by Cole McCade
“Doesn’t that make them sinners, too? Or just…not innocent. Why don’t you go after them?”
“I do. I have.” He idly scraped the fork along the inner rim of the plate, raising a slow, high, keening sound, worse than nails on a chalkboard; she winced, but it continued on and on, punctuating each word. “At times. It depends. The lesser of two evils, Willow. Sometimes one must use one evil to find the path to eradicate a greater one.”
“So tell me what made that man so evil.”
The forked stopped. That horrible sound silenced. His gaze snapped to her, pinning her, intent. There was a storm cloud in his eyes, a thunderhead in the crag of his brows, building and building.
“There are people who will pay a good deal of money for a young child,” he said, quietly stated and yet with the terrible certainty of undeniable truth. “Did you know that?”
No, she wanted to say. Because if she said no she could pretend such things didn’t happen. She saw the reports on the news, heard the scandalized whispers; she wasn’t so naïve that she was blind to the horrors of the world. But looking away from them made it as if they didn’t exist, for a little while. Made them not her problem.
Made her complacent.
And he was asking her not to be anymore.
“I…yes.” Halting, reluctant, but yes: yes, she knew. And from the awfulness brewing in her chest, she understood why he’d asked if she wanted to know, if she could stomach knowing such darkness crept around the corners and changed the rules that made the world safe and familiar—and she did nothing to stop it. She hung her head. Was he judging her already? “I don’t like to think about it, but I know.”
“As did he. And he made a good deal of money that way.” For the first time, emotion crept into his voice: loathing. Disgust. Hate. Subtle, yet after such absence a whisper could be as loud as a scream. His eyes lidded, unseeing, as he looked somewhere past her. “He preyed on families in the Lower and Upper Nests. I suppose it was smart; low-income populations tend to have disproportionately more children and less capacity to care for them all, or to remain vigilant at all times.” Then his gaze focused on her again, sharp, cutting, accusatory. “Did you never wonder at the high number of missing children cases in your neighborhood?”
Sometimes. Guilt flushed through her, and left behind the residue of something dark and terrible in its wake. But one of those missing children was my fault.
Had she done the right thing, giving Elijah to Leigh?
What if she’d delivered him into the hands of something—someone—terrible?
“Please don’t ask me that,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“We’re talking about you. And the why.”
The weight of his gaze was a ferocious thing, as if he took the measure of her soul and found it lacking. Then he was touching her again: grasping her chin sharply, his fingers digging in enough to make her hiss, as if he wanted to show her the monster under the civilized veneer. He forced her head up, forced her to look at him, and fear thumped through her, the beat of a warning drum.
“I will know your secrets, firefly, ere I tell you all of mine,” he hissed. Then he let her go—one finger at a time, pulling his hand away slowly, leaning back in the chair to slouch with casual arrogance. “But I will indulge you. The woman who paid me what little life savings she had, dirty crumpled wads of bills in the hundreds, was the mother of a boy who had been taken.”
Nausea swarmed over her. Horror overrode her fear; horror and dread. “Did…he…?”
“Are you asking if the boy survived?” The question was an accusation, as was the harsh, low answer: “No. He did not. And his mother wanted vengeance. If she could not have her son back, she would at least see to it that his kidnapper could not take any more sons, or daughters.” His lips thinned. “So I killed him.”
“Oh,” Willow said faintly, because she could think of nothing else.
Just oh.
Because now what she’d seen wasn’t cold, sick, hateful murder, but justice. Vengeance. And while the practical part of her, the sensible part of her, the moral part of her, said murder was murder and Priest shouldn’t have taken the law into his own hands…
The part of her that wanted, one day, to have a little girl of her own thought what Priest had done wasn’t vengeance enough.
And she was ashamed of herself for that.
Priest regarded her in the silence between them, his gaze searching. “I did not keep the money, if that is what you are wondering.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. That isn’t what I was wondering at all.”
“Yet there is something in your eyes, firefly. A question hovering on the edge of your lashes like a tear waiting to fall.”
“I’m just…wondering if it really makes a difference,” she said, and wished she could close her eyes to this truth, as well. “Knock one down, and another takes his place. The world is full of bad people. Broken people. Maybe you made an opening for an even worse person to step up.”
“And I will dispose of them as well,” he answered with calm certainty, then offered her another bite from the fork. “I had not known you had such cynicism in you.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“No.” A pause. Another of those searching looks; a faint knit of his brow. “You shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
Why, when she had every reason to be bitter?
Why, when if anyone was ever a monster, it was her?
Everyone’s ugly to someone, to someone.
Dirty thing, dirty thing.
“You simply should not,” he said.
Her mouth tightened. “If you think that story will make me like you or approve of what you do, you’re wrong.”
“I did not expect it to.” Resigned, patient, he kept the fork outstretched. “Eat.”
This time she didn’t resist him. She took the food even though it tasted like ash in her mouth, and forced it down. “I still don’t think you’re a monster.”
“Yes, you do,” he said. “You simply tell yourself otherwise because you need to believe I am not. But you said it yourself: the world is full of bad people. Broken people.” He reached out, brushed his fingers to her mouth; her lips parted of their own volition, her breaths strange, wicked things kindling too warm within her chest. Back and forth, he traced from one corner to the other, slow and deliberate as if learning her, as if stealing the words he said from her own mouth. “I am a bad person. I am broken. We are all monsters to some degree, firefly. We all walk the edges of the dark. I am simply a monster who destroys other monsters. My monstrosity has purpose.”
She stared at him. That touch that had been fire seconds ago became ice; loathsome. She jerked back. “Is that how you justify it? Purpose?” Her voice hitched, cracked. “And when you kill me, will it leave your conscience clean because it leaves you free to fulfill your grand purpose?”
“My conscience has never been clean.” He offered another bite of food. “And it never will be.”
They said not another word while they ate. There was nothing to say; Willow didn’t want to hear another word out of his mouth. Not when he was sick enough to actually justify what he did as right. Not when those kinds of rationalizations would mean he’d rationalize killing her, too, and tell himself his reasons were sound and it must be done. So she ate numbly, accepting the bits he spoon-fed her, letting him lift the glass of tea to her lips to wash it down until she couldn’t hold anymore and turned her face away. This time he let her refuse, and quietly ate his own food—gone cold enough after tending to her first that she could see the sauce congealing, but he ate it nonetheless. She said nothing until he stood, gathering the tray; she stared at the rosary dangling from his chest, nearly brushing her nose when he bent forward, then jerked her gaze to his face.
“You don’t think I deserve to die. You don’t.” She took a deep breath. “This is about self-preservation, isn’t it?”
He paused, fixing her with a
considering look. “Perhaps. The instinct is hard to let go of.”
“I won’t tell.” She shook her head quickly, fiercely, her hair flying, her breaths shallow. “I swear on my life, on my father’s life—if you let me go, I won’t tell the police.”
“How can I trust that?” He caught her chin again, stilled her, looked into her eyes as he stroked his thumb along the line of her jaw, marking her skin with the texture of his touch. “Am I to sacrifice myself for you, if your word is but a lie?”
“Please.” She stared up at him, despair a cold thing with a taloned grip on her heart. “I’m not ready to die.”
“The problem is, firefly,” he said, and let her go once more, “Neither am I.”
* * *
“CLOTHES,” WILLOW DEMANDED.
After their meal, Priest had left her again—though he hadn’t gone far. He’d put the dishes in the sink, then disappeared behind the Japanese printed screen, nothing but a silhouette moving in graceful stark lines as he’d…she wasn’t sure, until he emerged with his back glistening and, as he brushed past her with a lazy stride, a scent clinging to him that made her think of charcoal and sandalwood. Some kind of salve for his wounds, maybe.
So he wasn’t immune.
He didn’t even spare her a glance. As if she was an art installation mounted in the center of the room, and he wasn’t particularly interested in acknowledging her as a human being at the moment. He opened the storage drawer built into the base of the bed, withdrew a pair of white cotton pants, tossed them onto the bed, and toed out of his combat boots. It wasn’t until he unbuttoned and unzipped his fatigue pants that she realized what he was doing, and she didn’t look away quite fast enough to miss the fabric crumpling down to his ankles, or the tightly-muscled, compact curves of his backside.
Or the fact that apparently, assassins went commando.
“Clothes,” she repeated again through gritted teeth.
He sighed. “Use your words, Willow.”
“Fuck you. Those are words. So are psychopath, thug, asshole. That’s all you are.”
He made a low, amused sound. “Such vitriol. Sticks and stones, little one.”
“I want my own clothing,” she snarled. “Proper clothing. Pants.”
“You are wearing pants.”
“I’m wearing panties.”
Silence. She risked a glance up. He leaned against the wall next to the bed, arms and ankles crossed, casually slouched and watching her with a needling gaze. He lifted a hand to tug his glasses off, leaving those skin-shivering eyes unshielded—and traveling down her body, drifting over her chest, the dip of her tank top, touching her without a single finger in that way he had. And when his gaze slid between her thighs, landing heavy on the press of still-damp fabric against her skin, she flushed hotly, scowling and struggling to press her knees together again.
“I want actual pants,” she emphasized again. “Not panties. Pants that cover my legs.”
“Ah.” He arched a brow and let the arm of his glasses slip past his lips, the tip of his tongue a red thing flicking thoughtfully, idly against it. “You mean trousers.”
“I mean—” She stared at him. Oh for fuck’s sake, was he really…? “You’re being deliberately obtuse.”
“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I do not know these English words, ‘deliberately obtuse.’”
He met her gaze challengingly, that mild, calm expression so maddening she could scream. He knew exactly what she meant, the bastard.
He was just enjoying making her uncomfortable.
“You…” She sighed, slumping. “I hate you.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “That is only natural.”
“You like fucking with me, don’t you?”
“Not particularly.”
He pushed away from the wall and prowled toward her, until he loomed above her—imposing, terrible, a giant looking down from Olympus. She fought not to shrink away, not to show fear, making herself look up at him when in its own way, that was worse. Looking at him made her remember his fingers on her flesh, and the shameful way her body didn’t care that this animal had dragged her into his lair to swallow her whole.
He sank down to one knee before her, bringing them to eye level. His eyes lowered. His head tilted. His hair fell forward over his shoulder, a cascade of pale light that washed across her thighs, cool and kissing with silken whispers against her skin; she swallowed back a gasp until it became a lump in her throat. One broad hand passed across her lap, fingers spread, his heat prickling her without ever touching as he swept his hair aside—and lingered. Lingered, those long fingers hovering over her thigh, caressing the air. Stroking upward. Never touching her, and yet her flesh roused and tingled with shivers as if he’d laid that hot hand on her thigh and squeezed.
His gaze rose to hers. Captured her. Held her. And something husky darkened his voice as he let his hand fall to grip the edge of her chair, the heel of his palm and the hard lines of his forearm caging her.
“But perhaps,” he rumbled, “I simply do not wish you to cover your legs.”
His other hand fell to her opposite side. There was nowhere to go—not when he was all around her, drowning her in masculine heat and the drugging cloud of his presence, not when he was turning her every sense up to eleven not by touching her, but by not touching her. Breathing shallowly, she pressed back against the chair, flattening herself, but only bought herself another inch. An inch he stole from her as he leaned in closer, the predator’s jaws closing in, his breath hot on her face and the scent of him like incense in her nostrils.
She turned her face away. He wouldn’t let her, leaning to follow her, holding her eyes and refusing to let her escape. He watched her as if he wanted something from her, as if she was a science experiment he found endlessly fascinating.
“Stop it,” she whispered, and closed her eyes. Out of the frying pan and into the fire; with her eyes closed every point of near-contact came alive, and even worse was not knowing when or how he would strike when she would never hear him coming. She snapped her eyes open, glaring. “Stop.”
“Stop…what, firefly?”
“You know what!”
“You assume a great deal about what I know and do not know.” His gaze lowered. Her mouth. Oh God, he was staring at her mouth, and her throat went dry; he was too close. Close enough that she could almost taste his breath as he said, “You also have a great many demands, for someone in your position.”
Breathe deep. Breathe slow. She couldn’t lose her nerve. He was trying to intimidate her, using his sheer bulk to infringe on her space and remind her how small she was, how vulnerable. She couldn’t let him. And she was fucked no matter what she did, which gave her the courage to say:
“Here’s one more. I want to talk to my uncle.”
His gaze hardened, sharpened, snapped back to her eyes. “And you think I will allow this…why?”
“Because someone needs to take care of my Dad. You don’t kill innocents, right?” When he was silent, she pressed on. She’d started this; she’d finish it. “My Dad is an innocent. One with multiple sclerosis. I’m his caretaker. The longer you keep me here, the more likely something will happen to him. He could die. And that blood would be on your hands.”
He regarded her shrewdly, eyes narrowed. She could read nothing in those glassy eyes, nothing except that maybe he was considering it. Or he was considering slicing her jugular. Maybe he was considering having her liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti; she didn’t know. There was something unpredictable, under his calm. Something dangerous. She’d rather have an obvious psychopath who telegraphed his intentions than a sociopath who could control his every emotional reaction to the point where she didn’t know what was coming until she was trembling and frightened and curled in the palm of his hand.
And she nearly screamed with the suddenness of it as he rocked back on his heels and stood, stepping back from her, leaving her cold. His jaw worked tightly, and he looked away. Toward the cr
ucifix. He lingered on it, his fingers curling, then relaxing, curling, then relaxing in a slow, controlled movement.
“One call,” he said, low and dire. “No trousers.”
Hope stole her breaths; she leaned forward against the ropes. “Is that the deal?”
“It is part of the deal.”
She eyed him. “What’s the other part?”
“You will find out,” he said, and turned away with a shrug.
“No. I’m not accepting a deal without knowing all the conditions.”
“You—what is the English phrase?” He strode to the kitchen and pulled a drawer open. It spilled open on a collection of identical cellphones in gray and black: the kind of cheap flip phones that usually hung in the checkout aisle at Wal-Mart, with top-ups bought ten minutes at a time and numbers reassigned almost as soon as they were used. He sorted through them as if he could tell them apart, picking up one after the other and then putting them back down again. “You ‘have balls,’ is the saying.”
She flinched; a stupid, irrational stab of hurt cut through her, peeling the top layer of scar tissue off an old wound he couldn’t possibly know about. “Don’t say that.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Do you care?”
He lifted his head, fixing her with a keen gaze. “I am interested.”
She pressed her lips together, but said nothing. Why did he want to know all these little things about her? Why did he ask these questions like they actually mattered, when they were only a way of prying for the cracks that would let him dig inside her and find all her weakness and pain?
He pulled one phone free from the drawer, closed it, then returned to her, his soft strides bringing him near, his body folding once more to kneel before her. She wished he wouldn’t. Wouldn’t kneel as if he was pleading with her, when he was the one with complete control over her life.
But when he touched her cheek, said “Firefly,” and coaxed her to look at him…something in those amber eyes made her wonder if he was lying, about not feeling empathy at all.