Page 9 of The Rebel and the Rose
When Nadia returned from the garden, she was frowning. ‘There’s nothing left. Not a root or a leaf. Even her compost heap has been emptied.’
Caruso bit off a curse. ‘Where the hell did she go?’
Nadia stared out of the window towards the trees. Her brown eyes took on a familiar vacant look, and Ransom knew that she was thinking of Lark. She was always thinking of Lark, her best friend, her lover. They had had a plan to runaway together. She’d confessed it, three whiskeys deep, to Ransom over Saintsmas. They were going to lose themselves in a place like Aberville, marry and build a farm. Build a life far from the catacombs and leave the business of killing behind them.
Now Lark was dead.
And so was the plan.
Ransom came to her side.
‘We should have buried him back home,’ she murmured. ‘By the trees on his mother’s farm. He loved it there. He would have wanted that.’
Ransom’s stomach twisted. ‘We can visit him in Old Haven.’
Not that he ever did. He couldn’t bring himself to.
‘And talk to the frozen grass.’ She gave a mirthless snort. ‘Corpses don’t talk back.’
‘That’s my favourite thing about them,’ said Caruso.
Ransom tossed him a warning look. ‘Not helpful.’
‘Neither is this depressing heart-to-heart.’ Caruso stretched, passing a hand over his shaved head. He had had to cut off his wild dark hair the night the monsters ripped his skull open down in the catacombs. As the sun rose over the weeping city of Fantome, Caruso had stood, bloodless and half dead, in front of the mirror and sewed the wound shut. Badly. Now he had a gruesome scar above his left ear to show for it.
‘And you wonder why you sleep alone, Caruso.’ Nadia’s voice hardened as she stepped away from the window. ‘We should search the forest.’
‘Why?’ Caruso cocked his head. ‘Do you think the old bat went out there to lay eggs?’
She glared at him. ‘Maybe a monster took her.’
‘The monsters are dead,’ said Ransom.
‘How do you know they’re all gone?’ She turned her pointed glare on him. ‘Wedidn’t make them. And we sure as hell didn’t kill them.’
‘You hardly think they’ve been playing hide-and-seek in that creepy forest this entire time?’ said Caruso. ‘You’re supposed to be the smart one, Nadia.’
‘And you were supposed to stay home today.’ She punched him in the arm. ‘I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas.’
‘I’m not the ideas guy. I’m the murder guy.’
‘We’reallthe murder guy,’ she reminded him.
‘Only until the last of our Shade runs dry. Then I’ll just use my hands.’ Caruso cracked his knuckles, the olive skin there covered in shadow-marks, just like the rest of him. ‘The question is, what willyoudo, princess?’
‘I’ll jam my stiletto heel through your left eye.’
He arched a dark brow. ‘You know it turns me on when you talk like that.’
‘You are insufferable,’ she huffed.
Ransom left them to their bickering, glad to hear the bite returning to Nadia’s voice. He preferred it over the grief that so often lingered there. Theblame. Slipping out of the back door, he did his own patrol of the garden. It was eerily quiet outside, the forest making a stark outline against the white sky.
The back of his neck began to prickle as he scanned the trees. Grabbing a vial from his pocket, he took the barest sip of Shade. Just enough to light up the shadows and to keep his own close in case he needed them.
He had come too far, survived too much, to die to a flying pitchfork.
The forest winked to light. It was still. He scrubbed his hands through his hair, ashamed of his own paranoia.
