I shivered at the gentle touch.

Nik’s gaze flicked up to meet mine, a faint glimmer of that familiar, snarky spark shimmering in those pale blue depths. It was the first I’d seen of it since waking. “Any others I should know about?” He shrugged one shoulder. “You’re so efficient, I just figured you were bound to have racked up a few more names by now.”

The ghost of a laugh shook my chest. I thought of the mercenaries who’d invaded Garth’s apartment—some of them hadn’t survived—but finding out their names would require a fair bit of detective work on my part. And even then, it would be impossible to say which had been killed by my hand and which by Garth’s. And then I thought of Mitch Carmichael and wished, yet again, that I’d killed him. But I hadn’t.

Eyes locked with Nik’s, I shook my head. A second later, my stomach grumbled. Nik snorted, and I smiled sheepishly.

He gave me back my arm and stood, heading for the kitchen. “Food, first, then ink.”

I glanced down at my arm. I could still feel his fingertips gliding over my At tattoo, like his touch was seared into my skin. It was as though the At ink was having some sort of a reaction to him, its creator.

“Here you go,” Nik said, dragging my gaze up from my arm.

“How—” I shook my head, staring up at him. Numbly, I accepted the plate and set it on my lap.

Nik returned to the kitchen.

“You know how you said you can sense the At ink?” Briefly, I thought back to that morning on the roof of the Columbia Center, to the way his attention had been drawn to the freshly inked piece on my arm even though it was covered by the leather sleeve of my coat. “I think, maybe, it can sense you, too.”

Nik came back with a plate of his own and sat a couple feet from me on the couch. “What do you mean?” he asked, shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

“I—” I laughed under my breath, then looked at my plate. It was filled with scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and sausage links. I couldn’t remember the last time so much real food had been cooked on that stove. “I’m not sure,” I told him, picking up a triangle of toast. “I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out.”

“You do that, Kitty Kat.” Nik speared a sausage link with his fork, then winked at me. “You do that.”

Chapter Twenty

“So why’d you come here, really, Kitty Kat, because I know it wasn’t for this.” The tattoo machine hummed in Nik’s hand, the needle scratching incessantly into my skin, depositing opalescent At ink and permanently marking me with Abigail’s name. My arm was stretched across Nik’s lap again, and I was resting my head on the back of the couch.

I sighed, heavily, and closed my eyes. There wasn’t much to stare at on the ceiling anyway. “I need your help.”