Page 97 of Snag
“Is my murderer still alive?” I ask. “After facing off with my aunt? How is that possible?”
“It shouldn’t have been,” Reck mutters. “It never should have fucking happened in the first place. You should have been safe from him!”
I knownow, even without Reck actually voicing the name. It’s clearer even than I gleaned from the conversation in the Outcast’s dining room. Who could stand against my aunt? Or who could at least flee from her, leaving me dead at her feet?
“I tried to banish Rath,” I say, sounding thoughtful even if my head is mostly empty.
“What?”
“From the estate. He grabbed me —”
“What!?”
I wave off his concern, not bothering to analyze it. “But even after I claimed the intersection point, he walks the land without permission.”
“I’m not fucking following what you’re saying, Zaya.”
I finally look at him, indulging in doing so for a moment. He’s beautiful, even in profile.
He’s supposed to be mine.
But he’s not. He’s not mine.
“My aunt is dead,” I say. “At least a century before her time.”
“I know.”
“She had tea with someone the afternoon she went missing. Though I’m guessing on the timeline a bit. Someone lured her from the property with some issue … some emergency. Was it you?”
“It wasn’t.”
He’s not lying.
“What is your fucking point?” Reck snaps. “I didn’t kill Disa.”
“You wouldn’t have been capable of it.”
“Right. But?”
“Someone obviously did.”
“Well, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t my agents, and it wasn’t Bellamy,” he says. “So you’re perfectly safe.”
“No,” I say, finally looking away from him. “My aunt was perfectly safe with you. You were supposed to be mine.”
“I’m not fucking yours!” He shakes his head, trying to settle himself.
I let it go. I don’t have any proof of anything yet, and I hate mucking around in supposition. I hate guessing.
Reck glances at me, then away. He shifts his hands on the wheel, then plays with the climate controls on the console.
The silence that fills the vehicle now is sharp, filling with a slow creep of bitter malevolence.
A text message appears on the console.Ten minutes, asshole.
The pinned location on the map shifts. Again. As if Bellamy has sent an update. But we’re near now.
“I’m on my fucking way, you fucking bitch,” Reck says.
