She’s right.
It did seem like a very good move at the time. But you know, I didn’t exactly imaginethis. I didn’t imagine finding out the person I’m indebted to has sour feelings toward me from the start because I happen to be sleeping with her ex-boyfriend.
That makes the deal not just bad.
It makes it volatile.
“Oh, spare me that expression,” she says suddenly. “I told you I didn’t come here to be malicious.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides before I can stop them.
“Could’ve fooled me,” I mutter, but she rolls right over it, like my defenses are a child’s tantrum and she’s heard worse.
“I need you to kill for me,” she says, voice steady.
I blink.
“Your… killer?” I wager.
“Yes,” Rhea confirms. “It’s a couple.”
“A couple?” Talon echoes, and this time his stillness cracks. I can see him sifting through memory, trying to build a timeline of her death from this little scrap.
“Nobody you know,” Rhea says straight away.
“Who are they?” I ask.
“They’re married,” she says. “They drive around the country in a white van. They look… harmless. Friendly. Helpful.” Her mouth tightens on that last word. “They pick up girls who look stranded.”
My stomach drops, slow and sick.
“What do they…” I swallow. “…do?”
“They murder them,” she says. Flat. “Obviously.”
Mhm… yeah. Because that’s what I meant. No, I meant how did they kill her. But that doesn’t seem to matter, in hindsight.
“I’ll give you names later,” she adds. “They change identities often. New plates, new hair, new states. But I know roughly where they’ll be in a few days.”
A few days.
She says it like she’s talking about catching a freaking train.
“But I cannot linger here to explain,” she continues, already moving past my shock, “so you’ll have to prepare yourselves quickly.”
Prepare ourselves.
My hand lifts before I can stop it, like something is about to get thrown at my face and I’m bracing on reflex.
“Sorry. No. Absolutely not,” I say. My voice comes out sharper than I feel, which is saying something, because I’m vibrating inside my skin. “I didn’t agree to help you like that.”
“Yes, you did,” Rhea says.
“I agreed when I didn’t know what it was!”
“Yes. And it was binding.”
“Binding?” I echo.
