He smiled with his lips closed, a hint of an apology, or perhaps guilt, in the back of his blue eyes. “Snap, crackle, pop,” he said. “Bringing them down sounded like a bowl of cereal.”

My eyebrows rose and a wry smile came over me. With a small movement, I stretched my feet to the floor vent. If I didn’t laugh, I was going to cry. And I didn’t want to cry.

“I haven’t done too well tonight, have I?” he said, his eyes back on the road.

I didn’t say anything, not sure what I felt.

“Rachel,” he said softly. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, recalling the man’s terrified, agony-laced screams. I had known Kisten did ugly things because of who he was and who he worked for, but seeing it left me both repelled and fascinated. I was a runner; violence was part of my existence. I couldn’t blindly label what happened as bad without casting my own profession into darkness.

Though his eyes had been black and his instincts wound tight, he had acted quickly and decisively, with a grace and succinct movement that I envied. Even more, throughout it all, I had felt Kisten’s attention lightly on me, always aware of where I was and who was threatening me.

I had frozen, and he had kept me safe.

Kisten accelerated smoothly into the intersection before us when the light turned green. He sighed, clearly unaware of my thoughts as he took the turn to head to the church. The glowing clock on the dash read three-thirty. Going out didn’t sound like fun anymore, but I was still shaking, and if he didn’t feed me, I was going to end up eating cheese crackers and leftover rice for dinner. Yuck. “Mickey-d’s?” I prompted. It was just a date, for God’s sake. One platonic … date.

Kisten’s head jerked up. Lips parted in wonder, he almost rammed the car ahead of us, slamming on the brakes at the last moment. Used to the way Ivy drove, I simply braced myself and rocked forward and back.

“You still want to have dinner?” he asked while the guy before us shouted unheard insults through his rearview mirror.

I shrugged. I was coated in dirty snow slime, my hair was falling down about my ears, my nerves were shot—if I didn’t get something in my stomach, I was going to get snippy. Or sick. Or worse.

Kisten settled back, a thoughtful expression smoothing his pinched features. A wisp of his usual, cocky self glimmered in his slumping posture. “Fast food is all I can afford—now,” he grumbled lightly, but I could see he was relieved I wasn’t demanding he take me home. “I was planning on using some of those winnings to take you up to Carew Tower for a sunrise dinner.”

“The orphans need the money more than I need an overpriced dinner at the top of Cincinnati,” I said. Kisten laughed at that, the sound making it easy to stifle my last thread of lingering caution. He kept me alive when I had frozen. It wasn’t going to happen again. Ever.