Different monsters, thrust together in the cage I’ve created.
Sloane is calculating, methodical. She waits and weaves a web and nets her prey. And while I like to stage a scene from time to time, to display some theatrics, this kill right here? This mess of torn flesh and exposed bone? This is in my soul. I’m fucking feral at the core.
Maybe it’s best that she gets as far away from me as she can.
Even still, it burns in my chest, a hot needle that’s slipped between my ribs to lodge in the very center of my heart. It’s a place I never thought could feel pain or longing anymore. But it does.
I drive a sticky hand through my hair as my shoulders fall.
“Goddammit, Rowan, you feckin’ eejit.” My eyes press closed. “Sloane…”
“I’m here.”
My gaze meets the shadows as Sloane emerges from their grip. The breath I take feels the same as it does after you dive too deep, unsure if you’ll reach the surface in time. The relief is cellular when the air hits my lungs.
I don’t move as she comes closer, her steps tentative, her body illuminated by the dim light that spills from the ruined car, her throat still streaked with my blood. Her gaze takes in every detail, from the film of sweat on my face to the swollen flesh of my hands. Only when she’s assessed me and stopped by my side does her attention fall to the cooling body on the driveway.
“You okay?” she asks. She looks to me with a flicker of a crease between her brows.
I want to reach for her, to feel the comfort of her unfamiliar touch. But I don’t. I just watch.
“He looks like a Picasso,” she continues as she nods toward Francis’s destroyed face. Her hand flows in his direction with bird-like grace. “Eyes over here, nose over there. Very artsy, Butcher. Embracing your Cubism era. Cool.”
I still don’t answer. I don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s the mounting physical pain. Or it could be the waning adrenaline. But I think it’s just Sloane. The echo of the loss of her and the relief of her presence.
Sloane gives me a faint, lopsided smile and lowers to my level, her eyes soldered to mine. Her grin doesn’t last. Her voice is quiet, nearly a whisper when she says, “Cat got your tongue, pretty boy? Didn’t think I’d see the day.”
A breath shudders past my lips as a drop of sweat falls from my hair to slide down my cheek like a tear. “Are you okay?”
Sloane huffs a laugh and her dimple pops out next to her lip. “Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Her words hang unanswered in the air as my gaze drops to the body. Surprise ignites in my chest when her delicate fingers alight on the back of my hand, her touch featherlight as she traces a streak of blood that drips from a split over my knuckle. “I should be asking you that.”
“I’m fine,” I say with a shake of my head. We both know it’s a lie, just like we know her words were too. She was going to leave. I have no doubt.
But she didn’t. She’s still here. Maybe not for long, but at least for now.
“This is going to take a while to clean up,” Sloane says as her hand leaves mine and she stands. Her gaze travels the length of the corpse next to us before it flows to the battered car. “Good thing I’ve still got a few days off. We’re probably going to need it.”
Sloane extends her hand and I stare at the lines crossing her palm. Life and death. Love and loss and fate.
“We?” I ask.
“Yeah, we,” she says. Her smile has a softness to its edges. Her hand moves closer, her fingers spread wide. “But we’d better start with you first.”
I slip my hand into hers and rise from the black road.
We leave Francis on the driveway and head to his house in silence. He lives alone, but we’re careful nonetheless. We split up and sweep through the home to meet once more in the living room when we’re sure it’s clear.
“Is this where you were tonight?” I ask as I cast a glance around the room. It’s decorated in much the same way as the hotel, with antiques and faded paintings, furniture with worn upholstery but shining wooden framework, the details polished. Sloane nods when my gaze lands on her. “Doesn’t really seem like his style.”
“Yeah, I thought the same. He talked a bit about his family. He said they’ve been here for generations. Sounds like he was trapped by the ghosts of someone else’s past,” she says as she stops at the mantle and leans toward an old railway switch lantern.
“It’s the right kind of house for ghosts, I guess.”
Sloane turns to me and flashes a quick, faint smile before she nods toward a hallway. “Come on. Let’s get you fixed up.”
I trail after her like a wraith at her heels. We stop at the bathroom where she motions for me to sit on the edge of the tub as she gathers supplies from the medicine cabinet. She unpacks a roll of gauze, readies bandages with antibiotic cream. When everything is laid out, she saturates a sterile pad with isopropyl alcohol and kneels in front of me to clean the split skin on my knuckles.
“You’re going to wind up with some scars,” she says as she dabs at the deepest wound, leaving an uncomfortable sting behind.
“Already got some.”
Sloane looks up from her work. Her gaze falls to my lip before it returns to my hand, her touch so gentle despite the suffering I know she could mete out, if she wanted to.
I watch in silence as she takes the first bandage from the counter and fits it over the torn flesh before she preps another gauze pad, starting the process over again with the next cut.
“My father gave it to me,” I say. Sloane’s gaze flicks up to mine with a question in her eyes. “The scar on my lip. The one you keep staring at because it’s so damn sexy.”
Sloane huffs a laugh. Her hair shields most of her face from view as she keeps her attention on my hand, but I can still see the blush through the spaces between her raven strands. “I thought I told you once not to let your prettiness get to your head,” she says.
“Just had to check that you still think I’m pretty.”
Sloane keeps her head down but gives me a flash of her eyes as they roll. I grin when they fix to me with a vicious glare. “I also told you that you’re the worst, and that still rings true.”
“So cruel, Blackbird. You wound me yet again,” I say as I press my free hand to my heart. This wins me a smile before she hides her face away. Sloane places the next bandage on my knuckles and I don’t have the heart to tell her they’ll probably fall off in the shower I intend to take tonight to soothe my sore shoulders. I resolve to steal the package of remaining bandages when we leave so she won’t know.
“Is he still around? Your dad?” she asks to break me away from thoughts of what else might be here worth taking, some little memento of our first game, perhaps.