Page 58 of Black Curtain

“I’m paying attention!” Kiko protested.

Under me, Black grunted.

I could feel he’d taken offense at Dex’s words.

“Only been one of my best friends for twenty years,” Black muttered darkly. “I guess THAT doesn’t count. All of a suddenI’mjust invisible.Idon’t matter. Just because of some stupid dragon shit that wasn’t even my fault. That isn’t even aTHINGanymore. NowI’mthe bad guy. I’m just somefreakhe used to know. He won’t even come to my goddamnedwedding.Practically had toforcehim to eat the damned wedding cake…”

Dex glared at him.

The Marine looked about to say something, but he never got the chance.

“HELLO,” the voice repeated from the ceiling. “I HOPE YOU ARE ALL RECOVERING WELL FROM YOUR JOURNEY HERE…”

We all stared up, in the direction of the disembodied voice.

I heard Dex mutter something darkly under his breath.

That time, I didn’t catch it.

It might not have even been in a language I know.

From the way Black turned sharply, glaring at Dex,heclearly caught it. He at least understood the emotion behind it. From their exchanged offended and hurt looks, I suspected they were continuing their argument, even with the voice speaking overhead.

The others didn’t seem to notice, apart from Kiko.

Jax was speaking in some other language, and I couldn’t tell who he was talking to. Kiko tried to see around his arms, obviously trying to meet gazes with Dexter.

I could almost feel her trying to get Dex to look at her.

Dalejem let out a sound that made me think of a wolf growling over her pups.

Nick was still crying.

“I APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE OF THIS. I REALLY WISH I COULD HAVE WAITED…”

Anger rippled through me as I looked around at my friends.

This piece of shit motherfucker.

I knew that voice.

I fuckingknewit.

I knew exactly who’d done this to us.

We should all be safe inside a resort… or swimming in the pool… eating tacos with our friends, our feet dipped in the hot tub. We should all be safe to work out our shit there, cocooned in love and warmth and safety.

But we were here.

And I knew exactly who had brought us here now.

I’d know that goddamned Louisiana twang anywhere.

I knew the exact timbre. I knew the exact accent and emphasis on certain words. At this point, I wasn’t even sure how much of that was New Orleans and how much of it was just Brick, and his own annoying, ridiculous, deliberatelyaggravatingway of speaking.

In any case, I knew it was him.

But I was also reasonably sure we were listening to a recording, which confused me. He’d come out here with us. He’d beenwithus, hadn’t he? I remembered Brick feeding off Black on the plane. Someone had clearly been feeding on Nick.

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