Tonight.
After Marcus sleeps, I will find Etienne Duval and kill him myself.
Chapter Fourteen
Lenora
Idon’tshareMarcus’sbed.
He offers and I refuse.
He tries to reason, offers to stay in mine.
I leave him in the corridor with his words echoing after me. But his comfort is not my concern. I have a mission, a task he was supposed to help me with and he failed.
His own sons.
And he can’t be bothered to do his job.
Hatred and disgust fill the empty void my boys left behind. A bitter, visceral loathing I can taste.
I don’t need him.
I don’t need that demon.
I shove open my bedroom door and stalk inside for the first time in days. My toes kick aside the pillow where it fell when I flung it. It hits the shattered lamp.
Marcus said the room had been cleaned, but it’s exactly how I left it.
Doesn’t matter.
It’s not important.
I head into my closet and rifle for clothes. I could wear a dress, but I need ease of movement. I settle on Ames’s sweats. The drawstrings would need to be pulled tight and the cuffs rolled. And one of Eliah’s paint splattered hoodies.
I think it’s fitting that a bit of them comes with me when I avenge their deaths.
Both are folded and placed on the tossed bed. I climb up next to them in Ames’s T-shirt. Marcus should sleep soon. So will Etienne Duval. Everyone will be. The city will be quiet. Easy to navigate.
I could maybe kill all of them tonight. It would be best. Leaving any behind might alert the others and they could flee, go into hiding. I don’t have the connections to find them if theydo. It won’t be as satisfying. I wanted to take my time, hear them scream and bleed, but it will have to be enough.
There is an absolute darkness pressing against my eyes when I open them. The kind found in the deepest parts of the ocean, vast and endless. The kind that makes a person wonder if they’re dead.
But I know I’m not, nor am I alone.
In the muggy space already choked with the ashes of age and decay. It breathes with me. So careful not to take too much, but the shortage it leaves behind suffocates. Every shaky pull shatters through my lungs with splinters of ice.
“Stop it,” I hiss, warning the endless expanse of black filling every corner of my bedroom.
It doesn’t listen.
It has no reason to when I’m merely a human and my strength is no match to his.
He wants me aware of that fact. Wants me alert for when it slips into my room, creeps closer to my bed. It’s angry with me. Offended by my accusation.
But like Marcus, I have no fucks to give about his feelings.
“Leave me alone,” I tell it with sharp firmness.
