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So…business-minded. Smiling down at the brass in my grip, I say, “Unfortunately, games are part of my process, pet. Just be glad I also get results.”
Chapter 15
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Oh no. It’s the consequences of his own actions.
Rowan
Did you have fun? Did I have fun gallivanting with a woman less than two-thirds my age who seems to think running a crime syndicate equates to having a party? Before my organs committed mutiny and I received a brutal reminder that I am, in fact, almost forty, was I having fun?
In a puddle of people and noise. With the vague promise of information looming beyond every activity Briar coerced me into.
Did I have fun?
Do I even know what fun looks like?
The dim glow of the only lamp I use in my bedroom surrounds me as I swipe through the photo album I just bought on my laptop. I don’t know why I cared enough to remember the site every attendant after every roller coaster directed us to when we turned down getting immediate prints.
In the picture I’m staring at now, Briar and I are on a roller coaster that’s just come over a hill. My stomach knots with the memory alone, but my attention is locked on our joined hands. Raised high. Fingers trapping mine and forcing my arm above my head, Briar is screaming. Excitement ripples in her blue eyes as she looks toward the next part of the track.
In perfect contrast, I’m tense. Half-scared, half-baffled. Looking directly at her.
Right now, it’s late, or early. I’m not completely sure. All I know is that I brought my laptop up to my bedroom with the intention of finishing the updates I started in my office, then falling asleep with work. Romantically.
I don’t know where in my exhaustion I found myself buying a dozen pictures instead.
Swiping to the next one, I find Briar laughing.
Even though she knew I’d have a reason to kill dozens of people in a matter of hours, she’s laughing.
In the next photo, someone is actively throwing up behind us, but she remains blissful.
Briar scares me.
But she doesn’t invoke the same fears my parents instilled in me. The fear she causes starts as a tingle at the base of my spine. It’s…invigorating, in a way. It begs me to challenge it. It leaves me feeling anything but the subdued dread my parents used to control me and everyone else in Veleno up until the very night they disappeared.
“Cutting off fingers,” I whisper, letting a breath puff from my nose.
My traitorous lips tip at one corner.
“Putting them in a jar.”
What even is she?
Take a deep breath, and let yourself exist. It’s allowed.
An angel?
You could have had dozens of pinkies to put in a jar. Then you could have put that jar on display. Are you picturing it? The pinkie jar? Isn’t it the cutest decoration you can imagine?
A demon?
Running my fingers through my hair, I swipe to the next photo—which happens to include less vomit. That’s nice.
She’s…nice.
Refreshing in simultaneously the worst and best ways.
