I sigh. My gaze lingers on the body and my favorite blade before I press my cheeks to my drawn-up knees. “Etsy.”
The guy chuckles and I pick up a little pebble in my enclosure just to drop it on the floor.
“I’m Rowan,” he says as he extends a hand into the cage. I look at it and toss another pebble, and though I make no move to accept his gesture, he still keeps his hand lifted toward me. “You might know me as the Boston Butcher.”
I shake my head.
“The Massacre of Mass…？”
I shake my head again.
“The Ghost of the East Coast…？”
I sigh.
I’ve totally heard of all those names, even though I’m not telling him that.
But on the inside, my heart hammers my blood through my veins. I’m just glad he can’t see it ignite my cheeks with crimson flame. I know exactly the names he’s called by, and that he’s not all that different from me—a hunter who favors the worst that society can dredge up from the pits of hell.
Rowan finally removes his hand from my cage, his smile taking on a dejected quality. “Shame, I thought you might recognize my little nicknames.” He slaps his hands to his knees and rises. “Well, I’d best be going. Pleasure to almost meet you, nameless captive. Best of luck.”
With a final, fleeting smile, Rowan turns and strides toward the door.
“Wait! Wait. Please.” I clamor to my feet to grip the cold bars just as he reaches the threshold. “Sloane. My name is Sloane. The Orb Weaver.”
There’s a moment of stillness between us. The only sound to fill the space is the buzz of flies and the steady work of maggots as they consume decaying flesh.
Rowan turns his head, casting a single eye over his shoulder.
And in a heartbeat he’s there, right in front of me, his motion so fast it startles me back from the bars but not before he grabs my hand to shake it vigorously.
“Oh my God. I knew it. I fucking knew they had it wrong. It had to be a woman. The Orb Weaver! Such a cool name. The intricate fishing line, the fucking eyeballs. Amazing. I’m such a huge fan.”
“Uhh…” Rowan continues to shake my hand despite my effort to pull it away. “Thanks… I guess…？”
“Did you come up with that name? The Orb Weaver?”
“Yeah…” I snatch my hand free so I can step away from this strangely enthusiastic Irishman. He grins at me as though awestruck and if I wasn’t wearing sixty layers of grime on my skin, I’m sure he’d be able to see the blush flame in my cheeks for the second time. “You don’t think it’s dumb?”
“No, it’s so great. The Massacre of Mass is dumb. The Orb Weaver is pretty kickass.”
I shrug. “I kind of think it sounds like a lame superhero.”
“Better that than the authorities making something up for you. Trust me.” Rowan’s gaze shifts to the corpse and back again, his head tilting as he regards me. He jerks a nod once in Albert’s direction. “He must have been really acting the maggot. Get it?”
There’s a long pause, the silence between us punctuated by the hum of insect wings.
“No. I don’t.”
Rowan waves a hand. “Irish saying, meaning he was up to mischief. But it was a pretty clever joke, given the circumstances,” he says, his chest puffed with pride as he hooks a thumb toward the corpse. “Begs the question, though—how’d you wind up in the cage while he’s dead with your blade out there? Did you knife him through the bars?”
I glance down at my formerly white shirt and the dirty boot print that hides beneath the splash of blood. “I guess you could say it was a moment of bad timing.”
“Hmm,” Rowan says with a sage nod. “I might have had one or two of those myself in the past.”
“You mean you’ve been locked in a cage with a dead body and a little infantry of orzo pastas marching your way?”
Rowan looks down across the space around us and frowns. “No. Can’t say that I have.”
“Didn’t think so,” I mutter with a weary sigh. I dust off my hands on my grimy denim shorts and take a final step back as I cock a hip. I’m starting to become annoyed at this interloper who seems to be doing nothing more than delaying my slow death by starvation. I’m pretty sure he’s a bit nuts and I don’t get the impression he’s that keen on actually letting me out of here.
Might as well just get on with it.
“Well…？”