Page 38 of Broken Queen
“Oh, shit,” I said, slapping my chest. “Wait a second.” I scrambled to find my old toolbox under the second bed, then removed the pliers. There was dirt and oil on the metal tip, but that made it better. It’s not like the Dentist deserved clean tools. “Use this for his teeth.”
“I’m begging you,” the Dentist sobbed, his words barely coherent. “P-p-please. I don’t want to die!”
Zira’s gaze washed over me, every conflicting thought running through her mind.
“This is a lot,” she said carefully.
“Tell me you don’t like it,” I countered.
“It’s not that.” She paused, shifting from me to him.
“Is that you, Zira?” the Dentist asked. “Sweetie. Please. I can hear you. Help me out of this thing!”
She rolled her eyes, then angled away from the Dentist, focusing her complete attention on me. “You really, really want your sister’s killer, don’t you?”
“What I want, right now,” I said, stepping closer to her, letting her warmth tickle my skin, “is to watch you take back what’s yours.”
“Blooms don’t get their hands dirty. That’s why we have the Masquerades,” she said, a hint of anxiety filling her tone. “I’ve never actually killed someone before.”
I squeezed her shoulders, sucking in a breath. Fuck, she smelled like a warm invitation, vanilla and jasmine and perfection. I wanted so much more than to watch her kill the Dentist.
But she hadn’t killed before. That both surprised me, and didn’t. I let my bony fingers run down the sides of her arms. She shivered, and I grinned. It didn’t matter if she hadn’t killed; we both knew what she was capable of. She just couldn’t be afraid of a little dirt underneath her fingernails.
“That may be,” I said, speaking loudly over the wailing moans of the meat bag, “but a queen does what she wants to in order to rule.”
Zira’s tongue zipped between her lips, then she turned slowly toward the Dentist, that beautiful, practiced smile on her lips. She ripped off his blindfold, then kneeled down, meeting him eye to eye. The Dentist’s eyes focused, and for the first time since he woke up, he was silent.
But only for a moment.
“Zira,” he said, tears streaming to the sides of his eyes, dropping onto the carpet below him. “I’m sorry!”
Zira stood, grabbing one of my knives—one with a hook right at the end of the blade, perfect for gutting—then ran her finger across the sharp edge, flinching when it sliced through her skin. A sliver of blood filled the shallow crevice like a paper cut.
“So sharp,” she said with adoration.
I tapped the pliers on her shoulder. “Give him a taste. Show him what it’s like to have all of those teeth pulled out.”
Her lips pursed together. “I just want to watch him die.”
Clutching the pliers, I went back to that chest from the Dentist’s bedroom, then dumped the contents on the floor. It rained teeth, crashing down like thunder. Zira stared at the pieces like they were pieces of polished opal, completely stunned at their brilliance. I picked up a handful, then let them clatter against each other, falling to the ground like pennies.
“It’s only a hobby!” Toben cried. “I didn’t kill anyone! Please!”
He thrashed to the side, flailing like a worm that knew it was about to roast on the sidewalk, but there was no use. It didn’t matter if he technically hadn’t killed anyone; I wanted to give him to my queen, so that she could enjoy technically killing him herself.
Zira locked eyes with me. “One tooth,” she said.
She latched onto his canine with the pliers, then pulled, but the root was so strong that she only snapped off half of the tooth. He howled like a dog, and a thrill ran through me. Maybe we could get him to scream so loudly that the motel owner came to check on us! That would be fun, wouldn’t it? We could kill the owner too!
“This is harder than I thought!” Zira laughed. “Guess you do need those dental tools, don’t you, Toben?”
“Z-z-zira,” the Dentist mumbled, his words slurring together like a snake. “Y-you don’t have to do this.”
“Oh, but I do,” she said.
She dug the pliers into his gums, metal crunching against bone and wet flesh as he garbled out his cries. He snapped his jaw, trying to get Zira to stop, but he bit down on the metal, and he sobbed, shaking from side to side. She smacked his cheek, and like a humble little bitch, he opened his mouth and she dug out that root, then chucked it and the tool on the floor. Tears streamed down his temples before he passed out again, all of that blood going to his head.
She grabbed the knife off of the bedside again.
