Tears finally spill over, but I am already untangling myself and shuffling along the booth seat to wrap myself in her arms.
“Fuck, Pen,” she breathes into my neck.“Thank god it wasn’t you.”
I whimper into her embrace as she rubs my back, letting me cry.
“Daria and her team won’t let this go.You know that she’ll investigate thoroughly.We’ll be okay.”
“I’m not letting this go either,” Dahlia says.“Nor is she being allowed out of my sight.”
“And for that I’m grateful,” Morrigan says, giving Dahlia a polite smile.Her eyes flit between us, a small furrow between her brows.But she doesn’t say anything before heading out.Her group of friends follow after her, as does Mother.Only Daria, Octavia, Dahlia and me remain.
“Come on, I want to examine the body.”Dahlia tugs me out of the booth and towards the corpse.She leaves me a couple of feet away when my fingers tighten so hard around her grip that I think I might pop a knuckle out.
She kneels by the body, tilts the head this way and that, and then picks up the arms, examining the hands and wrists.Brushing her thumb over a set of two small bruises, she glances at Octavia.Something passes between them, and Octavia’s face hardens.
“Any thoughts?”Daria says.
Octavia glances at Dahlia but neither of them offers anything.“I should be leaving,” Octavia says and strides off to find the rest of their group.
“Really?Nothing?”Daria says, her tone as sharp as her expression.
Dahlia purses her lips and stands.“She wasn’t killed here.She was brought here after the fact.Are there any security guards you can question?See if they saw anyone milling around or looking suspicious this evening?”
Daria folds her arms.“They’re being questioned as we speak.Is there anyone who might want to hurt you?”
I shrug.“Sure, loads of people, but pissed enough to actually murder me?I’m not sure.I think I’m more of an irritant than anything.”
Dahlia, the wench, nods in agreement.I want to tell her to fuck off but her eyes curl in delight, as if she knows she’s jabbed at me.She peers at the woman’s face, runs her finger along her lips and freezes.“There’s something inside her mouth.”
She wrenches open the jaw, a sickening crunch as the bones grind and pop under the pressure.She pulls a note out.It has a single word written in blood on it.
TOMORROW.
Daria unfolds her arms and takes the paper.Her nostrils flare.She holds it up in one hand and bends and contorts her fingers in the other.The note hovers in the air, and she makes some sweeping movements with her fingers moving in rapid patterns.The blood letters lift off the page, dissolving into a million tiny particles.They spin like a tornado and siphon down to the woman’s mouth, vanishing inside.
“It’s her blood,” Daria says, her words heavy.“I was hoping it was someone else’s, and that maybe we’d have another clue.If that’s everything, I’m going to do a forensic deconstruction on her body and sweep the club for evidence.Unless you have a strong stomach, it would be best if you left.”
Daria holds her hands out and begins bending and twisting her fingers.A shimmer erupts from her fingertips and blooms around the room.
“Come on, let’s let her focus,” Dahlia says and pulls me away.As we pass Octavia, the pair of them share that same look that sets my teeth on edge.
Chapter11
Dahlia
I’m uncomfortable.Not just because the carriage we take back to the palace is rickety as fuck as it rolls over the city cobbles, nor because Penelope is passed out in my arms and her knobbly elbow is digging into my rib.
But because there’s a shift between Penelope and me.Subtle, slow but significant, nonetheless.Octavia may have been winding me up, but she wasn’t too far off the mark.The close proximity and being unable to leave her side are muddying my mind too.Even though she was stood next to me when we discovered that body hanging from the club exit, my blood froze in my veins.
What’s thrown me is what went through my mind.
I should have been paranoid about failing as her bodyguard, worried about the political climate and the damage this might do to Octavia.
But the only thought in my mind was: thank fuck it wasn’t her.
I didn’twantit to be her.I keep having flashbacks of the woman hanging and the frisson of pins and needles that swept through my body.
I don’t want to think about what it means.
