(422 words.
This chapter contains... a tactical contemplation of suicide?)
The music is absolute agony, rattling her bones and teeth, clouding her mind and cutting off everything that connects her to Daud and the Void and their incredible gifts. It holds her in place so firmly that the ropes binding her wrists to the chair are entirely unnecessary, and about the only conscious movement she can make is to stretch her hand open to find the deadly pin hidden at her fingertip.
She remembers, disturbingly clear through the haze of pain, the Whaler who first showed her how to safely place the poison in the lining of her glove, warning her of what would happen if she was ever caught on the night before her first solo job. "You won't be rescued. The Overseers will kill you if you keep silent, and Daud will hunt you down if you talk," he said. "This is a kinder death than either of those would be."
She hasn't thought of it much since then, always too confident in her own abilities to ever consider capture a real danger, but she has wondered, passingly at first and increasingly often over the last year or so, if she could face off against Daud and survive.
She never imagined this to be the way she might find her answer. The thought of trading his secrets for her escape makes her stomach burn and twist, but against the press of the music in her skull, the feel of her bones near shattering…
Her finger strokes along the edge of the pin, and her lips part.
And all at once, the music stops.
Billie opens her eyes to see the Overseer in front of her gurgling blood from his pierced throat, hands twitching uselessly around the edge of his music box until he slides from Daud's blade to the floor. Daud looks her over briskly, assessing the damage, and then that same weapon, dark red and dripping, carefully cuts away the rope at her wrists, the sharp edge not even grazing her skin.
"Let's go," he says gruffly, as he grabs her by the arm and hauls her to her feet.
She follows on unsteady legs, shaking her head to clear the last of the music's fog. She stares at Daud's back in front of her, frowning as she struggles to understand what has just happened.
You won't be rescued.
Billie clenches her fist, pushing the point of the pin safely back into the lining of her glove. She tries not to wonder what choice she was about to make.