Page 117 of Villains Never Die

I squeezed my eyes shut and the edges of my eyelids prickled with impending tears. “Say it anyway and pretend you do. I just…I didn’t want to spend my birthday alone.”

He jolted upright abruptly and sent me sprawling onto the side of the bed I always slept on. “You don’t have to be alone. You know that.”

Indignation crawled up my spine. I pushed up onto my elbows. “What is your bloody obsession with me giving up everything I worked for to be with you?”

“It’s not about that,” he said. “I don’t care what you do for a living. I care that if it came down to it, you would never put me first. Have you stopped looking for Death yet?”

“Of course not.”

“Because you’rebloodyobsessed. I don’t want to be third or fourth on your list of priorities. I want to know that if it ever came down to a choice between keeping me and chasing her, you’d pick me, because I’d sure as hell choose you.”

“You’re such a bastard.” I scrunched the sheets back until my legs were free and started pulling on my clothes. “Happy fucking birthday to me.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Don’t be so cold.”

We stared at one another until he finally gave in and said, “I do love you, Austin. Happy birthday. Now get the fuck out.”

He threw me out on my birthday with my heart cracked and my insides boiling with rage.

We were back together a week later.

Five years after I gave him my life

There was a man tied to a chair in the room in Rook’s club that resembled my basement. I didn’t ask why—asked no questions, really, when Rook called me to help him with his interrogation. He wanted information, and he wanted a message sent. Someone was sabotaging his fights. This man knew who it was, and when we killed him at the end of the night, Rook wanted it to be with my unique power. Nothing sent a clearer message than a desiccated corpse that looked like it had met the worst kind of death.

I watched for an hour as he questioned the man, resorting to torture as minutes ticked by. None of it fazed me except the fact that Rook did not spill a single drop of blood.

“I think I have everything I need,” he told the man, who only gurgled through his swollen lips and crushed larynx when he tried to speak.

I stepped behind the chair and rested my hands on the man’s shoulders. “It really isn’t your lucky night.”

He expired and blackened and shriveled under my hands until he was a husk hanging from the ropes Rook used to tie him. Istumbled back a step, dizziness catching up with me, and Rook caught me against the strong wall of his body. His arms circled my waist.

“How many?” he asked.

It was the question he always asked now when we were apart for too long. How many lives did I have left? How close was I to death?

“Six.”

One less than the last time he’d seen me. His arms tightened around me, and it was the only way I knew he still cared. Five years had created a pattern between us—messy, but assured. We kissed and claimed and fucked and fought. Some nights we professed our love, only to hate each other again in the morning.

There were times I thought it was ridiculous how we still danced around each other. Perhaps I should have put him first and let him finally love me. The Prague collection gave me nothing but mythology and useless rituals. If I couldn’t find a solid lead on her in all that assembled information, then my hunt was probably hopeless.

Probably.

And the tiny sliver of hope that it might not be kept me chasing her.

Death had infected me like a virus, not just with obsession, but with power I didn’t ask for. The lives, the death I could channel, the voices. I predicted many more deaths as time went on, the visions coming closer together.

Rook was under my skin, but Death lived in my veins.

“Let me drive you home,” he said when the dizziness didn’t subside and my legs stayed unsteady. “I’ll have someone deliver your car tomorrow.”

“Mmm, wait,” I said. “We have to stop at my car. I have those books I promised.”

We paused at Rook’s office on the way out. He had something to trade for them, and I sat on the steps leading to the room while I waited. When he returned, he held my hand and helped me to my car.