Page 84 of Lamb

He glanced at me from over a shoulder, not bothering to turn all the way around as he reached into a pocket, pulled out a bottle of pills and tossed them in my direction. “Takeone, twice a day. It’s better if you put something in your stomach first.”

I twisted the top off and peered at the large white capsules covering the bottom. “These are horse pills.”

“I’ve seen you swallow a hell of a lot bigger.” Adrian chuckled to himself, and I rolled my eyes. Nearly forty years old, and the man still had the sense of humor of a horned-up teenager.

I swung my feet off the sofa and hobbled over to the bar cart, grabbing myself a tumbler and a heavy serving of whiskey. Adrian turned and watched me cross the room with a cocked brow.

“Something.” I lifted the glass in his direction before tossing back the contents. Popping a pill into my mouth and then chasing it down with a few more gulps of whiskey.

“I meant food, Marisela,” he grunted. It only took three long strides and he was standing in front of me, prying the liquor from my hands and dumping what was left on the carpet between us.

“Should have been more specific.”

“You’re being difficult on purpose,” he said.

“I’m being myself. If you find that difficult, you can leave,” I countered.

“I’m prepared to give you a lifetime. You can give me three days, Marisela.” He lifted a hand, brushing his fingers over my lips before shoving his thumb inside my mouth. “I am not asking for much.”

I sucked on the tip long enough to get him comfortable,just like I had during breakfast, then clamped down hard. I knew it was betternot to bite the hand that feeds you. I also didn’t care.

He pulled his thumb back, dropped his arm, and shook his head. “What happened to the cooperation you promised me, lamb?”

I shrugged a single shoulder. “What can I say? I lied.”

Adriantskedhis tongue. “We don’t lie to each other, dear.”

“Wedon’t?” I questioned, and he shook his head.

“No, we don’t.”

“But we don’t tell the whole truth either, now do we?” We both had secrets. Some worse than others. We also kept the darkest of them to ourselves because despite what Adrian liked to tell me, no one truly knew anyone else.

Sure, we knew pieces. We got glimpses. But everything else was filled in until the full picture became more what we wanted to see than what was actually there.

“Depends on the situation, lamb.” Adrian took a step back, shoving his hands into his pockets as he eyed me for a moment. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

“There’s plenty I’m not telling you, Dr. Lambert. Question is... do you really want to know?”

“I want to know everything, Marisela.”

I grinned at his confidence, and perhaps at my own naiveté because the last thing I should have been doing was giving this man something he could use against me. But I just couldn’t help myself. Just like with the scissors, I wanted to see the look on his face…

98

ADRIAN

“Everyone has skeletons in their closets, Adrian. These are mine.” Marisela lifted a nonchalant shoulder as my eyes bounced from the pile of mummified bodies stuffed behind a faux wall in the basement back to the smug expression on her face.

Didn’t know how we’d missed them in the initial sweep of the house; then again, I’d lived here my entire life without knowing about the tunnels.

“Yours are a lot…” I muttered under my breath, struggling to find the right word as the odor of decomposition burned my nostrils and stung the corners of my eyes. “…fresher.”

Or less fresh?Wasn’t sure if we were referencing skeletons or patients at the moment.

“Don’t have the stomach for it, Doc?” she challenged. “And here I thought you’d be used to the smell by now.”

“Wouldn’t be very good at what I do if the bodies on mytable ended up like… that, now would I?” I fired back, throwing out an arm towards a face I couldn’t recognize beneath the liquified organs and leathering skin.

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