Caledonia’s chest heaved painfully, and nausea threatened to reject the meager contents of her stomach, but she remained where she stood. Little by little, her fractured vision righted itself until she could see Pisces and Oran. And oddly enough, Cepheus standing at their side, as though she’d joined them against the other three Bullets.

She focused on Cepheus and the Bullets, all of them having stopped their own fight the instant Tassos hit the ground. As Lir had demonstrated by killing Aric and taking command, violence was how leadership passed between Bullets. If another Bullet had killed Tassos, they would assume his authority, but Caledonia wasn’t a Bullet.

“If any of you wishes to challenge me, now is the time.” Thumbing the blood from her chin, Caledonia curled her fingers into fists to mask the tremble of her hands. She would fight if she had to, but she wasn’t sure how much more her body could take.

Cepheus was the first to take the invitation. She stalked across the short distance, her chin tucked and her fists knotted at her sides. Sunlight flashed off the orange scars that laced her lips and jaw, and her mouth pulled into a stark line. Nausea twisted again in Caledonia’s belly and hot saliva flooded her mouth. A fresh surge of adrenaline pushed at her heart as her body prepared to fight. To kill.

Then Cepheus stooped to roll Tassos onto his back. His eyes stared at the sky and his head lolled to one side, blood painting his throat scarlet. With a surprisingly gentle hand, Cepheus drew his eyes shut, then reached for the gun still holstered at his side.

The instant she drew the weapon, Oran and Pisces drew theirs. But Cepheus ejected the clip, then cleared the round from the chamber and laid the empty weapon against Tassos’s chest. When she was done, she offered the clip to Caledonia.

“Tassos has been defeated in a challenge of his making,” she said, and the words had the ring of ritual. “His clip is yours to take, his bullets yours to spend.”

Caledonia searched Cepheus’s face for any sign of resistance or calculation. The woman met her gaze openly, a tiny smile perched in the corner of her mouth. If it was a ploy, Caledonia could see no trace of it. The other Bullets shifted but made no move to resist.

Reaching out, Caledonia took the offered clip in her own hand, suddenly unsure of her role in this ritual. But it didn’t matter. She was not a Bullet. She would never be a Bullet, and if she wanted to make room for others to choose not to be Bullets, then she had to start somewhere. This, as Sledge was so fond of saying, was the real fight.