Chapter 35
HER OPEN-PALMED slap to the side of my face knocked me stumbling back.
“Damn it!” Ceren shouted. “How could you?”
My foot caught on a thick black power cable, and I toppled against an equipment-laden table. Something sharp stabbed my scalp, then the floor lunged up and slugged me.
I lay for a moment, stunned. I’d escaped the fight with Suit and Two Backs without taking a serious blow, but Ceren’s slap set my jaw throbbing, eyes watering, and unleashed the taste of fresh blood in the back of my mouth. The skylights bloomed in double vision, two fuzzy views drunkenly circling each other. The back of my skull ached where I’d slammed it against the tile floor. The whole courtyard of the mall, with the monstrous green bubbles of Legacy tumbling into it, all felt very far away. I
