“I don’t know,” the blond one starts. “Maybe we?—”
“Shut the fuck up, Sylvan.”
Sylvan.I try to remember, because what if they did? What if these are the suspects? I need to tell someone later. The police? If I make it out of here alive, I’ll need to remember.
For now I need to survive.
“I don’t know about that, Faust.”
Sylvan, blond.
Faust, dark hair.
Faust. Fuck. He made a pact with the devil. He could have everything he wanted, but he lost his soul. I remember the story.
I blink, looking at the man in front of me with new eyes. His are so dark, they appear black even under the lights from Sky Arena.
His jaw is defined, his nose broad, unlike Sylvan’s. He’s… hot.
But that doesn’t mean they didn’t do it.Think, Neve. Keep your shit together.
I glance at his hand; the one still wrapped around my wrist. No blood I can see.
“I think we should question her properly beforetheydo. Either way, we’re the last to see him alive, aren’t we? Cops are going to want to know something, and we should have the full story so ours match.”
I’m struggling to breathe, but anger pushes away my fear.
I didn’t do anything.
I barely know Jackson. And maybe it makes me a horrible person that I’m not crying over his death, but I’m sure he would’ve attacked me in that truck if I hadn’t run away. And I will not go to prison for something I had no hand in.
Between the three of us,theyhave the strength to drive a knife between a man’s ribs more than I do, don’t they?
“Let go of me.” I’m speaking to both of them, but I’m looking at Faust.A deal with a demon.
Faust doesn’t release me. Neither does Sylvan.
“Let go of me or I’m going to scream again.”
Sylvan laughs against my ear, then he releases my neck.
A warm current of relief sweeps through me until it’s replaced by icy cold fear as his hand slams over my mouth, the scent of leather filling my nose. I try to jerk away but I just ram my spine into his hard body, Faust’s hand between us, and now I’m trapped in the middle of the both of them. Even at my height, they tower over me.
I can barely breathe with Sylvan’s hand over my mouth and leather in my lungs and the cold and the fear and the one screaming thought in my mind:Are they going to kill me next?
“I don’t like threats,” Sylvan says over my skin. His lips touch me and I’m gasping against his gloved hand.
My eyes find Faust’s, and he’s staring at me in such a calm way, I feel certain, in this moment, he either killed Jackson, or he knows who did.
And I wouldn’t put it past the man behind me.
FIVE
FAUST
The girl trembles in my arms, but after a moment, she stiffens as if steeling herself. Then she drops her hand from my chest, drives her elbow back as hard as she can at the exact same time she lifts her knee and snaps it against my balls.
There wasn’t much room for her fight, but it seems to surprise both Sylvan and me, and we release her enough that she contorts herself until she dives out from between us, whirling around so her back isn’t to us as she lifts up her palms in a gesture for us to stay away.
