Page 84 of TBR: Dead But Well Read

Well, duh. I didn’t want him to get whatever he wanted if for no other reason than I was saltier than seawater over the whole being murdered thing.

His fingers tightened around my hand. “Wish I could tell my wife and brother that I love them. I guess you never know when it is your time, even when it’s your job.”

He wasn’t making sense, or maybe the fog in my brain was muddling his words. Did he work at an ER? A mortuary? How did he think he could know when someone was going to die?

Were his eyes pink? No, it had to just be a reflection of the nearby streetlight.

“Is there someone you would say goodbye to?” he asked. His eyes searched my face, seeing the truth without me needing to say a word.

I had no one. Unless I wanted to call my boss and let him know I was calling out of work… forever.

There was only one thing I’d have liked to do: finish the last two chapters of the book I was reading. I was going to be left hanging on a cliffy, and there was no way a book girl could rest in peace when she was dangling like that.

“We’re running out of time.” The man’s chest made an unsettling gurgling sound as he tried to get air into his lungs. “I should’ve healed, but he planned for that, too.”

And I should’ve checked which door I was running through.

Catching a slight movement, I slid my eyes down to find a large beetle swaggering its way up my leg. A warrior who’d come to gloat over the body of his fallen enemy.

I didn’t know enough about insects to know if the beetle had been a stowaway in the crates of art from the Amazon region, or if he was a local type of douchebug. All I was sure of was that this was the biggest beetle I’d seen in my life, and I was helpless to move as it sashayed its way up my leg.

“I’m supposed to help dying people, but my final act is using someone. Please forgive me,” he rasped.

His words were making less and less sense, and the beetle was crawling faster and faster as he moved from my leg to my bare stomach.

PLEASE let me die before it gets to my face!

“I’m sorry.” Those were the last words I heard before I saw the white light.

But instead of walking toward it and into peace, the light seemed to rush at me. It consumed me, burning my body from the inside out and outside in.

I screamed in agony, but of course, no sound came from my lips. As the light continued to taze the ever-loving-life out of me, my one consolation was seeing the beetle fall to the ground beside me, where he lay motionless.

Good. If I wasn’t walking out of here, neither was he.

A moment later, the light won, and I was sucked into nothingness.

Thump.

The memories faded, and I was back in Lochlan’s arms.

I knew who had killed me.

Thump.

I knew who had held my hand when I lay dying, and I now I understood what he was. Philetus. And Zacharias had killed him by using that herb to weaken him and keep him from healing.

Thump.

The same thing he planned to use on Saul.

THUMP.

Not a chance. I would not let Zacharias hurt any of my men. His murderous streak ended today. Forcing my eyes open, I teleported myself back to the secret laboratory.

I blinked in the blinding fluorescent lights, my migraine continuing with that annoying drum beat that pulsed in my ears. Dizziness washed over me and I grabbed the counter to catch myself.

My body still felt like I’d gone a few rounds inside a washing machine full of bowling balls, but my lacerations had closed so that my lifeforce was no longer leaking everywhere, and I considered that a definite plus.

---