Page 77 of Lourdes & the Mafia
I only drop it once we’re outside in the empty parking lot.
She breathes a sigh of relief and throws her hands out at her sides, twirling in a circle.
She looks… free.
“The air here smells different,” she explains when she catches me watching her.
“Hm.”
I’m sure it does. It’s not filled with the ashes of burning flesh clogging the wind. It smells like the sea. Like sand and heat.
She suddenly gets a sad, faraway look in her eyes, staring off into the lights of the city skylines. As if she can see the ocean beyond.
The wind whips against her curls and the bottom of her skirt. “I just want this to be over. I want to get back to my life.”
A life without us in it.
“Ramiel will find out what we need to know.” I don’t know why I’m trying to reassure her. Just because we’ve agreed to an arrangement doesn’t mean anything has changed between us.
I still hate her.
But I want her even more. I want her smile, the blinding light of it to brighten the night around us.
“Kane?”
“Hm?” I’m distracted by the shape of her curls and the downturn of her lips.
“Does it feel cold to you?”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. My magic lashes as I whirl, a cry of warning ready on my lips.
It’s too late.
Shadows out of my control snap out, magic like I’ve never felt before blasting me back.
Pain zaps through my chest, like every nerve has been electrocuted beneath my skin, leaving me convulsing on my back on the ground.
I grunt, sound disappearing from around me as I’m consumed with nothing but agony. Distantly, I hear Lourdes screaming my name.
I focus on that; on her voice, the fear in the air.
Her sudden scream.
Fuck.
I force myself to my feet, forcing the pain into a distant box within myself. Something I’ll take out and analyze later, I’m sure. But not now.
Not when Lourdes needs me.
Shadowy figures in the shapes of bodies materialize. There are several, more than I can possibly count, circling around Lourdes, some prowling towards me.
“Kane!”
The sound of her fear is a driving force.
With a cry of rage, I charge forward just as the creatures meet me halfway. But they have no idea what the fuck they’ve just done.
I am Kane de la Morte.
