Page 113 of Dead Beat

“Are you hungry?” he asked, but Alex was always hungry.

Dawes had left a Spanish omelet in the refrigerator and a pitcher of cider beside a bottle of calvados. They heated the eggs and potatoes, then took it all up to the Virgil bedroom. He made a fire in the grate and they ate in silence. When they were done, Alex disappeared into the bathroom, and he heard the spigots of the big steam shower.

She hesitated in the doorway, and he could see she was nervous. Then she rocked back on her heels and pulled the sweater over her head.

“Come on,” she said. Her chin jutted out. “If you want to.”

“I want to,” he said. He had never wanted anything more in this life.

He followed her into the shower, glad for the heat of the water, for the censor of palo santo she’d lit. Purification. He didn’t know if he could just wash Black Elm away, but in the slip of the water, in the great anonymous cloud of steam, and then at last, in the slick press of her body, the weight of her as he braced her against the tiles, he almost believed.

They slept curled into each other, their hair damp, the curtains drawn closed. Sometime in the night, he felt her reach for him, her hand guiding him inside her.

“Greedy,” he murmured against her neck.

“I don’t know how long I get to keep you.”

Forever if you like. “Tell me what you need.”

Hellfire bloomed over their bodies and a flood of images with it, Alex’s desire racing through the tether between them.

I want to be an offering. He saw obsidian walls, and Alex in a gown of silk, her wrists and ankles bound by chains, laid upon an altar for the beast at the center of the labyrinth, a sacrifice, helpless and treasured, venerated before she was destroyed. I want to be innocent again. They were lying entwined in the bed of a truck, the stars above them, the warm night around them, the scent of jasmine and meadow grass like gold dust covering their bodies. I want to be overwhelmed.

They were all these things and none of them.

“I want to know you’re mine and no one else’s,” she said. “Even if it’s only true for now.”

Who were they to make promises when death was waiting? When time was short? When they would only ever be mortal?

“’Til the end of days,” he vowed. And after.

They woke to their phones pinging, sunlight cast in pale stripes against the floor.

Turner was in the group chat.

Come now. Bring the box. And anything else you’ve got.

PART IIIEt in Perpetuum

41

Darlington released a worried sigh as they pulled up to the address Turner had sent.

Alex looked at the small house painted bright yellow, the high fence, the playground in back. A day care. Nothing good was waiting for them in there.

Turner’s Dodge was parked out front and he emerged looking tired but perfectly put together in a fresh suit.

“Is this going to be weird?” Alex asked before she opened the car door. “Last night and … everything.”

“I feel weird,” he admitted.

“You look weird.”

“I do?”

“No, you look criminally perfect, but I wanted to restore the balance of power.”

“I want to be with you as much as I can be. So really nothing has changed.”