Page 5 of Black Hand
“Yes, Sire.” I hated the fact that they knew me too well.
“Johnathan will accompany you, yes?” Frederic was lucky I didn’t jump at him and scratch his eyes out.
“I will attend alone.” Jutting my chin out, I glared at him. “Or not at all.”
“You must accept—” Isiah started, scowling at my glare, but Samir lifted a hand to stop the threats I could see coming.
“Alone it is, child.” His caramel complexion stuck out like a sore thumb among the other two pale faces, giving him a more approachable appearance. It was just a façade, but it worked, nonetheless. “You shall sit next to me, yes?”
“Of course, Sire. It would be my honor.” The words tasted like acid on my tongue.
Johnathan’s face looked like he drank the acid I felt rising in my throat.
I gave Samir a genuine smile for that alone.
“Now, get out of my face,” Isiah snarled baring his fangs at me, all pretense of a civilized being gone in the blink of an eye.
“As you wish, Sire.” Flipping my hand with flourish, I bowed before whirling around and bolting out of the room.
Samir’s guffaw echoed behind me, the sound drowning out all the cursing spilling from Isaiah’s lips. I had no doubt that I’d pay for that little tantrum later. But it was so worth it to leave that kiss-ass Johnathan inside a room with a pissed-off Isiah. If I was lucky, he might have a missing eye tonight.
How was that for a celebratory gift?
My cheeks hurt from how hard I was smiling as I hurried to find Veronica and warn her about what was coming. Because when the Syndicate was celebrating, the rest of the world mourned.
I needed to be ready for anything.
3
The industrial part of the city was a favorite place of mine, and I went there often to get away from all the crazy that was my life. Reaching up for the fire escape, I yanked the metal railing down and jumped on it while it was still rolling toward the ground. The clinking of my boots bounced off the alley and a cat screeched from one of the banged-up dumpsters in the narrow space. My heart skipped a beat at the feral sound and a nervous chuckle burst through my lips. With my face tilted up, I kept climbing until I reached the roof of the abandoned warehouse.
Debris, rotten leaves from the tall tree on one side of the structure, and who knew what else littered the top of the warehouse. I was picking my way around it all and flicking a few things away with the toes of my boots. The vents and air conditioning units were sticking out of the flat structure like humps on a camel, so I had to weave around them, and when I did the city came to life before my eyes. When I reached my spot, the place where I came to just breathe, it felt like coming home. Or at least that was what coming home should feel like.
I didn’t know for sure.
Lights twinkled from across the tall buildings that were rising up high as if reaching to touch the moon. The honking of cars and the buzz of the city was as clear to me as if I was standing in the thick of it while the human world moved around me. Curling my knees to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them and took a deep breath, my eyes closing from the peace of it all. Even the stench was soothing somehow.
It didn’t smell like corpses.
Or blood.
Or metal cages …
A shudder made me rub my hands over my upper arms to ward off the chill seeping into my bones. The past was behind me and I had to keep it there. Thinking about those nightmares would drive any person insane.
The rolling of a pebble stiffened my shoulders.
“It’s just me.” Those hushed words were as loud as a shout to any of my kind, but I never told her that. “Why on earth you always want to meet here is beyond me, Brooklyn. It stinks like a shithouse.”
“Good to see you too, Alice.” I turned to look at her over my shoulder, biting on my lip so I didn’t laugh when she stumbled over a rock that somehow found its way onto this roof.
Alice was human. She was also an animal rights activist that had the balls to stand up to me one night when I was attacked by a shifter. The poor woman thought I was trying to hurt the dog—though it wasn’t a dog at all, but I had no way in hell explaining that to her. I wasn’t sure who was more confused, me or the damn shifter, when she planted herself between us and shook her fist at me like a ninety-year-old grandma telling off a child. I also believed her mouth was foaming in anger more than the wolf’s behind her. When it came to animals, you did not mess with Alice Green. The woman would tear you apart with her bare hands.
It gave me an idea.
The same idea that I was well aware would cost me my life one of these days.
Cursing up a storm under her breath, she lifted her head and pushed the thick frames of her glasses up her nose. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders in waves all the way to her lower back, and her thin frame was covered in a long flowing tie-dye dress. Strands of crystals clinked as they swayed around her neck and wrists while she tattered and stumbled her way to me.
