“And you didn’t have a friend in the world to turn to,” Liv interrupted. “Because I wasn’t speaking to you.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” I insisted.

“But we both know it’s true.”

I couldn’t argue. “Anyway, it was only supposed to be for one term. Five years. They’d lost their best Tracker and I needed a job—”

“Convenient…” she noted, peeling the foil back from the first gyro.

“At the time, yeah,” I admitted. “It seemed pretty damned convenient.” Fortuitous, even.

Liv swallowed her first bite and stared at me with her brows drawn low over those big blue eyes. “You know they set you up, right? They didn’t save you. They found you, assessed your potential, then shot you.”

“Liv…” I began, but she spoke over me—it almost felt like old times.

“By that point, they had you right where they wanted you. You were incapacitated and in their debt, and they had a fucking huge sample of your blood, which is probably on file in a room full of sensitive information somewhere. You didn’t really think they destroyed all of it, did you? Please tell me you’re not that gullible.”

“Of course not.” But wasn’t I? Liv was sitting in my kitchen, inches away, telling me what a fool I was, and all I could think of was how badly I wanted to kiss her—and not just to shut her up, though that benefit would not go unappreciated.

“It was a win-win for Tower from the beginning,” she insisted, dropping her gyro onto her plate so she could tick off points on her fingers. “He has you shot. If you die, at least you can’t sign on with the competition. If you live, he has a chance to recruit you, albeit through pretty damn vicious means. If you sign on voluntarily, he has one hell of a new Tracker. If you don’t, he has enough of your blood to bind you without your consent, at least for a while. Either way, you’re his, for the cost of a bullet, some gauze and a round of antibiotics.” She leaned on the counter with both elbows, eyeing me with the first sign of amusement I’d seen from her in hours. “You always were a cheap date.”

I laughed. “You’re one to talk.” On our first date, sophomore year in college, we’d split a carnival hot dog and a cherry slushy—which she’d then vomited all over us both on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

“Yeah, I guess I am.” Her nostalgic smile lasted as long as it took for me to pull two Coronas from the fridge. “Greek food, Mexican beer. Interesting combination.” She reached across the counteto pull the bottle opener/magnet from the side of my fridge, then popped the top off her bottle.

I watched her take a long draft, and when she set the bottle down, she eyed me pensively. Almost reluctantly. “Please tell me you already knew all that. About Tower’s unconventional recruiting methods. Because I thought that was just an urban legend until about ten minutes ago….”

“At the time, I didn’t know,” I admitted, popping the top off my own bottle. Suddenly I wished I’d poured something stronger. “But it didn’t take long to figure out. And it’s no urban legend.” Since my first binding mark, I’d seen two other Skilled members netted the same way, and rumor had it that syndicates in other major cities had caught on to the same recruiting techniques. Certain Skills—and the most talented in any Skill set—were in demand, and there was nothing those in power wouldn’t do to secure the services they wanted.

Liv took another drink, then stared at me through the half-empty bottle, as if the beer-bottle filter might reveal something she hadn’t seen in me before. “So, if you figured it out, why’d you re-up? How’d you get those second and third chain links so fast?”

I studied her for a moment, trying to decide whether or not she wanted the truth. “It’s not that bad, you know,” I said finally, and she looked at me as if I’d just put a knife through the Easter Bunny’s heart.

“It’s blood money, Cam,” she spat, slamming her bottle down on the counter, and my own temper sparked, part indignation, part denial. “How does it feel to know that your rent is paid with blood money?”

“You tell me,” I snapped, without thinking it through. But words can’t be unspoken—if I’d learned anything from swearing loyalty to Jake Tower, that was it. “You may not be bound to Cavazos, but you take commissions from him. What do you think he does with the people you find for him? You think he pats them on the head and sends them off to summer camp?”

“I don’t…” she stammered, and I’d had enough of her hypocrisy.

“Yes, you do!” I shouted, and some small part of me enjoyed her shock for that instant before it bled into anger. “You work for him, and you take his money, and you use it to pay absurdly high rent on an apartment in the fucking ghetto, just to stand on principle. But you’re paying for your principals with the same blood money that pays for this apartment. The only difference is that I can walk down the street without getting shot or mugged.”

She stood, practically shaking with fury, and I knew I’d made my point. “The difference,” she said through clenched teeth, her voice low and sharp enough to cut glass, “is that you signed on for this voluntarily, but I don’t have any choice.”

“What does that mean? Why don’t you have a choice?” I asked, and her face went as pale as my white Formica countertop.