Page 30 of Snake

And dear God, my heart almost stops when he yanks out that restaurant bill.

He kept it all this time.

Silas unfolds it, holds it out for us to see. “She can’t stop us,” he says. “Else she would have already. She was a sign telling us we can do this. We should do this.” He glances over at Mason, but there’s an unfocused glaze over those amber eyes, so he turns to me instead.

His voice drops the closer he gets. “Think about it, Knox. Think about what a better place this world would be if we got rid of them.”

My eyes crawl back to the list. To Silas’s face. The list.

There’s a sour taste in my mouth, the twisting of my stomach pushing bile up my throat. I take the list, study it. I hear Mason’s clothing rub together as he stands. “Knox, no,” he mumbles.

But when I look into Silas’s piercing blue eyes, I can see it’s already been decided.

Fuck. There’s no stopping this train, is there? We can try to derail it, but I don’t know how. We made an oath, even Mason.

But there’s someone who wasn’t there that night. Who didn’t make any promises. Someone who sees the world differently from what we do.

I always hated outsiders. They never could understand how Cinderhart worked. The invisible web we’re all caught in. But an outsider is our only hope.

Silas is wrong. Nim is the only one who can stop us. Who can save us. But how can I convince Silas to involve her without making it obvious what her true purpose is?

By giving him what he wants.

“We’ll do it,” I tell Silas, my voice rough with emotion. Mason lets out a pained groan as he sinks back onto the arm of the sofa, but what’s done is done.

I slap the list onto Silas’s chest, keeping it there with a firm hand. “But if we’re going to Hell, then we’re dragging Nim with us.”

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