The heat in her apartment was acting up again, stuck on high even though no one ever asked for a heater in Hell. I shrugged off my jacket and fell onto the couch.

“That checks out.”

She tossed me a bottle of cola.

“Don’t you dare complain about that,” she said when I opened my mouth. “I don’t have a beer factory in here.”

I shrugged and twisted off the cap.

“You’re sure he can read memories without Jason knowing?”

“I was there when KQ gave him the honors,” I said. “If Jason has any useful information, Trey will get it, with Jason being none the wiser.”

“That’s not all Trey will get,” she muttered.

“What are you thinking?” I asked. “And can I watch?”

Cal smirked at me. “You’re sick.”

“Comes with the territory.”

She groaned and rolled her own bottle across her forehead.

“It’s so fucking hot!”

She was right; the weather had been warmer than usual. My T-shirt clung to the damp gutter of my spine.

“We’ll go on some deals up north tomorrow,” I said. “I’ve got my eye on some Twos in Iceland.”

“It’s hard to even breathe.”

Cal twisted her hair on top of her head and pressed the bottle to the back of her neck.

“What’s wrong with you today?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s always miserably hot, except for when it’s miserably cold. I’ve never heard you complain before.”

But when I caught her eye, I was the one who burned.

“Did you know that I can fieldstrip an automatic rifle in thirty seconds?”

I shook my head. I didn’t, not exactly.

“Well, I can. I’ve never met anyone faster; my dad hadn’t either. Not back then, at least. I can do it blindfolded. I can do it with two doses of Tuinal in my system. I can do it with three dozen trained soldiers bearing down on my position in my fucking sleep.”

“That’s . . . impressive.”

“I’m also fluent in Russian, German, and French. Did you know that?”

She started pacing, her hair coming loose down her back.

“That doesn’t matter much here.”

“Well, it mattered on Earth,” she spat. “It mattered a whole lot. I was making weapon deals for my dad by the time I was nine.”

“What’s your point?”

“What’s my point?”

She turned to face me with enough force that I felt drops of sweat hit my lips. There was something ferocious in the way she held her shoulders. Like her body was regressing into its original, animal state.

“My point is that even with all of that knowledge, all of those accomplishments, here I am, twirling my hair because I still need some dick-dripping idiot to help me. You’d think the afterlife would be past all that sexist bullshit. And yet, here we are. Even in Hell, legitimate skills pale against the power of tits.”