“Do not utter my name.” He glowers at me and then moves toward Nova, who is watching us intently. I wish she’d leave, but she sits like a hawk, watching over Ellery, who is refusing to open their eyes.
I haven’t even gotten started on them yet. Not while they pretend to be asleep. I know they’re not though. They keep peeking open one of their eyelids to see if we’re still around.
I plan on waiting as long as I need.
I will get my answers one way or another.
“Make him beg for forgiveness,” Ellery says between closed lips, like some kind of ventriloquist.
I want to slice them off their face.
“I think that’s a great idea. And why the hell is Ellery chained to the bed?” Bane asks, and Nova raises her eyebrows as if asking the same question.
“They’re a menace,” I reply.
“No, they’re a friend.”
“You don’t even know them. You shook their hand once.”
He ignores me. “Untie my new best friend.”
I feel my eye twitch. “Not until I get the answers I need.”
Ellery takes that moment to pop their eyes open and meets my stare. “I’ll talk tohim. Not you, douche.”
I grab my scalpel and move toward them, but Nova stops me.
“Let Bane talk to them. He’ll get what you need,” she says.
“I don’t want the information anymore. I want murder,” I say.
Bane rolls his eyes and sits in a chair right next to Ellery, pulling something from his pocket and loosening their restraints.
“There. Those were far too tight. I’m here to listen. Go on and tell me what you think he wants to know.”
Ellery eyes me and then flips me off.
“I’ll tell you what he wants to know if he apologizes to you for hurting you.”
Bane wiggles in his seat and then turns to face me, his arms folded across his chest.
“I’m waiting,” he says snottily. I want to kiss those sassy lips. I haven’t done that yet, but it seems I should rectify that soon.
My fist tightens around the scalpel. I could gut him with it—if he were anyone else, I’d put it right into his jugular and watch him bleed out.
But then I’d miss him.
“I apologize,” I murmur.
“For what?” Ellery snaps.
My nostrils flare, and I meet Bane’s gaze. “For leaving you without explanation and then drugging you when you showed up.”
Bane stares at me long and hard before nodding. “I accept your apology, but I do not forgive you. You’re dead to me.”
That makes something inside me shrivel.
But before I can address it, Ellery turns toward Bane. “That creepy reaper showed me a picture of a man. Henry, he called him, but I don’t know a fucking Henry. I’m not the Queen of England. But I do know a Samuel. Well, I think that’s his real name. I think they were Romanian? Wait, no, Armenian.”
