Page 45 of Blaze of Our Lives

“I don’t trust that,” Pandora said, perturbed. “Do you think they hurt the idiots?”

I wanted to say no, but I wasn’t sure. Hopefully, they were back home with the munchkins eating cookies. Reminding myself that they might not be real didn’t help. They were my friends, real or not, and I was worried. “I don’t know,” I answered Pandora honestly. “I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”

She didn’t reply. I didn’t blame her. It was a crappy answer with a potentially unhappy ending.

After a bit, she spoke. “May I make a suggestion?”

“Sure,” I said, eyeing the course to ascertain if it was the same or different. To the naked eye, it looked the same, but I wasn’t stupid enough to trust that. What was going to be devastating was if I didn’t make it through on the second try. I didn’t want the third time to be the charm. We needed to get the hell out of this place.

“You know how it’s wildly satisfying when the bad guy gets his karma?” she questioned.

My brows shot up in surprise. I had no clue where Pandora was going with this one. She was the ‘baddest guy’ I knew.

“Umm…”

She chuckled. The sound had no humor in it at all. “Yes, Cecily. Someone like me. I’m fully aware that I’ll be punished the moment I’m released from you. I shall accept it and do my time. Honestly, getting incarcerated will be a relief. Maybe after my several thousand-year sentence, the Demons will have forgotten how awful I’ve been.”

I winced but said my piece. “Awful is kind of mild, dude.”

“Yes, well, as much as I enjoy talking about myself—and I do love talking about myself, the original query wasn’t about me. It was about the talking ashtray and her sidekick, Jackass McJackhole.”

I chuckled as I continued to study the course from afar. “What about them?”

“I’d thoroughly enjoy you beheading them. You could narrate the entire bloody affair so I can feel like I’m there. It would be so much fun! Maybe take a few selfies with their headless bodies.”

“Mmkay, not sure I’d use the word fun. Possibly deserved, but not fun.” I didn’t comment on the selfie suggestion. She was freaking insane.

“You need to grow some bigger balls,” she commented.

“Mine are huge,” I told her. “Barely have room for them in my pants.”

Pandora laughed. It brought a real smile to my lips. I despised her sins, but I no longer hated the sinner. Some wouldn’t be able to separate the crimes from the woman herself, but none of them had walked around with her in their head for an extended period of time. I had. I wanted her out but wondered if I’d miss her.

“I have another idea,” she announced.

“If it has anything to do with dismemberment, decapitation or castration, you need to hold those thoughts. I want to focus on right now and getting through the obstacle course.”

“It has to do with that,” she assured me.

“Shoot,” I told her as I watched Phyllis and Heff with their heads together in deep conversation. That made me nervous. I was beginning to wonder if the freaking course was rigged so no one could win. Phyllis was shady AF, and Heff was an evil dolt. If it was unwinnable, I was in trouble.

“Let me help you,” she said.

“You have helped me. I couldn’t have gotten as far as I did without you. You were amazing.”

“Of course, I was amazing,” she said. “I’m Pandora. However, I think, with a little magic, I could be of far more aid.”

“I’m listening.”

“As you know, I’m very beautiful and powerful,” she began.

“And humble,” I commented.

“Screw you, Cecily. I’m doing my best to be nice. It does not come naturally to me,” she snapped.

She’d gone from “fuck you, Cecily” to “screw you, Cecily.” The Shitty Whore was definitely thawing. “Sorry. Keep going.”

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, if you can cast a spell, I believe you could use my appendages if you lose yours.”

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