Page 107 of Fool Me Twice

“She had it coming.” He shrugged faux-casually as he assessed her, glancing down to see her fists clenching, knuckles white.

She didn’t have anything with her. No bag, nothing in her hands. Unless her pockets were stuffed with the shit needed to cast a curse, he figured he’d be safe from magic. And she was no match for him physically.

“FUCK YOU!” She spat at his feet, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Is this where you dumped her? Is this what you thought she deserved? To be discarded like trash?”

“Pretty much,” he said, pushing his venom into the cracks in her walls and hoping they’d disintegrate and weaken. She was a child. Impulsive. Reckless. He just needed to find that switch to get her to snap completely and give him what he wanted.

She stared at him for a long moment before releasing the ugliest laugh he’d ever heard in his entire life. It rang through the clearing, hitting him right in the gut and turning his stomach cold.

There it was.

Sarah.

“You fucking asshole,” she said through her hysterical giggles. “You’re not even sorry. You’re not even ashamed of murdering someone.”

“No, not really.” He leaned against the trunk of the tree and crossed his legs. “Your mother did a lot of bad shit to me, kid.”

“I’m not a kid!” she growled, eyes flashing.

“Yes, you are.” He snorted. “And so was I when she left me bleeding in the dirt before calling the police and pinning all of the shit she’d done on me. I was the same age you are now.”

“My mother made you, you ungrateful prick!”

“She did,” he said. “And then she tried to unmake me. And I bought her bullshit because I was just as stupid as you are, thinking the sun shone out of her lying, conniving ass.”

“Don’t talk about her like that!” she screamed at him, and he lurched forward, getting right into her face.

“I’ll talk about her however I fucking please, you got that?” he spat at her. “I knew your mother when she was nothing more than trash skulking around dark alleys. I stood by her and helped her claw her way out of the shit she was stuck in. I was the one helping. Doing her dirty work. Picking her up when she wanted to fuck it all up. Do not tell me how to talk about her when you didn’t even know her.”

“I’ll ruin you!”

“You already did,” he said. “You took my partners, my business, my reputation. You did what you intended to do. Just like your mother.”

She looked him in the eyes, shaking her head slowly before stepping away from him and turning her back on him.

“Nah,” she said. “It’s not over yet.”

The words sent a chill up his spine. “There is nothing left for you to take.”

“You wouldn’t have brought me here if the curse was done,” she said. “You’d have been locked up somewhere. Out of your mind. Rocking back and forth in a dark corner like a ghost.”

He kept quiet because this was it. This was what he wanted to hear.

“No,” she continued. “The curse isn’t back on you yet.”

“Back on me?” he asked, squinting. She spun back around and looked at him, wide eyes dark and deranged looking. She was completely gone.

“You really are just as stupid as she said you were,” she said. “Listening to everything she said. Yipping at her heel like a little lap dog. Pathetic.”

He clenched his fists at the insults, forcing himself to think about kisses that tasted of cigarette smoke on his lips and floral pocket squares. Hart. He was doing this for Hart. His pride had no room here when Hart’s safety depended on how Cane reacted.

“You were patient zero,” Arianna said. “You were the one walking around like the disease you are, giving it to the people around you.”

“Well I hate to tell you this, kid,” Cane said, feigning stupidity, “but you fucked up somewhere. None of the people around me were cursed.”

“YOU IDIOT!” she screamed again. “The curse moves! It changes people one by one until there is nothing left around you. And then it’ll go back to you. To destroy YOU.”

“Like I said, you fucked up,” Cane said, spreading his arms and turning on the spot. “I don’t know about you, kid, but I’m feeling very un-cursed. And seeing as I’m not locked up somewhere, rocking back and forth, the curse isn’t really doing what you wanted it to, is it?”

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