Page 43 of Lust
All the hurt, denial, pain, self-loathing—it all bubbled to the surface, along with the poison waiting beneath her skin. It grew hot. It burned like a pressure valve needing release. And there was only one way to let it out. In two deadly strikes, she lashed out. First, the knife to the jaw. He dodged, but failed to see the follow up poison. A torpedo-like projectile launched from her other hand, hitting Parker’s face. He flinched, let go of his weapon, and covered his jaw as he went to the ground.
Sizzling.
Oh shit.
“Parker?” Liza’s voice trembled with hesitancy.
“Did you have to go for the face?” His voice muffled through his hands.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s sizzling. Burning.Christ.”
“Quick. Go wash it off.”
“No. Get a sample kit.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
“I’ll be fine, Liza.”
“You’re not invincible, dickhead.”
“Close enough.” He dragged himself off the floor, squinted, and found the swab kit he’d already brought into the gym. “Help me get a swab out.”
Heart pounding in her chest, she did as was told and swabbed his face, still sizzling like he’d been hit with acid, not tetrodotoxin. She put the sample in a test tube. Once she was done, she used a saline solution to cleanse his jaw. After the poison drained, he was left with red, blistering skin beneath the coarse hair of his short beard. Guilt pierced her.
“Parker, you know I love you too, and that’s why I can say this. That pride of yours is going to kill you one day.”
His gaze flicked to her with a sad sort of recognition that hit between her ribs. She knew how he felt. All of the Lazarus siblings knew death by their sin was a very real possibility. Except with Parker, perhaps he’d resigned himself to the inevitability of it. Perhaps it wasn’t pride making him like this, but the fact he’d given in.
“Did you have to provoke me?” she said softly.
“You weren’t getting worked up without it,” he murmured with another wince.
“You could be scarred. On your face.” She joked, but there was a serious note to it. No one wanted to be scarred, especially not as a result of a whim, or a tease.
“I won’t.”
She made an incredulous sound through her teeth. Her compassion evaporated. “You’re so conceited you think poison is afraid to hurt you.”
His jaw clenched, but he said nothing, only packed up the sample kit, and headed for the door.
“Was it true?” she called after him.
He paused, turned back, and then nodded grimly before leaving.
“Asshole.” She threw the karambit at the doorframe.
“You made the mess,” he shouted back. “You clean up.”
13
Joe spenthours organizing the mess outside Heaven. As the only law enforcement officer on the scene at the time of the crime, he had many boxes to check and many points of contact to brief. But after the emergency response team was fully briefed, he was tired, grumpy and a little bit furious. Liza had left. Never before had she fled the scene of a crime. She would stick around and pester, and pull apart the scene until she had something to work with.
No matter what was going on between them, she should know better. She was different from her family. They dressed up in costume, wreaked havoc at night, and then fled the scene like it was every other day. It was common for them, but not Liza.
He didn’t like the feeling in his chest when he thought about her falling into the same patterns as them.
