Page 67 of Obliterated
“I don’t know. I just—fuck, Tass, I know something’s happening up there. That guy said so. I have to believe they know something about the illegal tags, or any of the other shit Joyeus keeps buried. Anything I can use to throw her in the damn Pit, to get her off her throne, and tear her lair down.”
So those people she hoards can choose a life of their own.
So Kee can be free.
So Kee can be with me for real.
I meant what I said to him. I’d fucking obliterate that bitch before he has to serve her five fucking years. He will not be her fucking property. I’m making sure of that.
Even if it means my own death in the Pit, at least he’d be free of her leash.
Shit, he doesn’t know it, but I tried to buy his freedom. I have money. Plenty, even. Roe tried to barter on my behalf, but to no avail. Our council is crooked, at least part of it, and thingshaveto change around here. Joyeus is rotten to the core; her resort is the worst of it.
And Noura too.
My gut screams she’s tangled up in this. The way that loser’s eyes bulged when he slipped and saidthey.The way she watched me in the Pit last time…
I know she hates me after I quit whatever we had. But this wasn’t hate, this was something else. It was calculated, like I was an obstacle she wanted removed. Like I’m standing in her way and she wants to get rid of me, get rid of this investigation we’re doing without being too obvious. Like she’s waiting for the right moment to do it.
I don’t know what we’ll find up at the research facility, but that pig’s whining made it loud enough to hear: something big is happening up there.
Fucking pity I can’t kill him all over again and make sure it’ll last longer that time…
The thought makes my fingers itch against the pack strap, those shadows crawling back. I’m so caught up in it that I don’t notice when Tass suddenly halts, and I walk right past her.
I stop and turn, frowning. She’s balanced on a log, head tilted like she’s catching a sound I can’t hear. “What? Is there red rain coming?” I squint up, trying to find the sky through the thick canopy.
Out here we don’t get the sirens, we can’t watch the ocean for the streak of clouds, so we trust the Touched. They feel it coming, almost like a static under the skin, a sour pull in their bones, and Tass’s nose twitches like she’s feeling something.
“No… it’s not that.” Her gaze is miles away, sharp and glassy, then she shakes it off and steps light across the log again, arms out steady as if she’s practiced this a thousand times, her long braid trailing between her shoulder blades. “Do you ever think about staying up here?” she asks suddenly. “Not going back down south, just… vanishing into the trees?”
I snort. “What, you and me living like fucking squirrels? We’d last maybe a week before you got bored.”
“Please. You have an entire damn house. We could just leave. Take Kieran and go, leave all that council shit.”
“You’re right,” I answer. “It would be so much fun having you along when me and Kieran take the only bed and you lurk like a creep on some flimsy mattress in the corner.”
She laughs. It’s a quick sound, but thin, brittle, gone before it should be. Halfway across the log she almost slips: a twitch runs down her arm like a live wire, her boots skidding on wet bark.
I halt, heart kicking. For a blink she looks off-balance,human.
Tass doesn’t falter. Shedoesn’t. She’s quick, agile, light as a cat. The only one better at scaling and slipping through gaps than me.
Fuck, she’s the only one who could keep up as kids, darting through the city, scaling the wall, running from the Watcherstrying to catch us. That manic cackle of hers used to follow us like thunder when we ran, beating me at every turn, being my better half.
Not that I’d ever admit that to her out loud.
She shakes her head too hard; the braid whipping around like she’s trying to rattle something loose. She then forces her arms out again, fists clenched tight. Balancing. Brow furrowed in concentration, focus, almost like if she pretends nothing’s wrong, maybe it won’t actually fucking happen.
“Tass?” My voice drops low, my chest hollowing out, heart falling like a fucking stone. Refusing to believe what I’m seeing. Refusing to name it.
She glances back at me, a grin tugging too slow at the corner of her mouth. But it’s her eyes—her godsdamn eyes—that gut me,ruinme.
There’s something that shouldn’t be there, something eating at the edges of the color.
No. No, no,no.
“Yeah…” she says softly, hopping down from the log, brushing bark dust off her palms. “We could live in your house. You’ve already got the zombie gator to keep us safe and the sea view. Beats squirrels.”
