Page 20 of Love Her Ruin
His hands sink in to the wrists. He tries to pull them free, but the effort only results in a sucking sound. He tries again, sinks again. The floor doesn't want to let him go.
He stalls there, staring at me, his eyes filled with tears. Finally the predator sees the thing that has been hunting him, the thing he made, and he understands that he is not the apex of anything.
I bend at the waist and bring my mouth to his ear. “But I want to take your heart or your cock when you’re awake. When you can feel every second of it. When you can look into my eyes and know exactly why this is happening and exactly how long I've been waiting for that moment.”
I pull back just enough to see his face. His eyes are wide, glassy, the pupils blown so large there's almost no iris left. He's shaking, and the putrid scent of piss hits my nostrils before it soaks his pants.
"Wake up, Vincent.” I straighten. “Andrun."
His dream breaks, and his real body jolts upright, once again in the third pew.
Tears trail down his face, snot bubbles from his nose, and piss stains his pants. He now has the marrow-deep certainty that he needs to run out of Our Lady of Sorrows.
He lurches to his feet, his hand jamming into his pocket, fingers closing around car keys. His legs carry him down the real aisle, stumbling, lurching, his knee clipping a pew and spinning him half around before momentum carries him forward again.
He hits the church doors at a run and bangs them open against the exterior walls.
I smile in the dark of my own skull because I know a secret.
My court runs faster than he does.
Chapter 10
James
Istandwithmyboots kissing the edge of holy turf, Eddie a dark line two paces to my right, and the church sitting there like a big stone lie. The air on the consecrated side fizzes like a low-voltage fence.
As soon as we fucked her to sleep, we left Prayer at the house with Daddy, who holds the door between wakefulness and dreams.
“Think this’ll work?” Eddie asks.
“We’ll find out,” I murmur, toeing the grass that shocked me earlier. “But if anyone can shove Vincent right into our wee collection plate, it’s her.”
Eddie nods, eyes on the nave like he can see through stone.
We wait. The street’s got that late-night quiet where sound travels for miles. A cicada ratchets up. I can hear Eddie’s breathing, measured, and my own pulse thrums a psalm in my wrists.
Then the air changes.
You ken that feeling when a storm flips the world? How the leaves show their pale bellies and the wind comes from the wrong direction? Aye, that. The church’s breath stutters. The air grows colder. And from inside, carried thin through stone and stained glass, a man screams like he’s just met his god, and it’s not a friendly one.
“That’ll be her,” I say. “My sweet, dangerous Prayer.”
Eddie lifts his chin, his blue eyes bright, and backs away two steps from the consecrated ground. “I’ll take point.”
“Aye, ye do that.” I slap him on the back and fade into the shadows. “I’ll play hide-and-seek.”
The church doors’ latches thunder. The oak slams wide like a psalm book smacked shut. Vincent spills out, half falling, half running, eyes blown, hair damp with sweat, piss darkening his trouser front like a confession. He makes it three steps into the night and then jerks to a stop as if yanked on an invisible leash.
He sees Eddie.
Och, the way his face goes white.
“Evening, Vincent,” Eddie calls, voice level as it travels the distance between them. “You were saying something about Red Hands when you shot me? Something about how I wouldn’t believe he murdered your wife?”
Vincent’s mouth opens and takes a moment to remember how words work. “You…you…”
Then muscle memory saves him where sense can’t. His right hand goes jacket, holster, grip. Is he reaching for the same gun he used on Eddie earlier? Does he really think it’ll work this time?
