Page 44 of Antihero
“Not right this moment.” I pass her a steaming cup.
“How romantic. Is it because you’d miss me?”
“Maybe I’m just not done fucking you yet.”
That makes her choke on the small sip she’d braved. Paige glares at me as I take my cup to sit on the bed. “You’re not very charming sometimes, you know,” she laments, then takes another sip. “It makes me wonder how you convinced a detective to fuck you.”
My eyes narrow. I say nothing.
“Did you care about her?” Paige asks, still pretending to focus on the horrible coffee.
“Of course. She was good.” I mean it in the sense of being a good person. But Paige can take it however she likes.
“So it meant something?”
“Yes.” I shrug. “Not everything that means something has to be forever. She was meant for someone else. I knew that. She couldn’t see it.”
“So, what? You were like a serial cupid? Shooting her with your—”
“Are you jealous?” I cut her off.
Paige closes her mouth abruptly. One arm wraps around her bent-up knee.
“Because I’m just going to point out, I’ve had to watch some disgusting men slobbering all over you, much more recently than that.”
Finally, she looks at me with an expression almost like I’ve offended her. “You know I didn’t enjoy that!” she protests.
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t want to rip their tongues out.”
Her jaw works. “Fine.” With a shrug, she tells me, “All the lecherous ones are dead now, anyway. No other man touches me.”
I open my mouth to refute that, then close it. Those words shouldn’t make me happy. But they do. Sullen at myself and my illogical feelings, I grimace at the bitter taste and sip my coffee.
My life had been discipline, ever since escaping the foster system. I’d built my life around my version of order, in my mind and my surroundings. When I became Needler, that had only intensified with the need for vengeance, and the requirement of staying ahead of the law, in order to mete out that vengeance. Of course, there were slips. Eleanor was one, but even that had been within my control. Each meeting carefully considered.
But this is chaos. She—Paige—is chaos, a human whirlpool that will suck me down into places and feelings I can’t control or predict.
And here I am, happily drowning.
Chapter ten
Ilie face down on the examination bed, my chin propped on my forearms. My shirt is pulled up around my ribs as Dr Goodry checks the bandage. It stings as he lifts it off.
“Wound looks good, no infection. This might sting.”
It does. I press my forehead into my wrist until the pain, lancing across my waist, fades. Then, I make myself ask, “Anything back about it yet?”
“Not yet,” Goodry muses as he pulls the bandage all the way off, “Had to send the marrow off to Tregam. They’re slow at the moment. Try not to think about it.”
I snort. “Sure.” I wish I didn’t have to be here today. But then, I wish that every day that I’m here, this damned clinic, these fluorescent lights and that smell, like, but not quite like, lemon cleaner. A different smell to the asylum.
“I saw the memorial put up out front. Harry Lester died?” I ask as he rubs something over my back, wiping away the bandage residue. It’s cold.
“Yes,” Goodry says with a sigh. “It’s hard to keep up with all the deaths of late.”
A moment of quiet passes. “Do you think it was him?”
“Him who what, dear?”
