Page 29 of This Ravenous Fate
A low noise left Layla’s throat.
Elise blinked. “Excuse you.”
“I said ‘of course,’” Layla snapped. And despite the tough exterior she upheld, Elise saw pain darkening her eyes. “No one ever cares when it’s a Black body.”
Elise’s mind went back to the radio report she had heard the day after the murder. “The news opinions are all about how the country’s image is tainted by our growing reaper problem. Yet, there has been no call to action. Sometimes I feel like my family are the only people who care about fixing things,” she muttered.
Layla raised her eyebrows. “You cannot possibly be that delusional.”
“Excuse me?” Elise scoffed. “I’m delusional for believing in my family’s desire to do good for our community?”
“You are delusional to believe that anyone with as much power and money as your father would ever act purely on a principle of goodness. I know you’ve lived in a high-society bubble your whole life, so it might be difficult to believe, but the world is not so black and white. People are more than just good or bad,” Layla huffed out.
The conversation with Mrs. Smith still weighed so heavily on her that Elise did not have the energy to challenge Layla’s words. But her mind hung on to them, turning them over and over while she considered her family’s role in the spread of reaperhood. Everything her father did was to keep their family and Harlem safe. She had never considered the possibility of malice, or some ulterior motive behind his actions. Elise knew her father.
She snapped her notebook shut. “You are so keen on giving me every bit of information except for the proof I asked for,” Elise said coolly.
Layla’s eyes glimmered on Elise. “Okay,princess. I’ll get you your proof. Let’s go to the morgue and see how you do with a dead body.”
***
The morgue was just as Elise had imagined it to be. Cold and desolate. Antiseptic burned the inside of her nose while they enteredthe examination room. It was as if the scent of years and years of blood and rotting flesh still lingered, even if it had been cleaned up long ago.
“Damn. I’m kind of mad I didn’t get a Saint ring in the time I was a part of that cult because that thing gives you access everywhere. Imagine all the fancy clubs I could get into…” Layla said as they walked in.
Elise ignored her, reading the name tags in order to locate Theo’s body. “He should be in—Layla,wait,” she called when Layla left her side. But the reaper did not acknowledge her. Rolling her eyes, Elise approached a wall of body drawers. She made it through only two name tags before the insufferable sound of metal grinding on metal pulled her focus.
Layla peered down at a body bag in the drawer she’d opened. “I found him.” Her expression seemed painfully bored for someone in the presence of a dead body. “I recognized his scent. No matter how much you scrub at them, or how much bleach you lather on them, a person’s essence always remains.” She unzipped the bag and inhaled.
Elise wanted to gag. She shuddered and swallowed back bile. The scent of death and decay was rather subdued, but the mixture of cleaning chemicals almost did her in.
Layla, however, was as close as she could get, peering down at Theo, her fingers resting right on his ashen skin. “I can smell the Saint members’ blood in him. But there’s something else…” She looked up and smiled cruelly at Elise. Then she sank her nails into Theo’s throat.
***
Theo’s blood smelled purely human. His essence, though, was of himself and four other beings. The older Saint member, Thalia, and Layla. The fourth scent was unknown.
“He fed on someone before he died,” Layla said. She reached into his mouth, feeling a gap where his reaper fangs should have been. “He’s missing a tooth.” Layla gestured for Elise to look. Elise, hesitant at first, moved slowly into a position that allowed her to see inside his mouth.
“So he really bit them…” Elise said in a quiet voice. “Why would they hide this?”
“It’s easier to blame reapers for every problem,” Layla muttered.
Elise didn’t react. She continued to stare at Theo, her eyes shifting from sadness to anger. It took Layla a moment to remember that Elise’s friends were dead—likely at Theo’s hands. Death was a common visitor in Layla’s life. It became routine, a daily occurrence that she had grown numb to. She forgot most humans didn’t deal with the macabre as closely as she did. They got to enjoy the beautiful parts of life while reapers had no choice but to partake of the darkest aspects of living. The parts no one wanted to talk about, or acknowledge.
But even before becoming a reaper, Layla knew death was as important and necessary to life as living was. Being a reaper just made her appreciate it more.
Layla removed her hands from Theo’s mouth and zipped hisbody bag back up. “He might have fed on the Saints, but there is someone else he hunted that night. I can taste them.” She licked the remaining drops of blood from her finger. They were stale and bitter to the taste, but they confirmed her suspicions—there was someone else involved in the crime.
Layla sensed the blood rush in Elise’s cheeks. The Saint girl was uncomfortable. “You did not need to perform your own pseudo autopsy on him like that,” she muttered.
Layla resisted the urge to smile. She had never seen a Saint undone like this before. “Well, this is how reapers work. I told you it would be too much for you.” Her words carried a taunt.
Elise shot Layla a look over her shoulder, flat and unimpressed. Though she hadn’t managed to get a rise out of her, Layla was glad to no longer be scrutinized by those terrified eyes.
Elise reached for the clipboard hanging from Theo’s drawer. “This is howpeoplework,” Elise said calmly. But as she read over the pages, her expression changed. Finally she looked up, a realization widening her eyes. “He went to the clinic for a reaper bite just before the murder. I saw him there… He looked really scared.”
Layla pressed her fingertips to her lips, thinking. “If he frequented the Cotton Club, there’s a chance he got involved with some bad people…or reapers,” she said.
