I jerk a nod toward the body when Sloane turns to face me. The question in her eyes rapidly dissolves into suspicion. When she folds her arms across her chest, I raise my hands in apology, though I’m not sorry at all for what I’m about to say. And she knows it.
“What,” she says flatly.
I point to the not-so-good doctor, whose blood trickles down his face in drying streaks. “Left eye hole. Always a little gouge-y.”
Sloane guffaws a laugh, but it wanes when I shrug. A sliver of doubt etches a crease between her brows. “It is not.”
“I’m sorry to say, it is.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
I drag my step ladder in front of the body and gesture toward it. “See for yourself.”
Sloane’s lips part, her cheeks flushed with rising frustration. Fucking adorable. Flustered Sloane with her feathers ruffled and her talons ready? That’s always my favorite version. And I savor every moment, from her fierce glare to her determined steps as she stomps to the ladder to get a closer look.
“Rowan Kane, you fucking weirdo with this left eye hole shit, I-do-not-gouge-I-plu—”
Her irate tangent stops dead as she takes in the bloody hole, then looks down to me, then back again. Though I manage to bite down on a laugh, there’s no hiding the amusement in my eyes, not from her.
“What the fuck is that?” she asks, pointing to the dead doctor’s face.
“I dunno, Blackbird. Maybe you should check it out. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“You’re not squeamish, are you?”
At this, her laugh breaks free, though it’s short and unsure. “How’s the ice cream looking these days, Butcher? Managed to crack into some cookies and cream yet?”
“Ouch, Blackbird,” I say with a hand over my heart. It thunders beneath my palm. “Wounded, yet again.”
Sloane grins, her dimple popping out next to her lip, and then she focuses on the lifeless face before her, the eyes rimmed with blood and the features slack. She reaches her gloved fingers to the left eye socket and pulls out a small, round packet wrapped in tape.
“See?” she says as she balances the mystery on her palm and descends the ladder. “Plucked. I plucked it right outta there.”
“You did. Almost like you’ve done this before. Elite-level plucking.”
She stops in front of me, her eyes glittering with amusement as they bound between mine. “What is this?”
“I think the trick with a present is usually to open it,” I say as I press a kiss to her forehead in reply to her eye roll. She takes the tissue I offer and begins wiping the blood from the tape. “Make sure to clean it all off, though. Important documents inside.”
Sloane’s face crinkles, her pretty hazel eyes narrowing as she tries to reconcile my words with the small size of the package. “Documents…？”
“Life-changing documents, actually. So, yes. Be careful.”
With a final, suspicious glance in my direction, Sloane shifts her focus to the ball of tape and cleans every ripple in the cellophane until it’s free of blood. Once it’s finished, she peels off the strips of sticky plastic, setting each one aside until she can unfold the outer layer of protective paper.
Inside is a folded paper napkin. And inside that, another taped present.
“Oh my God, Rowan. You kept this…？” she asks with a chuckle of disbelief as she reads my handwriting scrawled below the logo of a melting ice cream cone on the napkin.
Butcher & Blackbird
Annual August Showdown
7 days
Tie-breaker by rock-paper-scissors
Best of five
Winner takes the Forest Phantom
“Hold on a second,” I say when she’s read each line out loud. “It’s missing something. Hand that over for a second while you unwrap the other one.”
“What are you up to, weirdo?”
“Maybe I want to blow my nose on this highly sentimental piece of tissue. Just hand it over, Blackbird.”
Sloane laughs and shakes her head with confusion, but she passes the napkin back to me and I take my pen from next to my tools to write out a new line, all the while sneaking glances at her to keep watch on her progress as she unwraps the other gift. Like it has every moment I’ve been with Sloane, my heart fucking pounds the entire time, like it’s going to carve itself free of its cage of bones.
When she’s about to pull the final piece of tape from the wrapping around the gift, I place my hand over hers, the napkin folded between my fingers. If she can feel a tremor in my flesh, she doesn’t say.