Chapter 52 Chapter Fifty Two

• My hands tighten around the knife until it bites into my palm. Blood trickled down from the cut, and for a second I think I can see the world in slow motion—the way the streetlight beeps with electric currents, the wet cobbles turning into a glossy river, and the cigarette smoke curling up into the sky.
• “One,” Xavier’s voice rang through the alley, distorting in my ears. It was like I had the whole night to prepare for whatever it was that was going to happen.
• “Two,” he continues, and one of the goons shifts his weight like a man trying to hide eagerness behind a stony face.