"Lover's quarrel?"

I'd been drying my hair with one of Murphy's towels, but paused mid-motion at her words. She'd allowed me to use her shower a few times this week after I'd turned up at Butter's house dripping with blood that wasn't my own. Murphy's logic was that she lived alone, which would reduce the risk of a vanilla human spotting what looked like a slasher villain in a nice suburban neighborhood. I'd have been able to sense strangers in Butters' home long before I knocked on his door, but there was no use trying to explain that. Murphy was offering me a kindness, and it would be stupid to turn her down.

There was a Fomor servitor that had been trailing me for the last few weeks. I'd had a few narrow escapes and saved a few of the men that he was targeting. But overall he was a step ahead of me. I'd held a man while he'd hemorrhaged blood onto the asphalt of a parking lot. I couldn't do anything but prolong the inevitable. I'd had a small breakdown that night and bedded down in a drug den, curling in the hall closet, soaking up the blank contentment of their highs. My drug of choice was still avoiding me in an effort not to turn me into a thrall, but the secondhand feeling was almost as effective.

At least, it was effective if I could stop myself from wondering if they were victims of Marcone's criminal empire. Had they paid one of his dealers for the heroin? Probably. It was a distant but unpleasant thought that ruined the numbing effect. At least when I slept in closets in the little homes I didn't have nightmares.

"What?" I asked, mind still a million miles away.

Murphy glanced up from her coffee table. She'd been dismantling and cleaning her extensive collection of guns. She'd been doing it the last time I visited, which made me suspect this was a nightly ritual. We'd all developed rituals to bring the boil of stress down to a simmer. We had to, or we'd have lost our minds a long time ago.

"I swear I feel frost forming whenever you and Marcone are in the same room. Something happened. Skaldi and his brothers have a bet that you had a messy breakup. Is it true?"

I went very still, and the towel slipped, only saved from pooling on the floor as my hands formed rigid material. The blunted affect from Lasciel and Lara's invasions was nearly gone, but I retreated behind it now, leaning on the blank, mask-like expression for all it was worth. It had been a long time since Freydis had brought up the rumors circulating among the einherjar. I thought I'd laid them to rest after quasi-dating Freydis. True, we hadn't progressed past the kissing stage, but she was one bright spot in this sea of misery. One thing Freydis would never be was boring.

"Do you really believe that?" I asked.

Murphy tensed. It wasn't the words as much as the tone and my body language. When I took stock of myself I realized that I'd shifted into a ready stance, head and chest forward, legs spread slightly apart, keeping her firmly in my sights. I hadn't reached for a weapon but there was an undercurrent of something in my voice that made her wary. Her fingers flexed around the grip of her newly assembled Sig Sauer. She wouldn't be fast enough if I decided to fling power at her and she knew it. She was willing to fight me anyway, which would have made me respect her a little if I hadn't been pissed.

"I don't know what to believe, Molly. You're in deep with Marcone. You went on what amounts to a date with him weeks ago, and you seemed pretty friendly then according to the einherjar working security. Then you're freezing each other out. Sounds personal to me."

"I'm only in deep with Marcone because the alternative was leaving the rest of you out to dry. Do you think I like doing this? Hell no. I could have run back to Summer. I'd be safe there and getting the help I need, instead of stuck in this hell. Killing hurts me, Karrin. I do it over and over because that's what it takes to keep the Fomor from destroying Chicago. Marcone is the necessary evil that makes that happen. So I do him factors sometimes. It seems fair after everything he's done for the city."

Murphy's brow arched. "What kind of favors?"

The bulbs in Murphy's lamp and overhead lights shattered, spraying glass in every direction. I saw her jerk in the limited light coming through her blinds. She oriented on me the moment I stepped toward her, drawing down. Her instincts were screaming at her to aim, to hit me before I could hit her. I frightened her, and with her history of mental tampering, I understood why. I could twist her into knots if I wanted to. Part of me did want to. I wanted one of them to suffer even a fraction of the pain they'd caused me. It was the recent black magic use talking, but I knew how good it would feel to use it again, to make at least one person stand by me.

"You should consider how fragile your glass house is before you start throwing stones," I said quietly. "Sure, you think I'm morally bankrupt and I guess I can see why. I went dark and I'm still living in a murky area. You want to imply I'm a slut. Even if I was doing what you said, it'd actually be to accomplish something for all your ungrateful asses. So what does it say about you that you fucked a man you knew was a contract killer? You're supposed to be one of the good guys, but you overlooked that for what? A few orgasms? I joined Nicodemus because the Red Court slaughtered my surrogate family but I still didn't fuck him. I'm not fucking Marcone. I'm guessing you had sex with Kincaid again when he came back to town after Harry died. He was probably the one who killed Harry in the first place and you know it. It's why you're so damn cold now. You used to have restraint but now you're lashing out at the whole world because of your own bad choices. Do not get holier-than-thou on me, Murphy. At least my standards remained consistent."

Murphy's face blanched and she gripped the Sig Sauer so tightly I thought she'd put dents in the grip. Her focus narrowed on me, her anger so white-hot it scorched me. For a split second, she thought about shooting me. Then the guilt and shame rose like bile in her throat and she forced herself to relax her grip.

I thought I saw the glimmer of a tear on her cheek before she opened her mouth. It was gone too quickly for me to be sure.

"Get out of my house," Murphy whispered. "Don't come back. If you set foot in here, I will consider it trespass and act accordingly. Do not come here for meetings. Do not contact any of us unless there is an emergency. Do not talk to SI. If you see me in training keep walking."

I dropped the towel on the floor and walked to the door, never quite turning my back to her. I slammed the door on my way out.

The acrid taste of her hate stayed in my mouth for the rest of the night.