#two footsteps

    There was a sudden laugh from the person holding her, right in her ear, a thrilled, exultant sound. There was such joy in that outburst, that it seemed at odds with the absolute terror she was feeling. “That was a near flawless maneuver,” Dier said as his laughter subsided. “Two feet on the ground, a perfect grab, and then back in the air again. I don’t know that I’ve ever pulled that off so well.”

    He had one arm beneath her knees, the other wrapping under her shoulders and covering her mouth. After a moment, he moved that hand down, gripping her arm tightly instead for a more secure hold. Apparently he had decided they were high enough up that screaming wouldn’t do her much good.

    “Let me go, Dier!” She’d been hoping to sound assertive, but the tremble in the words undermined that entirely.

    He scoffed, though it was hard to read his expression from her angle. “We’re fairly high up, Ellie. But… if you insist.”

    He let his grip loosen and she could feel herself start to slip. Frantically, she threw her own arms around his neck, clutching him like a lifeline. He laughed again, but gripped her again, holding her tightly to make sure she wouldn’t fall.

    His arms felt too strong to be natural, his hold on her too secure. She’d thought she’d noticed something odd when he’d first grabbed her, but after his recovery when almost dropping her, it was even more obvious. This wasn’t average strength. He had pewter, she’d bet money on it.

    More metalfire, exactly what she didn’t need.

    “Glad to see you’ve decided to stick around for the ride, then. This would be much less fun without you. I have to ask though, because I’m terribly curious: are you scared of the heights or my Allomancy?”

    It was both, unfortunately, but she didn’t plan on letting him know that. “What do you w-want?”

    “I have to say, for someone who allegedly sells information for most of her living, you are rather bad at keeping secrets. I believe I made it explicitly clear that most of the details of our little arrangement were to be kept off the record.”

    Eliane felt a horrified chill that had nothing to do with the altitude. Was it Jace? Had he done something to provoke Dier? Had Emalyn slipped up and said something to tip him off? Surely Sinclar or Tessa hadn’t mentioned anything to him, though she had a sinking feeling Sinclar had figured out what was going on, if not the rest of them as well. Vic and Kal both thought he was bad news, and his aggravating both of them didn’t make anything better. Any number of things could have gone wrong.

    Or maybe this was about Ferra. She’d seen that look in his eyes in Northern Park the night the heiress had walked in. Eliane finding out his connections had been a major blow to his security. He’d lost some of his power over her and they both knew it. She wished to everything good in the world that she could just forget what she knew that about him, that they could go back to their uneven odds, the power stacked in his favor.

    Because they both knew, in the face of a loss like that, he would do something to try to get that power back.

    Despite her fear, her response flipped to anger instead. “It’s a little difficult to keep h-hidden with you stalking every person I know and lying to their faces. You think you can fire coins past me in the middle of Northern Park and no one would catch on that I wasn’t th-thrilled about you? Starting fights with Jace? Or Tessa? Getting your little friend to Soothe me from across the room? Really? You’re spending your time with Soothers now?”

    He blinked, glancing down at her while raising an eyebrow. “First of all, you’re one to talk about spending time with Soothers. Perhaps I thought yours looked so fun, I wanted to get one of my own, hmm?”

    She felt a bit like she’d been slapped. Emalyn. Did it say something about Emalyn that Eliane didn’t think of her as a Soother? Or did it say something about Eliane herself?

    “Second of all,” he said with a paternal air that made her sick, “you really should work on those reactions of yours. They’ll get you killed one of these days if you flinch every time an Allomancer’s around. I thought Luci might be able to ‘help.’ Thirdly, I’ve done nothing wrong in regards to our mutual acquaintances. We’re siblings, can’t we share? They’re all adults who can choose who they spend their time with.”

    He paused, looking thoughtful. “Well, most of them are. Leo and little Miss Linden are rather young. Emalyn thinks they make a cute couple though, and I’m inclined to agree. And Tessa’s son is quite adorable. Have you met Leiven, Ellie? You probably wouldn’t like him, as he’s a Slider, and you’ve got such terrible prejudices, but he’s really quite cute.”

    Eliane still had her arms wrapped around him, but she couldn’t help digging her nails in as he rattled off the names. “Leave them out of this, they’re innocent. If you so much as lay a finger on them--”

    His tone turned dark. “If you wanted to keep bystanders out of this, little Ellie, you should have kept a tighter hold on your secrets. I warned you something might happen. I’m just following through with my promises.”

    She tried not to look at the city while they were moving, hoping that by keeping her eyes shut, she might be able to forget how high up she was. All it really served to do was surprise her when they finally skidded to a stop. Blinking and looking around, she realized they were still high up. Dier had landed on an unfinished upper level of one of the skyscrapers going up around the banks of the 4th-5th. The construction area was abandoned this late in the day, with the sun already starting to set.

    No sooner had Dier’s feet touched down but he all but dropped her to the floor and grabbed her arm. She scrambled to get her feet underneath her as he dragged her by the wrist over to one of the exposed trusses of the building. She tried to fight against him, but he had no problem keeping control of her with the metalfire aiding him. She didn’t stand a chance. Something cold clicked into place around her left wrist, and Dier stepped back. She looked at her arm; he’d handcuffed her to the metal pole.

    He dusted his hands off. “Your friend Emalyn let slip that you’ve got a thing for handcuffs, so I had this pair specially made. You might notice that there aren’t any keyholes on this little model. This particular pair can only be opened with Allomancy. Seeing as you’re the roguish type, I had a feeling you might have some inconvenient skills regarding locks, and I didn’t want you getting any funny ideas about interfering.”

    She yanked on her arm a few times, just to check that it actually was locked, not that she had much hope of Dier messing that up. “Interfering with wh-what?” She had a sinking feeling she didn’t actually want to know.

    Dier walked across the bare concrete floor, stepping over some lengths of rebar. He stepped behind a wall, out of sight from her and she heard a small grunt. When he returned there was a man slung across his shoulder, not moving. Eliane’s eyes locked on the body, but he didn’t look familiar to her. Dier dropped him to the ground and she heard a groan from the slumped form. Not dead then. Drugged perhaps?

    Dier bent down, squatting on his heels and picked the man up by his hair, lightly slapping his face a few times. “Time to wake up. There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.”

    Eliane watched silently, afraid to ask who this was. She was sure that was what he was waiting for, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

    He looked up at her, noting her confusion even if she wouldn’t speak it. “Don’t recognize him?” Her lack of response was answer enough. “I’m surprised. I thought you and little Ema were married. She never brought you home to meet your father-in-law?” He slapped the man’s face again. “Mr. Lekal. Your presence is requested.”

    Eliane took a step back, bumping into the pole, feeling horrified. Mr. Lekal’s eyelids opened slowly, revealing bloodshot eyes beneath. He groaned again, but still didn’t seem fully conscious. Dier grabbed his face and turned it toward Eliane, forcing him to look at her. She felt accused by the action, as though it was her fault that he was in this mess.

    “This is Eliane, Mr. Lekal,” Dier said, his tone cheerful and friendly. “She’s your daughter’s best friend. And you are here today because dear Eliane has not been keeping up on her end of the agreement that she and I made.”

    “Dier, don’t do this,” Eliane whispered. “Please, whatever you’re planning to do, you don’t have to do this.”

    “Little late for that now, sis,” he said. He stepped back, letting Emalyn’s dad fall back to the ground again. “Now, I’m going easy on you this time, because this is a warning. A relative of one of your friends, not the friend themselves. Next time I won’t be so nice.”

    He pulled out a gun, turning it over in his hand to inspect it. “I do so hate to use guns. Seems redundant for a Coinshot, but I’d rather not have anything that could be tied back to me as a suspect. My dear Kallie is already so suspicious… Do you know how difficult it was to get ahold of one of these? Police issue. Security on this model is incredibly tight. It ought to throw the EPD’s ballistics department a bit of a curveball though, which makes it worth every doxing.” He leveled it at the figure on the floor.

    She surged forward, her instincts telling her she had to do something, but the painful yank on her arm held her back. She panicked, for once not because of Allomancy. It was eerie, how the feeling was much the same: heart racing, shortness of breath, gripping terror that made it hard to think. “Okay! Okay, you’ve made your point! I.. I’ll do better next time! I won’t slip up! Please, Dier. Please, don’t go through with this. I’ll do anything you want!”

    His eyes met hers, the gun still trained on Mr. Lekal. “Yes. You will. I’m sure of it.”

    The shot rang out. It was like the shockwave of sound hit her physically. She screamed, but it was too late. Emalyn’s father went completely limp, the hole in his forehead already starting to leak blood onto the concrete. There was such a difference between an unconscious body and a dead one. She’d heard people say that the dead looked like they were sleeping. They were wrong.

    Her legs felt weak and she all but fell to her knees, handcuffed arm wrenched up behind her at an awkward angle. She didn’t care about how uncomfortable the position was. She could barely feel anything. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.

    Dier lowered the gun after a moment, looking—if anything—dissatisfied. He touched the barrel lightly, checking to make sure it wasn’t too warm before shoving it back in the holster behind him. She could see now that the tassels of his mistvest covered it well enough to keep it from being noticeable. What an empty, useless thing to notice at a time like this.

    “Please,” she whispered, feeling tears start to form in her eyes. “Please, don’t do this… I’ll do anything… Please…” It was too late. She knew that, deep down. She didn’t know why she was talking. There was nothing she could do. People didn’t survive wounds like that, and Dier wouldn’t be sloppy enough to leave anyone alive that he wanted dead.

    He knelt down in front of her and went to grab her head, just as he’d done with Emalyn’s father a minute ago. An irrational thought seized her that he was going to shoot her too. She managed to pull away from him once, but there wasn’t anywhere she could go, and he just gripped her tighter the next time, forcing her to look at the body. His fingers dug into her face with that unnatural pewter strength.

    “This is what happens when you can’t hold up your end of the bargain,” he said, all humor gone from his voice. “People get hurt. And now, you’ve got a nice little reminder of why you need to keep me protected. Every time you see Emalyn crying about the loss of her dear father, I want you to see this picture. Every time your detective friends at the EPD mention looking into the case, I want you to think of me. I want this moment burned into you, so that you never forget what the consequences are of disappointing me.”

    “It is…” she whispered. As though she could forget something like this. As though she would ever forget.

    He let her go, stepping back and wiping his hand on his pant leg, like he had found touching her to be unpleasant. Imagine how it feels on my end, Dier. "You know, Ellie? I'm tempted to just leave you here for those detective friends of yours to find. It'd be fun to watch you try to come up wiht an alibi to get you out of this. I could let you try to explain to your best friend what you were doing at the scene of her father's murder.” He sneered. "But you're more useful to me when you're not in jail, so. I suppose it's your lucky day."

    He stood up, Pushing on the internal latch to release the cuff locked around the pole, though he left the one on her wrist be. "Think of it this way," he said with a twisted smile above her, "maybe you and Emalyn will grow closer as a result of all this. Friends are supposed to have things in common, right? The two of you can bond over the fact that you both lost your fathers after I decided to kill them."

    He pulled her up to her feet, hooking the handcuff around her other wrist behind her back in the traditional style. She didn’t have the energy to try to resist him anymore. What would she do, even if she could get away? "Of course, Emalyn's dad is a much nicer person than ours was. Or... I suppose he was a much nicer person. Grammar, yes?. It really is a shame he had to die, isn’t it?"

    She didn’t respond to the taunt. She felt distant, absent, detatched from herself. This all seemed like a horrible nightmare, something that couldn’t possibly be real. She knew she was crying, but only because she could feel the tears on her face. He’d think of her as weak for that. She couldn’t bring herself to care. She was weak. Forced to watch the consequences of her friendship with Emalyn, unable to do anything to stop it? She was the definition of weakness.

    She was thankful she’d worn her earring today as Dier dragged her back over to the edge of the roof, preparing to carry them back down to the ground and drop her off wherever he saw fit. She silently begged, pleading in prayer, that if Harmony truly was listening, if he was out there somewhere, that next time Dier trained his gun on someone, the bullet would find her instead and end this all.

    Better to die than let him drag the people she loved through this. Sparing them would be worth her life. She knew it wouldn’t happen, though. Dier thought she was too damn useful to kill. She was too cowardly to take her own life, even if doing so would protect her friends.