Page 108 of Fool Me Twice

She smiled slowly.

Straight teeth flashing at him.

“That means it’s moved on to something more important.”

Cane tensed, and she caught it immediately, eyes shining. She stepped to the side, then continued so she was half circling him. Dangerous. Predatory.

“Tell me, Cane, what’s more important to you than your business?”

Cane kept her in his eyeline, not letting her out of his sight for a second. “Nothing.”

She giggled. “You can lie to me, but you can’t lie to the curse. It knows your deepest secrets. It digs into your heart and makes sure it finds exactly what you love so it can destroy it in front of your eyes.”

Cane’s breathing picked up, though he tried to school it. Was that what was happening to Hart? Was the curse destroying him in front of Cane, all because…because…

“Who do you love, Cane?” she asked conversationally, linking her hands behind her back like some demented schoolgirl.

“Myself.”

“But the curse isn’t on you. So let’s run through the list, shall we? I’ve been watching you for a while, you see. I wanted to be there at the end.” She paced back the other way, almost skipping. “Now there’s those sad little twins, and that hulking dimwit you have by your side, but the curse already passed through them, didn’t it? Then there’s the cursebreaker…”

She already knew. She was playing with him.

“The one you moved into your apartment. The one who moved you into his house. Seems a little overkill for a business relationship to me.” She giggled again, an echo of Sarah’s laugh in it. “But this is fantastic! I really didn’t anticipate this when I made the curse, you know. I didn’t think a monster like you could actually love anyone.”

“Why the fuck does it matter?” he snapped.

“Because the more you love something, the more the curse ravages it, of course. It feeds off of it. The depth of your emotion is the strength of the curse,” she said. “So really, whatever is happening to you is your fault. You feed it. You strengthen it. Whatever is happening to your cursebreaker is because you love him so much. You love him so fucking much you managed to get him cursed when it should have been impossible.”

“You’re fucking insane!” Cane shouted, finally losing his cool.

She sneered, all teeth and curled-back lips. “How does that make you feel, Cane? To have everything you love stripped away from you. To be left alone in the world, knowing your love destroyed everything.”

“You act so high and fucking mighty, little girl, but you’re just like me,” Cane spat at her.

“You’re a monster!”

“Look in a fucking mirror!” Cane shouted. “What do you think I was thinking of every night I was in prison after your mom took everything from me? She was my monster, and I wanted to ruin her, so badly. So I planned it out, step by step. How to maximize the pain. How to make it hurt so she would regret what she did.”

“This is different!” Arianna screamed. “You’re the monster, not me! You killed her! You killed her and we lost everything. My dad couldn’t even cope with it, he wasted away slowly and died too and it’s your fault!”

“Blame me all you want, but we’re the same, you and I. Exactly the fucking same.”

She screamed at him, her voice hoarse and broken with how loud and enraged she was. She reached into her pockets and pulled out a handful of sulfur-like powder, the neon yellow staining her fingertips, a handful of what looked like bloody gore in the other.

Cane reached behind his back to pull his gun just as she held the powder and blood to her lips to mutter into. Her eyes sparked with blue arcs of electricity, and she blew before he could draw. The sulfur turned into a jet of electric blue flame, and Cane barely managed to duck out of the way, dropping his gun.

The tree behind him got blasted, the cursed flames engulfing the trunk and spreading like they would have done had they caught an inch of Cane’s skin.

Cane landed awkwardly on his hands and knees, his fractured ribs and busted arm protesting the fall. He tried to breathe through the pain as she approached him, more of that powder and blood dripping from her fingertips.

And then there were more footsteps, swarming from all angles.

Arianna broke from her murderous haze and looked around herself. “No… No, no, no!”

She tried to run and got caught immediately, two PUMA enforcers grasping her by the arms and locking rune-engraved cuffs on her. A few others ran to the tree to try and contain and cordon off the area so the cursed flames wouldn’t spread.

“HE’S THE MURDERER!” Arianna screeched, kicking out and twisting, hair falling into her face and mouth. “ARREST HIM! HE KILLED MY MOTHER! SHE’S BURIED RIGHT THERE!”

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