Page 201 of Nightshade

“And how do you plan to escape the Pentacrux?”

“What? A bunch of humans? Pfft!” He waved his hand in dismissal. “Easy. Like picking ticks off a rat.”

Head tipped, I shot him a disapproving look. “You know that’s not all that easy, right?”

“Okay, Miss Expert on ticks, then it’ll be like picking fleas off a dog.”

Groaning, I shook my head and pushed to my feet, straightening the too-thin gown. “Okay, Einstein, what’s your plan?”

“We’re supposed to meet up at some motel. The guy takes custody of you,” he said, with air quotes. “And lets your dad go. Then I’ll swoop in and save the day, and boom. I earn my redemption, you get your dad, and the bad guy dies. Horribly.”

“This sounds very haphazard.”

“Look, it was the best I could do, okay? The guy was kinda pushy, if I’m being honest.”

“What guy?”

Remy scratched the back of his head a second time and huffed. “Yeah, so, I didn’t get his name. But don’t worry, he’ll be there. Like I said, he was kind of a prick about the whole thing.”

“You keep saying don’t worry, but I keep worrying.”

“You worry too much, princess.” Waving his hand a second time, Remy shook his head. “Seriously, one scan when I see him, and I’ll know everything about him.”

“You can read people?”

The moment his lips stretched to a smile, I threw up my hands. “If it’s about me, I don’t want to know.”

“Fair enough, lacy bum.”

At his snickering laugh, I screwed my eyes shut and breathed hard through my nose. “Let’s get this over with so I can get on with my life.”

“On with your life? So, you don’t want me to take you back afterwards?”

“Back where? To Jericho? So I can listen to him fuck other women for eternity?” Shaking my head, I turned away from him, looking for the exit. “I’ll pass.”

“Jericho?” Remy asked after me, as he trailed my steps. “You sure we’re talking about the same guy?”

Slipping through one of the glass doors, which led to an empty dining area within an enormous octagonal dome, I glanced over my shoulder. “The one who banged Evie outside of the door where I was tied up? Yeah. Think that’s the same guy.”

Snorting a laugh, Remy shook his head. “That wasn’t Jericho. So, funny story, I’d just popped some Rapture when Evie came slamming through the door.”

“What door?” Still scanning over the dining room, I spied a door with an exit sign across from us. Odd that the tower’s dining area was completely empty, and that there wasn’t any staff around.

“Garic’s old place. I kinda took over ownership. Anyway, she told me Jericho wanted me in his office right away. But on the way there, she let me know he’d locked you up in some room down in the undercroft. I planned to go straight there and get you out, and then that damn Rapture hit me.” He adjusted his crotch as if the effects still lingered. “And, well, I didn’t want to go ravaging you, so I was fully prepared to go rub one out, but Evie suggested a quickie instead.”

“Why the hell would you pop a pill that makes you horny like that?” I pushed through the exit door, finally catching sight of sign that said the dining room wouldn’t be open until seven at night. With the waning light outside, it had to have been close to that time.

“Uhh. You took it, too, did you not? Because aside from the painful hard-on, it feels good. Real fucking good.”

“It didn’t feel all that good having it shoved down my throat by a psychopath who dumped me into a pit of rotting carcasses.”

“Yeah, well, Evie isn’t the most accommodating chick, that’s for sure. Anyway, back to the story. So, while fucking, she told me she overheard you and Jericho saying that you wanted me to check into the church. So she told me she would take you down to the burn pit, and I’d go have my meeting with Jericho so that he wouldn’t get suspicious of anything going down. Afterward, that’s where I found you. Lying in the pit.”

Pausing halfway down the first flight of stairs, I paused, which also brought Remy to a halt behind me. My chest throbbed with something that I couldn’t discern—relief, or embarrassment for having been duped. “That was you and Evie outside my door?”

“Are you mad?”

“Extremely.”