Or maybe she was imagining that. Maybe she was so accustomed to never receiving affection from Kohl that affection from anyone, even in the smallest doses, seemed to mean more than it actually did.

Perhaps every time Teo touched or looked at her, it was because they were best friends and no other reason. She didn’t want to ruin the friendship they had by wrongly guessing at anything else, or by clinging to something that wasn’t really there.

“You just have to decide what’s important to you, and put your mind to it entirely,” Teo said, letting go of her hand, then. “Like how I do with taking care of my mother. It’s what drives all of my decisions. If this job is what’s important to you, then I know you’ll overcome everything that stands in your way. You’ll get your life back, and you’ll excel where your parents never could, and in ways Kohl could never teach you. You know I’ll have your back the whole time.”

“And I yours,” she replied.

His words repeated over and over in her head: Decide what’s important to you, and put your mind to it entirely.

Tomorrow they’d go to meet Raurie’s aunt, get back to work, and find Kouta.

While Kohl had taken her off the streets, she was the one who’d chosen to work for him, pushed addiction out of her body, and risked her life every day to rise higher through the underground ranks. She’d managed to live while so many others had died.

If she was good at anything, it was survival, and she refused to let anyone take that away from her. She would finish this job, she would live, and she would never fall so far again.

19

When Aina woke up the next morning, she pulled the blankets over her head and squeezed her eyes shut. It was so easy to get comfortable in Teo’s apartment, to pretend her life wasn’t at risk and forget the world outside.

Is Ryuu’s softness rubbing off on me?

She scowled as she remembered how when she and Teo returned last night, Ryuu and Ynes were busy chatting about the paintings on the walls. Ynes’s face had been lit up with a bright smile, and Teo relaxed at the sight, but Aina had felt a surge of protectiveness for the old woman. How could a rich Steel sympathize or bond with someone like Ynes or any of them? What right did he have to sit in Ynes’s house and eat her food while he had a mansion waiting for him to return to? She knew it was best to stay here instead of his mansion where his workers might see her, but he didn’t have to get comfortable with any of their hospitality.

She sat up and blinked the sleep out of her eyes. The sooner they got this job done, the sooner this Steel would stop invading their lives.

The first thing she did was check her wound. It was healing again, and the bleeding had stopped. As she rewrapped the bandages, Ryuu spoke up from the pile of blankets where he’d slept.