Page 10 of Once a Villain
“Is he always like this?” Ruth asked Joan.
Aaronwasalways like this. It had driven Joan mad when they’d first met, but she didn’t mind his voice of caution anymore. It was a good reminder to be careful, to be vigilant.
“I think this will be safer,” Joan whispered to him. “If the receptionist sends guards,we’ll hear them knocking at the other door. We’ll have a chance to slip out of here.”
Aaron’s mouth had been open to argue, but now he just sighed. “Fine.”
Joan cracked the door. The room was dark and smelled of dust. She slipped inside cautiously, and the others followed.
When they all were in, she slid the dead bolts home and released a breath. She didn’t feel safe—more like an animal that had found a temporary burrow, surrounded by predators on all sides.
Nick found a switch, illuminating a living room and a short corridor that presumably led to a bedroom and bathroom.
Aaron toed an embroidered silver tree on the lush black carpet. “Looks like an Argent lives here.”
“An Argent with...” Joan looked around. “...Gothic taste.” The wallpaper was luxuriously textured, overpainted with dark illustrations of carnivorous plants. Mounted animal heads stared at her with glassy eyes: a raven, a black bear, a wolf. One whole wall was a painting of a man with a pale face and a black beard that ended in a pencil-tip point. His clothes were sixteenth century, a huge white ruff and a jaunty feathered hat. “Do you think that’s the owner?”
Ruth struck the man’s pose under his portrait, hands on her hips, head tilted. “What’s weirder? Sitting in an apartment with a giant portrait of yourself or hanging out with a bear’s head?”
“Nothing wrong with trophies on the wall,” Aaron said. “And an oil of an ancestor.” He assessed the room critically. “You know, I don’t mind this. The overpaint on the wallpaper is a little much. But in general...”
Ruth made a face at Joan, and Joan spread her hands. The painting and mounted animal heads both creeped her out. Most of the time, she understood Aaron’s taste, but not this.
Aside from the Gothic living room, there was a kitchenette here—tiled black to match the aesthetic. Jamie opened the fridge. “Empty,” he said. In his jacket, Frankie was still sleeping, her head against his shoulder; he stroked her furry forehead with his thumb.
There was an empty wastebasket on the kitchen counter.“Whoever lives here hasn’t been back in a while,” Joan said.
Nick had vanished to check the other rooms. He reappeared now. “No one’s here,” he confirmed. “The bedroom has a window escape. Not sure about any other exits.” He eyed the wolf head, mouth downturned.
“Lights off for a second?” Joan said, walking over to the curtained living room windows. She was pretty sure this room faced the main street, and she didn’t want the lights to give away their presence here.
Ruth flicked the switch, and darkness blanketed the room. There was a sliding door. Joan found the catch and stepped out onto a high-walled balcony.
Outside, the air was damp and the cold stuck to her lungs. Joan raised herself on tiptoes to peer over the balcony. The street was surprisingly close. Not an easy climb down, but not a neck-breaking height. She went back in, pulling the door and curtains closed behind her.
“There’s a balcony,” she said. “So we have a couple of exits if someone breaks in.” She scrubbed her hands over her face tiredly.
“All right,” Nick said. “So we’re in a dystopian London, but we have a roof over our heads. Now what?”
They had to fix this timeline. They had to find Eleanor and stop her. But before they could do anything, there were pressing needs. “We need food,” Joan said into her hands. “Warmer clothes.” All of them were still wet from the downpour.
“If we’re going to base ourselves here, we’ll need money,” Ruth said. “Prince Poshling is going to run out of travel tokens soon enough.”
“Let’s see what we can find in this apartment,” Joan said. “Cash. Anything we can sell or trade at the market downstairs. Nothing remarkable or memorable.”
“So now we’re thieves as well as squatters,” Aaron said. “I know you didn’t call me that,” he added to Ruth.
They spread out through the apartment to do a quick search for money and sellable items.
“How many tokensdoyou have left?” Ruth asked Aaron as she shook out the sofa cushions and shifted furniture, looking for coins.
“Three,” Aaron said. “A hundred and fifty years.”
Joan had been wrestling with a stuck drawer under the oil painting, and now her finger caught on the underside as she wrenched it open. She shook the sting from her finger, wishing she could shake off Aaron’s casual tone in the same way. He had a hundred and fifty years of human life in his pocket, and he was talking about it like it was spare change.
Nick had heard it too; he’d been working through the kitchen, but now he stilled.
“I don’t want to use the other tokens,” Joan blurted. The words sounded loud in the small room. She hadn’t even meant to say it; it had just come out.
