Page 29 of Villains Never Die

He looked wrecked in front of me, flushed and panting, pupils blown. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and rose to his feet as I fixed my pants and straightened my clothes. No one could know what had transpired behind that locked door.

Rook steadied himself, but I wrapped my fingers around his throat and squeezed just enough to feel like a threat. The bastard just smiled. Unhinged.

“You don’t tell anyone what happened here.”

He grabbed my wrist and twisted it away from his neck, but didn’t cause me pain.

“Truce means I keep your secrets, and you keep mine.” He stroked his opposite fingers up the inside of my arm. “Sorry about your wrist. I wasn’t before, but I am now.”

He released me, unlocked the door, and strolled out of the room as if nothing had happened at all, leaving me with thesinking feeling that I still wasn’t in control, and that I had won nothing.

Chapter Twelve

I missed Emmett that night. He’d made his rounds and flashed his smile at all the potential supporters, thanked the hostesses for a pleasant party, and disappeared.

So had Rook. He vanished from the party and I had not heard a peep from him in a week. He’d been silent, but I hadn’t stopped thinking about him. Not about what happened between us because I shoved those thoughts deep down anytime they rose to torment me. No, I was thinking about how to pay him back for destroying my suit.

Our truce covered death, bodily harm, business, and secrets.

He said nothing about minor inconveniences. I concocted a plan to go to Rook’s club tomorrow and make myself the same obnoxious menace he’d been to me.

I opened my laptop, logged into The Looking Glass, and saw that I had an unread reply to my message. My hand trembled ever so slightly as I clicked on it.

OriginOfMagic

That depends on how much you’re willing to pay for it.

I sent back a reply.

j-aust13

I can afford it.

It didn’t feel like much, not quite like a lead, but every potential small step forward deserved to be explored.

I realized then that a second message sat unopened in my forum inbox. I clicked on it, my brow furrowing as I scanned the words.

veilknight

What is your interest in death?

I frowned and tried to place the username, but I was sure I had never communicated with this person before. My fingers hovered over the keys, and then I typed:

j-aust13

What makes you think I have one?

I logged off and closed my laptop, setting it aside.

“Why won’t you tell me what to do about Death?” I asked the ghosts.

We told you this before. We didn’t meet her. We’re stuck here instead.

I had asked them that question many times, but none of them seemed to know who Death was or how they had gotten trapped on this plane instead of moving on to somewhere else, wherever that might be.

I wondered where my mother had ended up after her blood dried and they rolled her body away. Where had Death taken her when she gave me a consolation prize I wouldn’t understand until I was older?

I was twenty the first time I died, new to America, drawn to this city by its population of supernatural people and the opportunity to climb its ladder of darkness. But one of the oldplayers was faster than me, experienced in eliminating threats in a way I didn’t yet understand. He killed me easily, thoughtlessly. His men left me bleeding out by the docks, wondering if my mother felt the same cold panic.