Page 20 of Revenant

“What am I thinking?” The girl leans forward, her expression intrigued.

I grimace and shake my head with a laugh, unwilling to let my secrets go so easily. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you don’t think I’ll last here more than a week.”

The girl snorts and rolls her eyes, a hint of a smile playing about her lips as she leans back into her guys. I can’t help but be a little curious about her relationship with them, but I don’t have long to think about it when her image shimmers like looking into a warped mirror.

The air around the table cools, and I spot a woman who looks eerily similar to the pixie. The ghostly form leans across the table toward me, her shape fuzzy around the edges, wispier, like the smoke of a candle as she wavers in and out of existence. Instead of being full of color, she is barely visible, more a trick of the light if I didn’t know what I was seeing. The spirit doesn’t stop creeping closer until she’s only inches away from me, studying my face intently, then she vanishes in a puff of smoke that disappears in seconds.

I blink in surprise, not only because it’s the first ghost I’ve seen in the dungeons, but also because I’m not sure the girl I sawwasa ghost. “Do you have a twin?”

The question escapes me before I can bite it back. The pixie rears back, then stills like a snake seconds away from striking. I wince at my lack of tact. I’m usually better at not blurting out shit, but seeing Gunner and Jaceson has thrown me for a loop.

Before she can lunge for me, a second alarm blares through the room. No one moves as they watch our table. Tension breaks a minute later when I don’t end up in a pool of my own blood. People reluctantly climb to their feet, and I’m not sure if they are more relieved or disappointed that I survived. I dutifully follow everyone else, not taking my eyes off the trio as I trail the rest of the residents, and I find myself in some sort of line.

The three of them follow me closely, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end at having them at my exposed back. When I can’t shake off the vulnerable sensation, I turn and glare at them over my shoulder.

And find the gaunt skeleton hovering so close that the sour stench of death wafts from his breath. Tiny fangs peek out from between his lips, and if I didn’t know vampires aren’t real, I would swear he was one of the undead.

Maybe he’s just that unhealthy, but I can’t dismiss the impression that my hunch is closer to the truth than I would like.

“You might want to back up a step, DJ.” I do my best not to cringe away from him. “People around me have a habit of getting hurt.”

He draws himself up to his full height and scowls down at me. “Are you threatening me?”

My eyebrows shoot up, and I shake my head, answering him honestly. “I am no threat to you. As far as I’m concerned, we have bigger problems to worry about than each other.”

I’m glad he’s so tall that I can’t look behind him and search for Jaceson like some stalker. I feel him in the room like a separate heartbeat, but the longer he remains with the other girl, the more erratic it beats.

“Not in this place,” DJ mutters, drawing my attention back to him. Some of his aggression is dialed back slightly as we shuffle down the line. “If you want to survive, you would be smart to view everyone here as the enemy.”

I can’t fault his logic. He has been locked up here for months, if not longer. He’s in survivor mode. Since I spent most of my life locked away and used by one person or another, my perspective is different. I shrug and give him a crooked smile. “Maybe you just haven’t met the right people yet?”

A snort escapes him, and he looks at me with pity. “After a week or two, you’ll change your mind. This place will change you. The people here would sell their grandmothers if it meant receiving extra liberties. And my name is Dillon, not DJ.”

Before I can retort, the line moves, and a tray of food is shoved in my direction. My eyebrows hitch up in surprise to see actual food and not a glob of indecipherable paste. My stomach growls, and I automatically take the tray, my fingers locked around it in a death grip.

Resuming my seat back at the table, I’m shocked when actual silverware clatters on the tray. Either they don’t care if you try to shank someone else…or it’s a test to see if you can be trusted. While my fingers twitch to pocket the metal, I ignore it and focus on stuffing my face.

I’m surprised when the pixie returns to the same table and sits across from me. Her resting bitch face is impressive, but since I’m not used to people being pleasant, I easily ignore it and continue to eat.

Her two companions join us less than a minute later, sitting on either side of the girl. DJ digs into his food like he hasn’t eaten in a decade, and I’m surprised he eats at all given his thin frame.

Then I get a look at what’s on his plate.

It’s a bloodbath of raw meat. I immediately look away, swallowing hard to keep my lunch down…and catch the older man peering up at me from under his lashes. It takes all my control not to flinch at finding his pitch-black eyes on me. He could almost pass for normal, if not for those dark orbs. Withoutthe white sclera, his gaze is very alien, the predatory sensation crawling along my senses.

“What did you mean about my sister?” The pixie glares at me, and I don’t miss the sharp, blackened nails that tip her fingertips as she drums them menacingly on the table. “My sister is gone.”

“Gone maybe, but not dead.” Of that, I’m sure. The image of the ghost replays in my mind, her form so insubstantial that it reminds me of the comatose patients in the medical wards at the other asylums. Not alive, but not dead either.

Sharp nails screech across the table as she drags her hands into her lap. She looks torn between pleading for answers and lunging across the table to demand them for herself. “You’ve seen her?”

Well, shit.

A tray clatters down next to mine, not giving me a chance to answer. When I glance up, I barely catch a glimpse of Jaceson’s harsh expression…before his lips crash into mine. The taste of sunshine and the outdoors explodes across my senses, and the rest of the world disappears.

His kiss is different from the others’, raw and demanding everything. His hands cup the back of my neck, catching me when I tip backward from the force of his attention. He cradles me close until he steals every last thought in my head.

Humming in satisfaction, he pulls back an inch, like he relishes breathing the same air as me after so long. His straight hair is slightly unkempt, the fringe cut giving him a sexy, just fucked look. His long, dark lashes make his blue eyes even more intense than I remember.

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