[MAX]
Phoenix volunteered to take the first shift while we rested, and none of us tried to stop her. We had already determined that we would be sleeping into the day, given it would be easiest for us to operate in the city at night.
When Phoenix came to wake me up for the second shift, she hovered over me. As I woke up further I realized that she looked completely awake, and then she beckoned me out of the bedroom.
All of us were in one compartment in the hotel. It had a room with two queen sized beds, connected by a wall and a doorway to a living space with a couch and kitchenette, and off to the side from there was a door to a tiny bathroom. A towel wrung haphazardly across the rack indicated that Phoenix had showered while the rest of us slept. As I wiped the rest of the sleep from my eyes I noticed the ends of her hair were still drying.
Phoenix sat on the couch and pulled me down alongside her before her hands twisted together in her lap. She licked her lips before she spoke. "You need to know why Jin Tè wants me dead."
All right, now I was definitely awake.
And I only became more so when she told me the truth. She rushed to share her secret between hasty breaths, each of the words so close together they were almost indecipherable. Had I not known Phoenix as well as I did, for as long as I did, I probably wouldn't have understood her. But as soon as she got all of the secret out, and before I could say anything or attempt to do anything other than absorb it, she continued.
"I didn't mean to find out," she said. Though her words were still hurried, it wasn't nearly to the degree that the secret had been uttered. Her eyes glowed more green than gold, dark and dewy, glistening under the street lamps that filtered in through the window. The rest of the room was as dark as the night that still clung to the air. "I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was supposed to be meeting a client — remember, I was here on grifter business — and it ... it blew up in my face.
"My client wasn't supposed to have ties with the Triad. I thought I'd vetted him well enough. Clearly I was wrong. I don't know how he came across the information, but I feel it safe to say it was done immorally. When we were supposed to meet, he was late. I stuck around, because I always do, just in case— but when he did finally show up, he was being chased." Her hands were clasped tightly together in her lap now. "At first, I didn't realize who was chasing him. Hardly my fault, if you think about it, since not all Triad members flaunt their tattoos.
"So I ... helped him." Phoenix gave me a sheepish look then, her eyes conveying that even she was disappointed in herself for making that decision. "I figured if I could get him off the streets, then I would have enough time to reach out to a few of my contacts; I could get him out of town."
"But?" I prompted and arched a brow.
Phoenix gave a heavy sigh. "I got him off the streets. We were in an apartment building; I assumed whoever was after him would be averted by that. I was just about to call one of my guys when he stopped me, and he told me exactly what I just told you. He was excited about it, too, and I think he thought that if he told me I would agree to work with him." She frowned. "I did well with this particular persona. She was not a nice person, and she would've been head over heels for the entire idea. But," Phoenix looked back up at me, "she isn't real.
"After he told me, I sort of— well, I froze. I was trying to process it, I couldn't believe what I was hearing— it had to be impossible. He wasn't that smart, he wasn't that connected, but he also definitely wasn't lying. He's one of the easiest clients to read that I've had in a while, so I'm positive of that. He kept going on about his plans, how he could actually be the one who forced the Jin family out of power. The next thing I knew the door was bursting open, and the guys who had been chasing him were there. They shot him before I could do anything. I only managed to knock one of them out." She drew in a breath then, slow and steady. "But I escaped. The guy I was going to call for my client removed me from the area."
