Then, with an irritated sigh, I tapped on Joe’s thread.
Joe:I hate how we left things. I hope you’re okay. I’m ready to talk when youare.
Forty-eight hours ago, his concern would’ve made me melt. It would’ve spoken to the hungry need of a desperate girl who tried all of her life to be loved by a man.
I wasn’t desperate anymore. And I certainly wouldn’t let my life be ruled by a desperation for love. Love was for the living.
Vengeance was for the dead.
I texted him back: Sure. We need to talk. I’ll call you later.
Was I terrible for breaking up with a man over the phone? Meh, probably. But Lucifer already owned my soul so I couldn’t see any reason to be noble now.
I shoved my phone in my pocket and stood before the box that held my fate like a vice. The lid was off, and a familiar face stared back at me from a black-and-white photo.
The last soul I’d ever owe to Lucifer, and the last life I owed to myself.
Callen.
“Barb!” I said as my grumpy mentor opened the door after a few rounds of enthusiastic knocking on my part. “Are you ready to get shit done?”
I put on my best smile as she stared, silently determining whether or not she wanted to let me inside even after she’d already agreed to do so. Apparently, Lucifer cast his blessing, because she stood aside and let me in. In true Barb fashion she didn't use any words, but I didn't get a knife to the back when I passed her so I considered it a good sign.
I plopped down on her plushy couch cushion inside. “I've got a dilemma, and I think you're just the right amount of fucked up to help. You know, since you're a technological savant or some shit.”
Barb's eye twitched like she was an anime character about to lose her shit. “Are you a child?
“Depends on who’s asking.”
“Only children with piss poor manners flop down on a couch like that. Why do you think yours is such a piece of shit?”
“Because a piece of shit owns it. Duh.” I did my best impersonation of a moody teenager and the way her lips narrows confirmed that I fucking nailed it.
Jesus would be proud.
Barb crossed her arms, clearly over my antics. Too bad for her, I was only getting started.
I pointed at her playfully and said, "You are so cute when manifestingmurderous rage. I bet if you were in a nursing home, you would be the wrinkled apple of everyone's super poor vision. Or however that saying goes.”
“I have shit to do.”
“Ughhhh,” I groaned, rolling my eyes and resting my head on the back of the couch for added effect. “Fine. We'll get down to business. I need help finding a man.”
“The dead don't need therapy. Especially the evil sort. You're already in hell, Dany. What use is a clean conscience or a man to you?”
“What? No! I don't want therapy, Batty Barb. I need your fancy stalking technology to find someone so I can kill him.”
Despite her old age, Barb was the most tech savvy demon I knew. When Barb did an experiment, she didn't pick people at random. Her methods were too clinical; her experiments too complex to leave anything to chance.
Before she died, the Barbwire Butcher of New Orleans, as the tabloids named her, was notorious for stalking her victims for weeks before abducting, murdering, and leaving them for the public to find. Her experiments were conducted from beginning to end: the victim’s lives pre-abduction, whatever fucked up theory she decided to test that day, and then the public’s reaction to her staged dump site. She got a kick out of the way the media tried to make sense of the crimes she committed. In the end, there was no making sense of it. Barb was the game maker, humanity, the game.
She rolled her eyes and walked away, muttering unintelligibly under her breath. Though I couldn't make out the words, I could hear the old Cajun accent that slipped past her composure when I pushed just a little too hard.
“Fine," Barb conceded.
“Yes!”
I leapt from the couch and followed her through the living space and into her workshop, nothing but white walls and stainless steel visible along the way.
