Page 84 of One For my Enemy

Then she dragged a nail down the front of his chest and he howled in pain, stumbling backwards into the side table that had been hastily shoved against the wall.

“Whatthe—”

“You’re going to help me with something,” Sasha said, and it wasn’t a question. She retracted her hand, eyeing her fingers. If he’d expected to see claws, it didn’t happen. She wasn’t some sort of creature, he reminded himself. She was just a beautiful girl capable of causing him terrible pain, not unlike all the others.

“What am I helping with?” he asked, which was mostly reflexive, because he didn’t want to.

Or did he?

It was hard to tell what he wanted, really, knowing instinctively she could wrap her pretty hand around his throat and drag the answer she wanted directly from his tongue. Nobody ever expected the quiet ones, he thought, perversely delighted; sometimes the element of surprise jarred him out of his waxy dullness better than a drug. Better than the kinds of drugs he sold, anyway. That’s why he never really felt bad about it—pills didn’t do shit for the people who needed them, truth be told. Brain chemistry was hugely unhelpful that way.

“You’re going to be my eyes,” Sasha informed him.

“What am I looking for?”

She smiled thinly. “Money.”

“I can do that,” he said.

“Of course you can,” she said. “I’m telling you to.”

He stared at her.

Fuck, did she own him?

Did hewanther to?

“Got more of those drugs?” he asked. He didn’t normally abuse his own products (outside of what was required for his own sanity, or something resembling sanity) but whatever Baba Yaga was making, he wanted it. He wanted to taste Sasha on his tongue again, even if it was only a hallucination.

Hell, better the hallucination. Reality left a bitter aftertaste.

“Right here,” she said, holding up a row of candy-colored tablets, “though you’ll need this, too,” she said, presenting him with a thin leather cuff.

“I’m not one for accessories,” he said.

“You are now,” she told him, and blithely, he figured he was.

Fuck, was it her?

Was it the drugs?

Maybe it was magic.

She slid the cuff around his wrist, running a thumb over the edges and locking it in place as it shrank down, fitting itself to his skin.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she said.

“Who would believe me?” he replied, staring down at it, and to that, she permitted a smile.

“Oh, you’re well and truly fucked, Taylor,” she said, and crushed a single tablet into powder between her fingers, holding it up to his nose.

Eric took a deep breath; let it settle somewhere near the forefront of his mind; let the vision of her swim into pretty waves of senseless oblivion.

He wasn’t a villain. He was pretty sure of that.

But holy fuck, he wasweak.

IV. 5

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