Page 120 of Priest and his Anarchist

“She’s out?” Deacon asks from behind, and I turn over my shoulder to see him near the staircase.

“Don’t get excited. When a snake is in hibernation, she’s still a snake.” If I suck on the nicotine any harder, I’ll go up in flames.

“This isn’t good. You care to enlighten me? I spent a great deal researching all over the world how to get into the head of a—” He pauses, waving back up the stairs. “—her. And now she’s back?”

I stop, just short of turning back to my half-brother.

“Did you see the state of my living room?” I point down with my fingers. “You gonna tell me you’re not curious what the fucking cat dragged in?”

Deacon’s eyes widen. “Okay. Fair. Yes, I am, but Vaden is?—”

“Goddamn, guess the bitch is back—” The words leave me.

Deacon waves his hands out as if performing a magic trick. “—Vaden right out there, and I have to tell you something that happened tonight?—”

I land on the bottom floor right when a loud crash sounds from upstairs.

“You sure you got a handle on that still?” Vaden’s eyes come to mine, his brow raised when he walks through the front door. “Maybe you’ve lost your touch of…well…”

I glare at him. “Don’t fucking say it.”

He laughs. “I’m playing. Okay. Let’s see the damage of who she’s dropped this time. The last time caused a lifetime rift between a cult of brothers, now?—”

“There was a last time?” Deacon asks nervously, stepping around the blood-stained suit near my front door.

“Oh, Priest didn’t tell you? This one is the jealous type, and she doesn’t much like when others play with her toy.”

When Deacon doesn’t catch on, I lower to the dark-haired man lying face down in the pool of brain matter and blood. This rug was expensive. I hope it comes out.

Vaden continues when Deacon’s last brain cell can’t catch what he’s saying. “Priest being the only toy she’s ever played with.”

I roll dead guy onto his back with a shove. Even in death, he hides the secrets he kept.

Fuck. Another Gentlemen dropped. Consider that treaty good and burned.

Deacon and Vaden are still bickering about something stupid, and on any other day I’d be partially amused for the mere fact that it’s as though Vaden is still inside somewhere.

Ripping the crucifix from his neck, I toss the chain at Vaden.

He catches it mid air and stares down at the corpse. “Fuck. She just started a war.”

Yeah. And something tells me that’s what she wanted.”

“She’s a good girl, then, isn’t she?” Vaden’s smile needs to be knocked off his face.

Dear Darlings

Dear Darlings,

I stop, staring back at the ink as it dries on the page. What did I want to put here?

Dear Darlings, sorry that I fucked around and killed my lover’s wife.

“Stop doing that.” He growls and my eyes find his in the mirror. The morning sun sets on his face, but it does nothing to hide the ugliness inside.

“Doing what?” I bat my lashes up at him, folding my hands on my lap. “I want to, though. Please…”

The corner of his eye twitches, and my smirk widens.

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