It didn’t take a thought. Nothing did when I reached such a dangerous calm. My arm shot out, my hand wrapped around his throat, and I squeezed.

Pimlico stood there, frozen as I squeezed and motherfucking squeezed.

Selix moved to the side, blocking my violence from those gawking as best he could.

It would be so easy to kill him.

To stop him hurting others and repair a little of my damaged karma, but this was too public, and I wouldn’t go to jail for him.

Letting Dafford go, he slammed to his knees, gasping for breath, holding his bruised neck. “You fucking—”

I stepped closer, crowding him. “Finish that sentence, and I finish you. Get out of town. If I hear you went to the auction, I’ll find you and kill you. No more girls. Do you understand?”

He sneered. “Always did think you were a pussy. Bet she’s not even yours.” He glared at Pim. “Bet you haven’t even fucked her.”

I couldn’t stop my leg as it shot forward and connected solid and true on his chest.

He wheezed, doubling over.

“She is mine. And she’s not for sale. If we cross paths again, asshole, you know what will happen.”

Grabbing Pim’s arm, I dragged her with me as I stormed away.

I needed to leave before I reneged and decided his death was worth more than my future tasks. I had too much to do before my journey was at an end—too many apologies to utter, too many wrongs to right.

Walking away was the only thing to do but fuck it pissed me off.

Selix kept up closer than before, his gaze hopping over the gathered crowd. Men in tatty work clothes, women with blinking children. The public’s disapproval was readable, trying to conclude if I was the bad guy or if the man on his knees was.

Who to stop, who to question?

Luckily, deliberation was our friend, and after a few glowers, the welldoers decided to leave well alone.

We continued down the road with no harassment.

Pim trotted beside me as my stride lengthened.

My thoughts were on home—of getting on the water regardless if we weren’t due to leave for another night. I wanted the empty horizon. I wanted freedom from the slime inhabiting the earth.

Ducking through a pop-up market selling bright fabrics and pungent curries, Pim stumbled on a crumpled water bottle. Her weight landed squarely in my hand where I held her, reminding me she wasn’t physically fit to tear through the streets with no pause.

Letting her go, I jerked both hands through my hair. “Sorry.” The shakes began—the energy my body conjured to pummel that bastard into smithereens had no violent outlet so it hijacked my nervous system.

If we weren’t so close to the port, I’d order Selix to run back and grab the car, but the welcoming sight of water glittered up ahead. The urge to sprint consumed me.

Pim’s gaze fell on a shopping cart full of bronze figurines and touristy paraphernalia.

The haunted look was back in her eyes. The memory of what she’d been and what could happen again hounding her.

Screw lunch and mingling with likeminded diners. My appetite was nil. I was sure Pim felt the same.

Her fingers hovered over a small bronze lantern the size of her thumb.

The wrinkled shopkeeper smiled with capped teeth and a teal veil over her head. “It’s the genie lamp. Touch it. Rub it. Tell it your secrets.”

Pim gave me a hesitant look as if she’d been caught breaking a rule. She snatched her hand away, backing from the stall.

The shopkeeper, sensing a losing sale, held up the figurine, plucking a small wooden bound notebook below it. “This is the wishing book that comes with it. You write in your wishes and rub the lamp, and it comes true.” She leaned across her wares. “Here, take it. All your dreams for only ten dollars.”

Pimlico stepped away, keeping her head down and body wrapped low. The straightness of her spine from the past week or so together rolled, curving down and down into the question mark of her existence. I’d somehow managed to give her answers enough to trust life and not seek death. And that fucking cocksucker had undone my hard work. I hated that she’d come face-to-face with a man who would pay an exuberant amount of money to do exactly what Alrik had done. That her faith in humanity was once again shattered because where good lived evil did too, and sometimes, it cast a shadow over everything.

I couldn’t let that bastard undo everything I’d achieved.

She was mine.

She owed me.

Her time was almost up on repaying.

Pulling out a fifty US dollar, I shoved it at the shopkeeper then scooped up the notebook and genie lamp. “Keep the change.”

The bronze token was surprisingly heavy as I strode to Pim and captured her elbow. Taking a deep breath, I ignored the heat between us, banked like a small furnace waiting for more fuel.

“Whatever happened today doesn’t matter. It’s your choice to relive or forget. I can’t do that for you.” Pressing the gift into her hands, I added, “However, perhaps I’ll be your genie. Write down your wishes, silent one. Tell me what I can do to make it right.

“Who knows what will come true.”

LIFE DIDN’T SUDDENLY change, even though my heart had.

It’d slammed back the steel lock, flooded the moat, and cranked up the drawbridge after tentatively tiptoeing into the world Elder promised I would be safe in.

For a moment, I was able to notice what others did—the sun, the wind, the shopping, the scents of a bustling city.

But then I’d been slapped in the face by rancid cruelty once again.