The Bloodline She Burned novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Halloway Bridge

The Halloway Bridge was a grey iron span over a frozen river, and at dawn on the nineteenth it was empty.

Roz walked onto it alone.

Her breath smoked, and the north rail was furred white with frost.

She did not look behind her.

At the Oakhaven end of the bridge, a hundred yards back, a news van had parked with its mast raised.

Nina stood beside it with her phone on a tripod.

The number in the corner was already past four hundred thousand.

Gabriel stood at the barrier with his hands in his pockets.

He had not said a word against this.

He had only asked, last night, what she needed, and she had told him: Stay where I can feel you.

Camille was at the middle of the span.

She wore a long white coat and no gloves.

She stood outside the rail, on the narrow lip of iron, with one hand on a cold upright.

Beneath her the river was black through a crack in the ice.

"You came," Camille said.

"You said alone."

"I said alone and you brought the whole city."

"I brought what I always bring," Roz said. "My hands."

She stopped ten feet from Camille.

She put both hands behind her back.

Camille's smile flickered.

"That's cute," she said. "That's what you said on the stairs."

Roz said nothing.

The wind came off the water, thin and sour.

Camille waited.

She shifted her weight on the lip of iron.

"I'm going to fall," she said. "You know I will."

Roz waited.

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