“No.”
“I’m afraid that’s not an option anymore.” Her knife is at my throat faster than I can blink. “I have no other leads but the mysterious coroner who keeps dodging my questions about his sketchy past with the cult destroying my life. Either you spill the tea, or I spill your blood. Your choice.”
“Go on, then.” My chin tips up in invitation. “Draw the line.”
As expected, Poppy doesn’t take the bait. “If I recall correctly, you have a brother and half-sister who will surely let me in on your little secret if I ask as nicely as I’m asking you.”
Rage floods my nervous system. “They’d kill you before you’d even lay your eyes on them.”
“Is that what the three of you were? Killers? Which Master did you work for?”
My canines grind. “We didn’t work for anyone.”
“No? Murderers-for-hire, then?”
“Poppy, st—”
“Tell me, Brontë!” Tears wet her lashes, the whites bloodshot as she seethes, “Or so help me, I will tie your twin up and cut every fucking tattoo from his skin while you watch.”
I don’t see red. I seeblack.
I hear the screams of the dying. I taste iron in the air. I feel blood sticking to my flesh. I see the fear and agony in my siblings’ eyes as they—
“We were slaves!” I bat away the memories, sucking in a ragged breath when Poppy stumbles backward into the opposing wall. “Je suis désolé, Petit Diable.Forgive me, I-I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She waves off my concern, patting the dirt from her shoulders. “What do you mean you were slaves?”
I drag a hand through my hair, willing my lungs to slow. “Do you remember how my story in Texas ended?”
“With your father’s brains blown to bits. You and your siblings left his corpse in the dust where it belonged.”
“Oui.Weeks later, we were hitchhiking through Sleepy Hollow and trusted people we shouldn’t have. We were drugged and woke up in holding cells built underground. The guards bore the Leviathan brand and wore those demon masks. We were…”
Poppy looks at me expectantly, her foot tapping with inflating impatience.
Just rip it off like a Band-Aid, you fool.“We…”
My vision swims. I close my eyes, clearing my throat as my chin falls to my chest. I don’t know which is shaking more: my fists or my heart.
Coffee and cotton candy perfumes the air a moment before I feel Poppy’s arms circle my neck, her cheek pressing to mine. “You’re safe with me,mon ange.I’m not going anywhere, I swear it.”
“We were executioners,” I confess in a whisper. “We were trained in surgical operation and torture by a psychotic doctor. I was knownas Scythe. I skinned people alive. Dantë, Reaper. He broke bones and tore out hearts. Virgil, Nightshade. She brewed poisons. We killed who we were told to kill. The only reason we made it out is because a shadow organization who was hunting them launched an attack and won. We didn’t know anything about our saviors, and we didn’t stick around to find out. My siblings and I ran in fear of being captured again, but as far as I know, our slavers were killed and their underground hive was destroyed. Upon my mother’s grave, I vow this to be the full truth.”
Sleet crashes in the silence. I brace myself for her inevitable reaction to tuck tail and run.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, Poppy inches back and palms my jaw. “Look at me.”
I obey. Her eyes are glossed, her expression agonized.
“Is this why you turn criminals into books? As a sort of…penance?”
“Oui.As a sort. Though, it’s not a burden. It’s a passion.”
A small smile graces her lips. “We have that in common, you and I.” She rises to the tips of her toes, pressing a firm kiss to my scarred cheek. “Merci.”
I nod, and she breaks her hold on me to give me space.
