Page 6 of Butcher & Blackbird
“No. Definitely not.”
“Then why would I do that?”
I shrug, not ready to meet her gaze despite the way it beckons me. “The eyes are the windows to the soul, I suppose?”
Sloane scoffs and I look up to catch the shake of her head. “More like ‘foster a raven and it will peck out your eyes.’”
My head tilts as I try to decipher her meaning. Very little is known about Sloane, or at least very little makes its way to the press. She specializes in other serial killers and she leaves an intricate crime scene. That’s pretty much it. Any other theories the FBI might have about the Orb Weaver are half-baked. From what I’ve read, the idea of the elusive vigilante being a woman hasn’t even broached their little formulaic, predictable brains. Whatever her past and her motivations, whatever she means by her comment, it’s all still locked away.
From the second we met, she sparked my curiosity, fanning banked embers into glowing coals, and now she’s ignited the first thread of flame.
I want to know. I want the truth.
And maybe I want her to feel the same curiosity about me.
“Did you know I was the one who killed Tony Watson, the Harbor Slasher?” I ask.
She lowers the beer glass from her lips, her movement slow, her eyes locked to mine. “That was you?”
I nod.
“I thought he got into a scrap with someone he was trying to kill.”
“That part of the story isn’t wrong, I guess. He did get into a scrap and he definitely tried his hardest to kill me, he just didn’t succeed.” That piece of shit Watson. I beat him until his skull cracked and his body seized, then watched as a final, bloody, gurgling breath spasmed past his broken teeth and split lips. When his body stilled, I left him in the alley for the rats to gnaw.
It wasn’t a pretty kill. It wasn’t elegant. There was nothing staged or clever about it. It was visceral and raw.
And I enjoyedevery fucking second.
“Watson wasn’t as stupid as I thought. He caught me following him. Tried to ambush me.”
A thoughtfulhmmpasses from Sloane’s pursed lips. “I’m bummed.”
“Bummed why, because he didn’t kill me first? Harsh, Blackbird. I’m wounded.”
“No,” she says on the heels of a barked laugh. “It’s just that I had such a cool plan for him. The bodies of his last five kills were already mapped out on my web,” she says. Her sticky fingers dance in my direction as though tracing a pattern in the air. She doesn’t even look up. It’s as though this isn’t some giant revelation she just dropped on the table between us.
A map. In the web.
“Not that it would have mattered, I guess. It’s not like the dumbass fuckwits at the FBI have figured that out yet. But even so… you went and fucked it up,” Sloane continues, not looking up from the next bone she tears free of the carcass before her. A heavy sigh spills over the meat that she raises to her lips. “I guess I should be grateful. Maybe I underestimated Watson too. Given Briscoe kicked me into his cage so easily and he was a lazy prick, I’m not sure I would have fought Watson off as well as you did.” Her bright, unusual eyes find mine through strands of raven hair that have fallen over her brow as a charming glare flays my blackened soul. “It physically pains me to admit that, by the way. But don’t let it get to your head, pretty boy.”
A smirk creeps across my lips. “You think I’m pretty.”
“I literally just said not to let the Watson thing go to your head. It applies to your prettiness too,” Sloane says with an epic eye roll, one of her eyelids twitching. “Besides, you already know it.”
My smile grows a little wider before I hide it behind the edge of my glass. Our gazes stay locked until Sloane finally breaks the trance and looks away, a hint of color infusing her freckled cheeks. “Well, you got to Bill Fairbanks before I could,” I say, “so I think we’re even.”
Sloane’s eyes widen, her thick, dark lashes fanning toward her brows. “You were after him?” she asks as I give her a single nod and lift one shoulder. It used to irk me that I lost Fairbanks, even if it was to the Orb Weaver, who I’ve considered something of an idol. But now? Meeting the woman behind the web? I would lose to her again to see the way it lights her eyes with pride. Maybe even more than once.
The edge of Sloane’s bottom lip folds between her teeth as she tries to anchor her wicked grin against their sharp edges. “I had no idea you were hunting Fairbanks.”
“I was tracking him for two years.”
“Really?”
“I planned to take him the year before you got him, but he up and moved before I had the chance. Took me a few months to find him again. Then, low and behold, bits of his body were strung up in fishing line with his eyeballs gouged out.”
Sloane huffs, but I can see the spark that flashes in her tired eyes. She sits a little straighter, wiggling in her seat. “I didn’tgougethem out, Butcher. Ipluckedthem. Delicately. Like alady.” Sloane sticks her finger in her mouth, pressing it against her cheek as she wraps her lips around it only to snap it out with apop. “Just like that.”
