she felt truly safe.