But Jonathan hadn’t been panicked, and that’s what was unforgivable. She never saw a ripple of raw worry on his face. For all the world it looked as if he’d shaken off the shock of it as if a fly had landed on his sleeve. He’d knelt and looked her over, but not into her eyes. He was measuring. Adding. Subtracting. He’d pinned her hands down as she tried to hold in her own blood. He looked across the lot to check how far away Owen was. Calibration. Triangulation.

And he knew the shooter. For fuck’s sake, Roy! Get the hell out of here!

Jonathan had looked up at the sky, shaken his head regretfully, almost annoyed, mouth drawn tight. Marcelline had seen the decision settle in through his shoulders. Her fear, the warm river of blood pooling under her shoulder, the look in her eyes, none of these things figured into his sum. She grabbed his wrist. She believed the last thing she’d ever feel was fury. He would look at her, goddammit. She wasn’t letting this go without that. He would look at her.

But he didn’t. She’d had the strength of cobwebs, and he flexed his wrist in her grip and brushed her fingers clear. Then he ran. The scene went dark and silent, and the next sharp moment was realizing that she had become something like Owen’s catch-detainee-responsibility-pet.

Now she was close to . . . well, something that was the next part of this painting’s story.

The two girls came back into sight as Marcelline’s car slowly crested the hill. Jonathan might not be a part of this scenario. If he was here, if he was still part of this story, well, that particular what-if dead-ended at a curtain. But she wouldn’t look behind it until she knew for sure.

Marcelline unclenched her teeth. The ruined side of her jaw was aching. It reminded her to be angry. The watch-and-wait phase was a whetstone for sharpening that feeling into something useful.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In the two weeks since it had happened, Carly always called it the thing. She didn’t know what else to name it in her mind because it wasn’t just what the guy had tried to do. It was what had tightened and sharpened in her while watching the playback of it. In seeing what she’d done, seeing what it looked like to be better than she thought she was, all the good and the terrible of that day had become bound up into one electric, snapping thing.