Page 110 of Reaper Flame

“You sick bastard!” Vixen’s screams echoed around the clearing. “I’ll fucking—”

Rocky put his hand over her mouth to silence her as tears ran down her cheeks. The more value Hiram thought Mieko had, the harder he would make it.

“I need time to consider your proposal, Kitten.” Hiram chuckled. “Let me sleep on it.”

“Don’t think about it for too long,” I threatened. “You know how impatient I can be. And don’t fucking hurt her, or I will return the Blackbird lobotomized. He won’t be any good to you then.”

“I’ll speak to you in the morning, Kitten,” Hiram said. “Sleep well.”

The line went dead.

There would be no sweet dreams tonight, only nightmares.

TWENTY-THREE

Hiram had Mieko...

“What was that?” Zander snarled. “You shouldn’t have made the deal.”

“Why?” Vixen rubbed her red eyes. “Red told me the Blackbird is locked in the bunker with Giles. We’ll swap them back!”

“That’s not entirely accurate…” Rocky squirmed. “I didn’t have time to fill you in on the whole story.”

No fucking shit. He missed the most important part — you know, the part about him not beingaliveanymore! Vixen didn’t pay Rocky any attention, though.

“Maybe the Blackbird could help us?” Vixen muttered. “He must know where Hiram is holding her, right? What’s the point in having the bastard in our pockets if he can’t feed us information when we need it?”

Not only was I responsible for Mieko being snatched from under our fucking noses, but I’d killed the only person who would have been able to help us. My earlier victory left a sour taste in my mouth.

“There’s a small problem with that,” I said, strapping on my big girl panties and preparing for the worst. Whatever Vixen threw at me couldn’t be worse than what I’d put myself through. “The Blackbird is dead.”

If there was a gold medal for monumental fuck-ups, I’d be standing on the podium getting showered in shit.

“What?” Vixen stammered. “How? When?!”

“I killed him tonight.”

I liked to believe every mistake could be a learning experience, but this was not one of them. I’d fucked up. Badly. Watching Vixen’s face fall and her mascara drip down her face crushed my heart. I was the worst fucking person in the world. A true monster.

Vixen’s eyes bulged in horror. “You killed the only bargaining chip we have!”

“It was a…mistake,” I murmured. I caught Zander’s eye and hung my head. “I see that now.”

Any other explanation would seem petty. Zander was right. I’d been reckless, and karma had come to whip my fucking ass. I thought I’d been doing a bad thing for the right reasons, but there was nothing good about me. No matter how hard I tried to do better, I still screwed everything up. I’d spent so long trying to convince myself there was some good in me somewhere. Convincing myself that Ideservedto be free. Did I really belong with Hiram? Was becoming a monster and staying with him my true destiny?

“A mistake?!” Vixen laughed hollowly. “How many more mistakes are you going to make, Candy? You’ve nearly destroyed us all, and if Mieko dies, then her blood is on your fucking hands.”

She was right. Everyone and everything I touched turned to fucking ash. All the people I got close to died eventually: Crystal, Q… The Sevens would be next. I was a human version of a fly zapper, and it’d be their twitching bodies lying on the ground when the end came.

“Why make a deal with him?” Vixen asked as Rocky pulled her trembling body close. “We have nothing.”

“Hiram won’t kill her,” I said, hoping to sound more confident than I felt. “Not when Mieko is still useful to him. He wants to get to me and, as long as he thinks the Blackbird is alive, he won’t harm her.”

“You’re right.” Zander nodded slowly in understanding. “Making that deal is the only assurance we have that he’ll keep her alive.”

Death wasn’t the only thing we had to fear. There were fates far worse and, with most of Hiram’s prisoners, being put out of your misery seemed like a five-star holiday in the Bahamas compared to the alternative. I squeezed my nails into my palm until I drew blood, trying to push away the flashbacks. Images that haunted my nightmares. We had to bring Mieko back before irreversible damage was done.

“The fight breaking out at the Maven was no accident,” West said. “He knew we were there. He wanted to keep us distracted.”

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