Page 50 of Never Say Die
“Okay, your highness, I’ll be sure to do that.” Pru flashed a sarcastic grin and rolled her eyes.
“Highness,” Georgia parroted, laughing softly. “Sorry to break it to you, Shay, but we’re not on the Chain Reaction payroll. Those fancy digs in Vegas were nice and all, but that’s really not our speed.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got the means, so.” Shay shrugged and fiddled with his crumpled napkin. “If we ever feel like an upgrade, I can probably figure something out.”
“I mean, if we wanna befancy, we could start by scraping that fuckin’ decal off the back of the RV,” Dylan said.
The table hummed through sleepy laughter. Pru drained her coffee while everyone fished bills out of their wallets to cover the tab.
Maybe Aiden hadn’t really seen the tarot reader from lastnight. Maybe he was straddling the line between asleep and awake, halfway dreaming about a dead girl and her strange friends. Thomas might appear next. That would meanasleep, right? Trapped. Except the cushioned booth beneath him saidawake. Shay nudging him under the table, the bell above the door, the desert smell—crunchy plants, cooked asphalt, cheap laundry detergent—all said,Aiden Moore, you’re awake.
“Set an alarm,” Georgia said, walking backward behind Pru. She caught Aiden’s eyes as his shoes beat the outdoor staircase. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Nine o’clock,” Aiden said.
In the middle of the sparse parking lot, Dylan climbed into the RV, and on the second floor, Shay unlocked a slouching door numbered: 113.
Shay held the door with his foot. “We’re talking,” he said, and he meantnow.
Aiden heaved a sigh and walked into the dark room, feeling across the wall for the light switch. “Where do we start? The murdering you part, the almost murdering me part, or the party?” His fingers grazed the smooth switch and the lamp on the nightstand illuminated.
Time slipped, mimicking bare feet on black ice.
Death follows you everywhere.
Laura sat cross-legged on the bed with her hands folded around Shay’s journal. She tipped her head, and a cool, round cylinder pressed against Aiden’s temple. The floor flexed.Shoes, he thought.Gun. It was both. Boots, actually. Embroidered shit-kickers. And the gun, lengthened by a silencer. The woman beside him could’ve been the girl’s mother. Brown eyes creased like a crop circle, flat-mouthed and harsh, narrow face shaded by a wide-brimmed hat. Sallow teeth pulled at a scar on her lip—empty holes from a long-healed piercing.
Aiden was afraid in that oddly unselfish way people in loveusually were, because whoever she was, she hadn’t come for him.
“Close that door, honey,” the woman said, shifting her deep-set eyes to Shay. She prodded Aiden with the gun, voice sweet and rough, like honey on sandpaper. “We’ll start at the beginning.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Well, fuck.
Aiden squared his shoulders, guided at gunpoint to the edge of the bed. His pulsed tripled. In all his life, he’d never thought to prepare for this particular turn of events. Despite his affinity for danger, he’d never seen a gun. Not a real one, at least. He glanced at Shay, who watched helplessly from the center of the room, palms raised, throat bobbing as he swallowed.
It’s okay,he wanted to say.Don’t do anything batshit crazy yet.
“I’m Cit,” the woman said, and pointed at the bed. “Take a seat. You’re Aiden, right? Two of Cups?”
“That’s me,” Aiden said.
“Then you must be our Ten of Swords. C’mon, now. You, too,” Cit said. She gestured from Shay to the bed with the sleek, black barrel, sighing over his name. “Shay Bennett, a Black Mass miracle in the making, wouldn’t you say?”
“What do you know about me?” Shay asked. The bed dipped. He sat straight-backed and still, like a viper masquerading as a vine.
Cit leaned against the rickety dresser across from the bedand folded her arms, gun dangling over her slender elbow. She was a waifish, heroin-chic cowgirl, built like a chipped axe, wieldable and dangerous despite the mileage. She sucked her teeth and nodded toward Laura, who had slinked away to stand beside the closet. She held out her hand, and Laura gave her the journal. “From what I’ve been told, you met my protégé, Laura, on the road. And you see, boys, I’d usually dismiss a sighting. Too many dead-ends, smoke and mirrors, young folks playin’ pretend. But we’ve learned how to find the truth, and my children, well, they’d been keepin’ tabs on you. Seems we have a few things in common. You and Laura met with a pretty little psychic, Miss Kelly Crawford,” she said, cooing her name, “and you both crossed paths with my dear Cassandra Ray, who was eaten alive in a filthy bathroom and left to rot by a mysterious beast. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Anxiety rattled Aiden from the inside out. Shay didn’t move. Didn’t breathe or blink.
After a strained, silent moment, Cit opened Shay’s journal and turned her eyes to the page. “I slaughtered her without a second thought,” she read, pausing to sigh. “I’d convinced myself that she’d get away, that she’d run once we were alone, that I wouldn’t chase her, but I didn’t give Cassie the chance. I’m a monster, I think. Don’t know how I could be anything else. I bet cops’ll find my DNA underneath her fingernails. I kind of hope they do.” She stopped. Flipped a few pages. “I dreamed about killing him again. Aiden underneath me, gasping for breath, his blood on my hands, in my mouth.” Licked her thumb, skipped to another page. “I convinced myself that I wanted him dead. But when I had the perfect opportunity, everything changed. He tasted like peaches and cigarettes and old cologne—smoke and fruit. I think he’s meant too much to me for too long. His death would kill me again. Would fucking destroy me. How do I live with this? How do Ilive with what I’ve done? With who I want? How can I possibly love him?—”
“Stop,” Shay snapped.
Her lips turned at the corners. “You crawled from the sea after your childhood sweetheart—the man you love, whose death you’ve prophesized—flayed you open like a trout,” she said, abruptly. “I’ve read your sad story, but I’d like you. . .” She tilted the journal toward Aiden. “. . . to tell mehow. Let no detail go unsaid.”
Shay exhaled a shaky breath. “We don’t know what I am.”
