Page 22 of Our Vicious Descent
13
Elise woke to a concerned face staring down at her. Sterling immediately backed away as she sat up. Her brow, sweaty and hot, furrowed while she took in the familiar surroundings of Jamie’s apartment. All Elise could do was shake her head in confusion.
Sterling cleared his throat. “I threw out the venom. You were becoming dependent on it, and it was slowly killing you. You need to get it out of your system now. I figured you would want to do it away from your father—”
“I need it—”
“This is part of the drug people are using to feel bigger than they are, and it kills them, Elise. Let it go. Some of us don’t want you to die,” Sterling snapped.
Jamie folded his newspaper from where he sat at the kitchen counter across the room. “She has no healthy fear of death,” hemuttered. “But I’m sure letting her bleed on my couch will fix that.”
“You’re not helping,” Sterling bit out.
“Neither are you,” Elise shot back.
His face twisted with anger. “Would you rather I have left you there? And let your father assume the worst? This doesn’t reflect well on the empire, Elise.”
“And you sidling up with a gangster does? Or do you only care about morals when they serve you?” Elise retorted.
Sterling glared. “It wasn’t my idea—”
“He’s right. I’ve been paid to look after you. Can’t have you dying on these streets, as much as I would love to give up some responsibility,” Jamie called.
Elise clenched her jaw. “I don’t give a fuck about the empire. If neither of you will do anything, then I will do it myself.”
“Why are you so impassioned by this all of a sudden?” Sterling demanded.
Elise’s throat tightened as angry tears filled her eyes. “Why are you not? Our home is dying. Even if I had no personal stake in this, I would care. You should too. My father founded the empire to help, but he’s done no such thing. You’re no better than him, and he’s the fucking worst, Sterling.”
Hurt darkened his expression as his face fell. “What personal stake?”
Elise swallowed. She contemplated keeping the truth from him, but if there was one thing that would get him to see her perspective, it would be her younger sister. “Josi. Josi is doing this. Or she’s involvedwith the beast somehow. I heard her voice in the hotel when that…thing attacked me.”
Silence draped the room in stiff tension. Holding her breath, Elise waited for Sterling’s next words. Even Jamie tensed in his seat. Elise’s patience dried up the longer she sat on the couch with blood soaking through the bandages on her wrist. “Karma has been around for as long as Josi has been missing. I need the name of the club that young woman got her venom from.”
14
The Scarlet Lounge roared to life at midnight. When the streetlights came on and partygoers filled the streets with their drunken shouts and glittery getups, the beasts lurking in the shadows began to take their picks. Layla stood at the entrance to the lounge, her fingers twitching with anticipation by her sides. Celie and Laure flanked her. Each wore a weary expression that mirrored how Layla felt. The scent of rotting blood only increased as the night went on. For the past hour, Layla’s head had been swimming, her thoughts becoming more difficult to pin down and vision narrowing as her heart rate increased with each wave of hunger.
The manager, this time a human gangster instead of a reaper, glanced down at her, suspicious. “You look like you would be a liability. When was the last time you fed? We cannot have any mishaps here,” she said sharply.
Layla knew her appearance was damning. There was only somuch she could do to cover the enlarged black veins that pulsed beneath her eyes and on her throat. By now her fangs could not retract, and she was distracted by every bloody temptation nearby. The busy crowd of people outside the alleyway only made things worse—she was certain she could have picked up on someone’s paper cut from a block away if such a thing were to occur. Still, this starvation was better than the alternative—being at her strongest, when the poison had something to feed on.
“I assure you I have more self-control now than I have ever had in my entire life,” Layla rasped.
Laure nodded. “It’s true. She’s studied under an ancient reaper. You have nothing to worry about.”
The manager looked unconvinced. She scoffed and cracked the door open a bit wider. “There’s a door fee.”
“I am here to do business, not take it,” Layla said. She lowered her voice for her next words. “I want to buy karma.”
Celie shuddered by her side while amusement pulled a soft smile onto the manager’s face. “Is that so? In that case, we have space for you.” The gangster stepped back and opened the door wider for them to move inside.
Smoke greeted them as they walked through the doorway. Layla was grateful for the overbearing scent and its ability to cover up the old blood that lurked beneath the floorboards and in the walls. She allowed herself to breathe deeply for the first time all day, relishing in the thick, dissatisfying air. Her hunger remained at bay. It did not surge into her throat, and she ran her tongue over her fangs, feelinghow dry they had gone from the lack of nearby temptations.
Celie’s shoulder brushed her side, pulling Layla from her internal distractions. The younger girl’s frame was rigid and tense, and she walked with a slight unease in her step. “Nothing good happens in these places,” she muttered. Fear darkened her brown eyes, rendering them almost black.
Laure slid a hand over her arm and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
