Page 20 of Hero & Villain
She made shooting guns with her fingers at me and then blew the imaginary smoke away. “You got it. Come on. I’ll make you breakfast. It’ll be liquid, revolting, but incredibly revitalizing.You’ll need that and sunscreen if you’re going to flourish in this country.”
I followed her down the lush hall and only stopped when I saw the open doorway to a room filled with gleaming musical instruments. Propped in a corner was a dark cello. I took a helpless step towards it before I could stop myself. I needed to drink and eat. I did not need to get distracted, even if there was a gorgeous instrument that sang to me. It was a real oasis in the desert. I’d told myself I wouldn’t get to play for months, but there was that beauty, tempting me.
Jezebel snorted. “If you do a good job at work today, I’ll let you take Othello out for a spin. I see those covert glances. Who am I kidding? You’re staring, honey. Drooling a little, and you are too dehydrated for that kind of thing, in spite of the IV.”
“IV?” I rubbed my inner elbow. It was hard to tell one kind of bruising from another.
“Oh, yes. I knocked you out for a few days. I can’t have you fainting at the wrong moment.”
I stared after the woman who wasn’t big enough for that kind of careless villainy. She knocked me out for a few days? How was that even possible? I hurried after her and came out in a large kitchen that was white with stainless steel accents. She moved around quickly, mixing up a chunky drink full of vegetables and powders that looked iffy and smelled worse.
She poured two large glasses and handed me one. “Shall we sit on the patio? It’s not a terrible view.” I followed her out of the French doors and into a walled-in courtyard with a fountain and bougainvillea around the perimeter. The wall was very high with spikes on top.
“How thick are those walls?”
“Two and a half. It keeps out the noise pollution.”
“And armored vehicular assault. What do you keep behind your steel door? I’m beginning to think that you aren’t an entirely law-abiding citizen.”
She gave me a dangerous grin. “Oh, I’m entirely law-abiding, as you’d know if you asked my lawyer. Isn’t this vile?” She took a large gulp and leaned back in her black iron chair, looking out into the distance, which was basically the wall.
I took a sip and made a face. Yes, it was vile. It tasted like the worst kind of healthy. I took a larger drink, because I wasn’t eating bubblegum icecream for breakfast anymore. Sad. But she’d let me play her cello.
We sat in silence while I worried about what this first day of work was going to be like, and whether I’d have to come back here where I may or may not be put to sleep for days at a time. At least she’d put me on an IV. And she had a cello.
“You didn’t get upset enough about getting knocked out,” she said finally, like that’s what she’d been puzzling over. “A normal person would run out of here screaming, but you were immediately distracted by Othello.”
“How did you know what instrument I was looking at? You never turned around.”
“You have calluses on your left hand. The violin isn’t visible from that doorway. Ergo, Othello.”
“Do you play?”
“No, I just like collecting expensive things that make me look classy.”
“You were born looking classy. You spend all your time looking like a hussy. I think I can do that for you. Camouflage the uptown girl and bring out the tacky Texan.”
She raised a brow that looked too dark for her clear skin. “Another thing. Your language is too clean. Nitro’s cousin wouldn’t speak without sprinkling expletives into every sentence.”
My heart pounded. Could she possibly know who I was? How could she really suspect me just because I hadn’t gotten upset about being drugged or cussed up a storm? “You don’t know me very well.”
She raised an elegant eyebrow. “I don’t care who you are, as long as you don’t break Dagger until after the season. Come on. I’ll drive you to work in Betsy. You’re going to have to figure out something for transportation. Oh, here are the house keys and the address in case you get lost. Don’t take cabs. They’ll charge you more than New York cabbies. When we get to the compound, ask Trix to fix you up with something small that gets good gas mileage.”
“The dragon who eats people?”
“She has a reputation, just like we all do. Go and get changed. Long pants and sturdy shoes. They’re in the closet.”
“In the paintings room? Why do you have so many beautiful pieces of art in a room you don’t spend any time in? Also, how is the lock on the door? I don’t like sleeping around other people.”
“It’s showing my class.”
“Do you ever let people over?”
“No, but sometimes they come anyway. Get dressed before I drag you out by your ankles. It would give you rope burns.”
I did as she said, and soon enough, I found myself outside the Death-Hammer compound. It was a block of warehouses surrounded by chain link and barbed wire. Cars parked in clusters around each building.
“Arena, menagerie, garage,” she said pointing at three buildings through her gas-guzzling blue beast’s windshield, “And then you have Dagger’s warehouse, which is carefully air-conditioned so all his gadgets don’t get overwhelmed by this desert heat. That’s where you’ll be. Nix has decided that you’re going to help Dagger run drones today.”
