That worked. He dropped me and stepped back fast enough that my kick didn’t land, but he still looked furious.
“What is yourproblem!?”I snapped at him.
“Youare my fucking problem.”
“What the fuck did I ever do toyou?I just met you yesterday!”
He narrowed his eyes at me, then whipped out his phone and tapped away on the screen before flipping it to face me.
My jaw dropped.
“Is this you?” he asked. He scrolled through a Google page with results for a search against my name.
‘Lilith Cortland, suspected in the deaths of Lee and Serafine Daniels.’
‘Coraline Jepherson, foster parent to Lilith Cortland, pushed in front of a train by a crazed homeless man.’
‘Lilith Cortland, foster child of Sade Meadowland, claims she was ‘at the mall alone’ at time of death. No witnesses to back her claim.’
I gaped. I knew there were headlines. I just had never seen them all neatly piled up in one organized search page.
“I googled you before taking this job,” he sneered. “Looks like everyone you touch fuckingdies, Lilith. What happened to Sam, huh? Did you organize that hit and run?”
I stared at him, my eyes filling with tears. “N-no.”
“N-n-no,” he cruelly mocked me and glared down his nose. “Are you going to cry?Did I hurt the little deathtrap’s feelings?”
“Fuck you. Those were all freak accidents,” I whispered.
He looked down at his phone critically, swiping a finger up to show the long, long list offreak accidentsassociated with my name.
“One, maybe two of these I’ll buy as an accident. Not twenty-two. And who knows how many more there were before people started suspecting you.”
I just stared at him, with my fists clenched at my sides. The scars on my wrists throbbed beneath the leather cuffs I religiously wore to hide them.
Reaver bent down again, putting his face so close to mine our noses were nearly touching. “Soforgive meif I don’t want to cozy up and be best friends with someone who seems to kill everyone she fucking touches.”
I stared at him, my eyes burning with unshed tears. He let out a low, cruel laugh before stepping away. Pulling out a pack of cigarettes, he put a butt between his lips. He nodded his head toward the Blue Label on the highest shelf and turned away.
“Good luck reaching the top shelf, deathtrap. I’m going for a smoke.”
The restof the shift was absolute hell. My drink and chit times were abysmal. Reaver didn’t only not help, but he actively tried to sabotage me. He would take orders at the wood and not ring them in or start chits and leave them half-finished. By the end of the night, we had to comp several hundred dollars worth of drinks and had two complaints to management.
I was furious and terrified at the same time. I could tell Rafael was not happy. I tried my best to get the bar clean enough to meet his standards by the end of the night, but between Sam’s death and how mean Reaver had been, I just wasn’t operating at my best.
The more upset I was, the happier Reaver seemed to be, which both hurt and made me feel like I was an inch tall.
While cashing out in the office, Rafael sat us both down, and I braced myself. We were going to get in shit. Or worse… written up.
“I expected better from you two. Tonight was a disaster,” Rafael said.
I was nearly in tears, but Reaver was leaning back in one of the dusty office chairs, staring at the ceiling and swiveling back and forth as if this whole thing was a joke.
“I know, I’m sorry. I need to try harder,” I said quietly, knowing there was no point in making excuses.
Reaver snorted a laugh, finally looking down at us. He noticed that I was barely holding back tears and sneered. I tried to scowl at him, but it just made a tear spill over. His eyes followed it as it ran down my cheek, and he smiled.
I fucking HATED him.
