Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)(49)

“You’ve been a terribly bad boy, Harvey,” I say in my best imitation of an old woman’s voice as I continue sliding the corpse toward Harvey’s face. He struggles, trying to kick it off, but Rowan intervenes and holds his good leg down.

“Good boys don’t chop people up with chainsaws.”

Another desperate scream. He’s absolutely losing his shit and can’t do anything about it.

I take my sweet, sweet time. I enjoy every second of Harvey’s torture, slowly dragging Mama Mead up his torso as strained breaths saw from his chest. His pulse pounds in his thick neck. Sweat beads across his creased forehead, dripping down his temples as he shakes his head.

Mama Mead and Harvey finally come face to face.

“I think you deserve to be punished.”

“This is very dark,” Rowan says behind me, though he doesn’t sound like he’s complaining.

“Shush, you. Mama Mead’s got some things to say.” I jostle the corpse’s head around as Harvey screams and squirms. The dentures fall out of her mouth to land on his face and he enters another dimension of fear. “Oops, my bad.”

I set Mama Mead down on his chest so I can grab her brittle wrist, keeping my injured arm out of the way as Harvey tries to thrash her off. Her curved fingers stroke his face before I hook them into the corner of his mouth. “Hold on, son. I just want to crawl inside and have a look around.”

Harvey lets out a keening wail.

And then he gasps for air, gulps for it as though it won’t go in, his face a contorted grimace.

“Uhh…”

The veins in Harvey’s temples protrude. His flesh turns red and then rapidly drains of color. His lips turn blue.

“What the…”

A rattling breath leaves his chest. His eyes go dim. His pupils fix to the ceiling and dilate.

“Did he just have a heart attack?” Rowan asks. He stops by Harvey’s unmoving head to stare down at his bloodied face.

My shoulders fall with disappointment. “This is so uncool, Harvey.”

“You literally scared him to death. You should be proud.”

“I had so much more in me.” I give Mama Mead a petulant shove and she rolls off Harvey’s unmoving chest. “Do you think we should give him CPR?”

“If you want to, but I call dibs on not doing mouth-to-mouth.”

“...Dammit.”

Rowan grins when I look up. He walks around Harvey’s head, stopping beside me with his hand outstretched. “Come on, Blackbird. The adrenaline’s going to wear off soon and that shoulder will really start aching then. We’d better burn the place down and get going before that bird finds her way to help. Then I’ll get our things sorted at the motel and we’ll be on the road.”

I place my hand in Rowan’s and he pulls me to my feet. The scar through his lip lightens a shade as he smiles down at me. My gaze travels over his face, and I want to remember every detail, from his dark brows to his navy eyes and the faint lines at their edges, to the tiny mole on his cheekbone and the shine on his wet hair. Most of all, I want to remember the warmth in his kiss when he presses his lips to mine.

All too soon, he’s pulling away, but not without taking my hand as he leads us toward the house.

“On the road,” I say, his words finally surfacing from the haze of adrenaline. “On the road to where?”

“Nebraska. To see Dr. Fionn Kane,” he says. “My brother.”





15





IMPRINTS





ROWAN


S loane sleeps next to me in the passenger seat, a blanket I stole from the hotel covering her body, her black hair swept over her swollen shoulder. Her bra strap holds an ice pack in place over the joint, and though I know it probably melted an hour ago, I haven’t had the heart to replace it in case I wake her.

When I look at her, I can’t seem to pry one emotion away from the others. They all intertwine when I think of Sloane Sutherland. Fear is fused with hope. Care with control, with envy, with sadness. It’s fucking everything, all at once. Even the desire to turn this feeling off locks with the need to nurture it. The totality of it devours me.

And it only grows with every passing moment. Sloane bleeds into every thought. When we’re apart, her absence is an entity. I worry for her. I dream of her. And yesterday, I almost lost her. Killing bound us together, and it’s a compulsion neither of us can live without. This need, and now this game between us, consumes me as much as she does.

My obsessions push me to a cliff I’m bound to fall over, and there might not be an end to the drop once I do.

Sloane stirs and groans, and my fucking heart starts rioting. Maybe it hasn’t stopped since that first day in the bayou when she walked out of that bathroom at Briscoe’s, all wet hair and flushed, freckled skin and that Pink Floyd T-shirt tied at her waist. Every time I think of her, my heart reminds me I’m not as dead on the inside as I thought after all.

“Easy, Blackbird,” I say as she groans again, more of a whimper this time that claws at my guts. I lay a hand on Sloane’s thigh, maybe to reassure myself as much as her. “Just a few more hours.”

She shifts, every painful movement etching a crease on her skin until her eyes are squeezed shut. The blanket falls down to her waist when she finally makes it to a straighter position but she doesn’t seem to notice, and when I pull it back up for her she gifts me with a faint, grateful smile. I pass her a bottle of water and a handful of pain meds before she has the chance to ask for them.