Page 8 of Love Her Ruin
Thequeen'sgotmurderin her eyes, and it's the prettiest thing I've seen in days.
Prayer leans against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed, still wearing the evidence of what we did on her skin. Midnight-colored cum dried on her thighs. My knife cuts healing pink on her shoulders. She hasn't washed, hasn’t dressed.
Good. I like her wearing only us.
“I know for certain Vincent’s not at his house.” Eddie starts pacing.
That's new. The man he was before stood still and thought loud, all that detective energy contained behind procedure and a badge that meant something to him.
This Eddie moves like he's got an engine running under his skin that he hasn't figured out how to idle yet. The shadows trail from his fingers when he gestures, thin dark wisps that dissolve before they reach the floor.
He's adjusting. I remember the adjustment, the way my body became a house with a new tenant, and he didn't bother to ask before he rearranged the furniture.
"I checked his house on the way here," Eddie says. "It’s dark. He's not stupid enough to stay somewhere we can find him."
"Daddy can find anyone," Prayer says. "He found me when Red Hands took me. He found you, Eddie."
"Aye." I look at the shadow-form hovering near the ceiling, ember eyes dimmed to coals but still watching. "But what if Vincent's not in a building? What if he's running? Can ye still find him?"
Daddy's form ripples. “Hunt,” he growls, and the word rumbles from the house itself.
Aye, that doesnae answer the question.
I’m nae an expert on daddy demons, but he found Sera in the abandoned hangar through their bond. I dinnae ken how he found Eddie. Pure luck maybe, or he’d filled Eddie’s mind with shadowsbeforesaving his life.
Eddie stops pacing, plants his hands on the counter, and the shadows under his palms darken the laminate. "Vincent knows Sera's dangerous and that she’ll come after him. He knows I'm supposed to be dead, and when I don't stay dead, he'll know something's coming for him that doesn't follow the rules he's used to playing by."
"So he'll hide," Prayer says. "Where?"
"Somewhere he feels safe,” Eddie answers. “Somewhere he has control."
Smart, this one. The Mind, Sera calls him. She's not wrong. But the mind's got teeth now, and it's learning how to bite.
"Church," I say with a shrug.
They both look at me.
"Why a church?" Prayer moves closer, her bare feet silent on the kitchen floor, and she smells like all of us—sex and shadowsand the faint copper of blood from the cuts I gave her. "What makes you think he'd hide there?"
"Because men like Vincent don't think they're guilty," I say. "They think they're righteous. They think the rules don't apply because they're the ones enforcing the rules, and when the world finally catches up to them, they run to the places that taught them that lie in the first place."
I pull out my phone and search for churches in Wichita. Och, there’s a lot of them.
"He's nae hiding. He's seeking sanctuary. And he'll sit in a pew and pray to a god who isnae listening because he thinks he's owed divine protection."
Prayer makes a sound that's half laugh, half snarl. "Fuck his sanctuary."
"Aye. We will."
Eddie pulls out his own phone. "Vincent could've convinced the priest or pastor he needs a place to pray, to mourn his dead wife."
"Or he killed the priest, and he's alone in there," I say. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Eddie looks at me. The shadows in his eyes flicker. "Yeah. Or that."
Sera pushes off the counter, starts moving toward the stairs. "We can search now, find out what church he usually goes to, and start there, before he realizes you're not dead, Eddie."
"Wait." I catch her arm, gentle but firm, and she stops, looks at me with those bruised, furious eyes that could cut glass or strip ye bare, depending on her mood. "Ye need to understand what we're walking into, aye? Vincent's a sheriff. He's trained, armed, and he's got nothing left to lose. He shot Eddie in a public parking lot. He staged his own wife's murder. The man's crossed every line there is, and the only thing waiting for him now isa cage or a grave. That makes him the most dangerous kind of animal."
