Page 12 of Hero & Villain
“You can’t break any noses.”
“I don’t break a lot of noses.”
“And no knifing anyone.”
“I’ve done that maybe half a dozen times.”
“Around me. Who knows how often you do that when you aren’t around me?”
“Shoes don’t count. Also, I’ve spent the last two years being demure and charming. Beaten and damaged is almost exactly the same thing.”
She snorted and then grinned widely. “Sure it is.”
“I’m going to show up damaged goods, lost, vulnerable, delicate, the exact package that a hero like Dirk Dagger can’t resist.”
“Sounds perfect. What do you think his game is?” she asked, pulling me into the bathroom and rifling through a cabinet for bleach.
“Game? I don’t know. He could just be a businessman who wants to push his own interests. Or he could have something personally against Haversham. I think if it was me, he’d be looking at me in the pic at the party.”
“With lust in his eyes.”
“Or hatred, but either way. It’s probably just business.”
“Of course it is, like you’re only going for revenge. If you fell in love with him…” She shook her head, clucking her tongue.
I stiffened up. “I intend to fall in love with him as much as possible. That’s the first rule of seduction: you seduce yourself first, or it won’t feel real.”
She frowned and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, snapping the wrists ominously. “If you say so. Come put your head in the sink. This is going to be a mess.”
It was. A terrible beautiful mess if ever there was one. And it had only just begun.
Chapter Five
VILLAIN
Istepped off the bus into a rush of heat and aridity that sucked the air from my lungs. Past the bus station, one way was an endless stretch of blue sky and shimmering heat that rose from the beige dirt; the other way was a freeway that ran past dusty high-rises.
Las Vegas.
I’d been on the bus for two days and eighteen hours to get to the magical capital of fun. So much fun that I wanted to turn around and climb right back on that bus. It would hurt to climb up those steps though, because my whole body was one big bruise. Maybe I’d beaten myself up a little too much.
In our cellar of disasters were a bunch of abandoned projects we’d made over the years. One was a ninja trainer, which had knobs and sandbags that would whirl around and take you out. I’d never managed to turn it into an actual challenge, but it had done a very thorough job beating me up, turning me into the helpless damsel Dirk couldn’t resist.
Being weak was the worst.
I looked around again, like maybe the view had changed in the last three minutes, and then started down the side of the road. It was maybe a mile and a half, maybe two, to the casinowhere Nix Death-Hammer’s team had their show tonight. I could use the exercise after being cramped on the bus, although the further I walked from the bus station, the more my stomach ached and the worse I felt.
It was so freakishly hot for November. Toni’s sweatshirt was sticking to my skin by the time I made it to the intersection that ran past the airport. A car honked, making me jump, which sent a sharp pain through my insides. Toni would have flipped them off, but maybe not when she was worried about internal bleeding.
I’d spent too much time with the ninja trainer, and I’d never been hurt so badly. I’d spent most of the bus ride passed out, just trying to breathe through the pain in my cracked ribs. I was going to nail this damsel in distress thing so hard. Hopefully, somewhere Dirk Dagger could appreciate it.
I kept trudging along with my head down, pale pink hair falling over my face. I stared down at my boots. Not my boots. Toni’s old black engineer boots now wore a fine coat of orange dust. You couldn’t stab people with these shoes, but you could probably do brain damage.
It took forever to make it to the Strip, and it was still hot and miserable in the shade of the first building. I pulled off the sweatshirt and tied it around my waist, continuing in the hot-pink and black skull print crop top. It was too hot to worry about the bruises showing.
In spite of the heat, I shivered and hunched lower under the backpack. Was it heavier than before or was the world just blurrier? I edged around a guy passing out nudie cards. I’d officially arrived.
He glanced over my arms, then down over my legs under the pink leather skirt, a frown forming between his blurry gray eyes.
