Page 74 of Starve
The words make me go cold. I look up at her, eyes wide and dumb. “Kill…me?” I repeat. “But Cairo—He wouldn’t let—” Her brow arches as I break off, a gasp on my lips. “No. No, he’s not?—”
“I’ll ask.” The words are so casual that they don’t register right away. Moro doesn’t even have time to look up from where she’s licking at the blood seeping from the body before Agathais gone again. Another man screams, and when I turn around I find her beside the stairs, holding him up even as he struggles in her grip.
“I’ll leave.” This one is smarter than his dead friend. His eyes are on Agatha, terrified and wide while reflecting the moon above. “I saw you. I didn’t attack—I wouldn’t, no matter what he said.” The man’s eyes flick to mine, then back to her. “Please, Agatha. Don’t do this.”
“Tell me what happened,” Agatha commands in a calm, measured voice. Casually, she reaches up and tucks her hair behind her ear, exerting no more effort than if she were holding a squirming kitten off the ground, almost making me sigh with envy. If this were any other circumstance, I probably would.
Instead, I look at Moro, who’s still lapping at the blood, and consider calling her off of it. But what the hell, I have bigger problems than my dog becoming a bloodthirsty killer by the light of the semi-full moon.
“He told us to kill her.” The man nods at me, more afraid of Agatha than anything. He’s still struggling, though it really is hopeless. There’s no way he can get away from her, considering how effortlessly she’s holding him by the throat.
“Tyler?” Agatha assumes, glancing at me with a look of warning in her eyes, like she expects me to do something stupid. I don’t think I will, but that’s not saying anything, given my recent life choices. Instead of adding in my opinion or commentary, I curl my fingers against my palms, digging my nails into my skin to ground myself as anxiety prickles up my spine, then try to take deep, centering breaths like my meditation app tells me to do.
Agatha shifts her grip, causing the man to hiss in discomfort, and for his feet to dangle a little higher above the ground. He’s too afraid to fight her, and that doesn’t give him many optionsfor escape. “Where is Cairo?” she asks, and her tone makes it known that she expects to be answered.
But the man still hesitates, his eyes wide. “Please don’t make me…I’m just doing what I was told,” he murmurs, his fangs bared in fear rather than aggression. But the idea that she’ll kill him for his answer makes my blood run cold, and I take a step toward her, barely noticing her warning glance in my direction.
“Where’s Cairo?” I breathe, needing the answer.
The man takes a breath, swallowing under Agatha’s grip. “He’s dead,” the cursed states, a tremble in his voice that probably has nothing to do with his feelings on Cairo’s fate. “He came to confront Tyler…and he underestimated him. Cairo is dead, and killing me won’t change that.”
Chapter 30
The words don’t quitecompute in my head. I stand there on the steps, wavering, while my heart pounds in my ears in the otherwise silent night.
He’s dead.
Cairo is dead.
“No…” Every part of me feels suddenly cold, and my nerve endings tingle.
He’s.
Dead.
After all this, and all the things I hadn’t said to him?—
“Liar.” Agatha’s tone is flat, unimpressed, and definitely a little dismissive. “Smart, though, trying to hurt her like that.”
My head jerks upward, eyes finding the man’s as he writhes in Agatha’s tightening grip. “What?” I breathe. “He’s not?—”
“He will be,” the man spits in frustration, showing off his fangs as his eyes reflect the moonlight in garish greens and yellows. “Now or in two days, who gives a damn? What’sshegoing to do about it?” he sneers the words, showing off dirty fangs, spit dribbling down his chin as he heaves and tries again to get away from Agatha’s hand.
But she just sighs and sets him down, surprisingly carefully. “Where are they?” she asks, in a tone that sends a shiver down my spine, though on the surface she sounds friendly enough.
He looks at her, frozen, like a rabbit too stupid or stunned to move. “The old logging camp,” he tells her quietly. “They’re—” Agatha doesn’t let him finish. Just like with the other cursed earlier, she plunges her free hand into his chest and twists, before ripping backward and dragging his heart through his ribs with a sickening, wet crunch.
The cursed gives a little sound in the back of his throat akin to a whine or a protest. He drops to his knees on the stairs, not caring that the concrete must be uncomfortable, and downright painful. But then again, he has bigger problems, seeing as there’s a hole in his chest where his heart should be.
Without an ounce of pity in her eyes Agatha drops his heart and steps away from him, once more wiping her hand on her dress, though she doesn’t get nearly all the blood off with just the simple action.
“He’s not dead?” I follow her as she drags both men’s bodies down the stairs, hovering close while Moro moves to sniff at the new organ offering she was given. “So you can help him, right?”
“He’s not dead. I doubted he was,” Agatha remarks coolly, dropping both of them in a heap like putting garbage out on the street. “But he will be. Tyler will keep him alive for a little while, just to prove a point. Just to let some of the others see, and so he can hurt him.” She sounds so nonchalant about the whole thing, meanwhile my heart is twisting itself into knots.
“So you can help him,” I repeat, standing on the stairs above her while she stares up at the moon. “You could?—”
“No,” Agatha says simply. She doesn’t elaborate, and all I can do is watch her.
