Page 66 of Oh, Sacred Dark
“I…I have a condition. From. When I belonged to my father. I’m getting better, though.”Wasgetting better, at least.
“That’s…” The woman trailed off.
Tears burned Roman’s eyes. Everything he’d been trying to stuff away from his conscious mind was bubbling up, taking over him. “Can you…please can you tell Tyler something? After you kill me? A note or an email or…”
The woman stared at him.
“Can you tell him that this isn’t his fault? Thank him for me, okay? Getting to know him was the best thing—” Roman’s throat closed up.
“Stop bullshitting me,” the woman said, her voice barely a whisper.
“I know you think it’s all an act, but, please, can you do it anyway? Please. He’ll think it’s his fault. He…he didn’t get it like you get it. He thought I was good. He thought…” the words choked in his lungs.
Silence fell, expanded, consumed. Eventually, the woman spoke. “Why did the High Council let you go? What did you tell them?”
Roman was so tired. He just wanted to crawl into Tyler’s arms and rest his head on his chest and close his eyes and sleep. “I don’t know. It was mostly Cross, probably. He’s the one who started everything. He needed me because I was in the inner circle—I belonged to Jeremy. His Worm. So—”
“What?” the woman cut in.
Roman blinked, head fuzzy. He wished he didn’t have to talk so much. Tyler never made him talk.
Roman felt himself wobbling on the edge of reality at that thought.
“You weren’t a Worm. Worms are…you were the high witch’s son.”
Roman shrugged. “He’s the one who trained me. Sold me to his right-hand man. It’s…” His mind slipped. He let himself unfocus, drift away.
A hand gripped his shoulder and shook him. He snapped back to the world, sharp and painful.
“Don’t do that,” the woman ordered.
“What?”
“You were Dropping again.”
“Oh.”
Silence. Stillness. “I know you’re lying. You…my sister. You told them where all the other bodies were and not my sister.”
“I think maybe she’s in the lake, but they couldn’t find much, or maybe they didn’t try. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
That was all Roman had to give. He closed his eyes and disappeared.
**********
They were driving when he woke up next. The night passed out of the window. He was untied but remained lying down.
“You awake?” the woman asked.
“Yes.” His voice was no more than a rasp.
“There’s water and granola bars on the floor there.”
Roman reached for the offerings. He’d never tasted anything so good as those first gulps of water. He collapsed on the seat. Closed his eyes.
In the darkness, the woman began speaking. “Barely anybody really noticed Clara. She was…unassuming. When a woman is murdered, you always hear about how they lit up a room when they entered, but that wasn’t Clara.”
Roman blinked, focusing on the nape of the woman’s neck, the curls of hair visible around the headrest.
