Page 198 of Nightshade

“Was that so bad?” Trailing a finger down my temple, she stared down at me, as I continued to gasp for air. “Remy says I’m to keep you alive. That he needs you for something. Otherwise, I’d happily cut you open right now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s going to trade you. For redemption.”

“What?” With weak and heavy arms, I yanked at my binds. “What’re …” Whatever she’d given me had begun to work its way through my system. The surrounding room widened and shrank, then widened to a blur, while the walls shifted off balance.

“I’ve heard Rapture is twice as strong when you take the pill straight. I’ll have to try it when Jericho fucks me tonight.”

“Le’ me’go,” I whined in a slur, closing my eyes to the weird effects of the room. “Please, Evie. Y’can hav’im. I prom’se.”

‘I don’t need your permission, whore.” She pushed away and disappeared through the door.

A quiet sob broke inside my chest, while the effects heightened. Minutes later, she returned, pushing a rolling bed on wheels, and parked it beside the bed where I lay. She unfastened the cuffs, and my arms fell like deadweight at my sides. I would’ve loved to swing one at her, but I couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe, my body felt so heavy and useless.

She lifted my feet onto the adjacent bed, then came around to the other side and slid her arms beneath mine. On a heave, she hefted my upper half onto the gurney, and then my middle, until I was fully on the mattress.

“Bet you didn’t know this cathedral had a chute for dead bodies.” With one hard push, she set the bed into motion, rolling me out of the room and into the dark hallway. The stone ceiling passed over top of me, blinking in and out of focus. “Pretty morbid, right? Place used to be owned by Van Croix Senior. Rumor was, he would torture those he felt were the ultimate sinners before he burned the bodies in a pit.”

The pit. Where the animal carcasses had been thrown after feeding the dogs.

“Not really sure at what interval those carcasses are burned, just that it stinks every so often. Like searing meat,” she prattled on, but the sickness in my stomach churned and bubbled, and just as the acids shot up my throat, Evie stopped the cart and turned my head to the side. Vomit poured from my mouth, splashing onto the stone floor.

Then, as if it’d never happened, she kept on down the corridor.

Her voice became a white noise to the thudding of blood in my ears.

Th-thump

Th-thump

Th-thump

The cart rolled to a stop.

“Well, Farryn. This is where we part ways. Give my best to the dead.” With that, she shoved my limp body to the side, and I fell.

59

Jericho

Swirling the drink in my hand, I sat in my office chair, waiting for Remy to come through the door. Every muscle in my body burned with the urge to throttle him to death, after having witnessed the kiss between him and Farryn at the edge of the woods. Fortunately for him, her body language told me she wasn’t interested, otherwise he’d have been dead the moment his lips touched hers.

The night was still early.

After a quiet knock, he stepped inside my office, hair disheveled, shirt cocked to the side. The red rims of his eyes spoke of little sleep and something else.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“I’ve been thoroughly Evied.” He snorted and slumped into the chair across from me, running his hand through the hair sticking up at ridiculous angles from his head. “You don’t mind that she and I …”

“No.” I hadn’t wanted anything to do with Evie in a long time. Particularly not since Farryn had arrived. Initially, I’d chalked it up to lack of interest in sex. Thankfully, Farryn proved that wrong. “I called you into my office to ask about a missing girl. Do you know what happened to the kitchenmaid, Danielle?”

The way he shifted uncomfortably in his chair sent up a red flag. With confetti and a bullhorn. “Uhhh. Yeah, so, she and I … you know.”

Something told me that wasn’t the reason for his sudden distress, though. “I’m not interested in your tryst with yet another young girl. I want to know what happened to her.”

Clearing his throat, he shifted again. “Danielle didn’t like me hanging around Evie. Wouldn’t surprise me if she ran off somewhere.”