Page 43 of Freaks
Not only had she asked the wrong question, but her inflection had stressed the wrong word, too. The way she’d emphasized the wordyou, as if she’d recognized me, as if she knew my face and she wanted to know why the hell—
The bag of groceries almost slipped from my hands.
Oh.
God.
No.
No, I was being crazy. Sera had only spoken highly of her friend. She’d only had great things to say about her. There hadn’t seemed to be any sort of animosity between them back at the apartment. Sadie has seemed genuinely happy to see Sera, after she’d gotten over the initial shock of—
Unbidden, a thought occurred to me, giving life to a dark and terrible suspicion inside my mind. Sadie hadn’t been shocked when she laid eyes on me. Why not? The hypothetical answer to that question: she knew perfectly well who I was…because she had hired me to put an end to Sera.
Sadiehadbeen incredibly shocked to see Sera. Why? The hypothetical answer tothatquestion: because Zeth Mayfair’s boss had forwarded a photo of Sera’s contorted, bleeding body to Carver, informing him that his mark had been taken care of.
Except in this hypothetical world, Carver was not a man. He was a woman.
SadiewasCarver.
And as far as she’d been concerned, Sera was fucking dead.
The night pressed in from all sides as I postulated a series of further questions to myself:
Why would Sadie want Sera dead?
Did she have the means to set something like that in motion?
If she were Carver, why wouldn’t she have dealt with Sera personally, if she’d had so many opportunities in the past?
Any answer I formulated in response to those questions was mere speculation, weak at best. But there was this festering feeling, sinking down into my bones. This feeling I just couldn’t shake. I’d gotten good at reading people in my previous line of work, and there was just something off about this whole thing. Something that suddenly refused to sit right…
I was running before I’d even really made the decision to move. The bag of groceries crashed to the floor, another wine bottle exploding on the ground, but I didn’t care. If I was wrong here, if Sadie and Sera were gossiping like old housewives at the dining table when I arrived, then I’d happily go back out and get another fucking bottle of wine.
But if they weren’t…
If I was right…
Hot, acidic bile rose up the back of my throat, making it hard to breathe as I pumped my arms, pushing myself, forcing one foot in front of the other.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’d purposefully taken my time. I’d gone way further than I’d needed to. I’d stretched out the walk back, moving at a snail’s pace, thinking I was doing Sera a favor, and yet there was a chance…
Fuck, I couldn’t even think it.
I dodged pedestrians on the sidewalk, roaring at them to get the fuck out of the way as I barreled back toward Sera’s building. I ran on the road, dodging the traffic, ignoring the angry car horns, when my path wasn’t clear.
I faltered when I reached the lobby. Where was the elevator?
Where the fu—
Shit. That’s right. There wasn’t one.
My heart was bursting out of my chest as I launched myself up the stairs, taking them three and four at a time. I was used to running, but I’d never moved this fast in my entire fucking life. Adrenalin spiked, lighting up my bloodstream, making the lights burn brighter overhead, my ears picking up every sound as I sped toward Sera’s apartment. The door to 12B swung open and the old man who’d been staring at me when we first arrived stepped out, a newspaper gripped tightly in his hand.
“Not now, Julian,” I growled as I sailed past him.
“You tell those girls to quit screamin’ and hollerin’ at one another. I’m tryin’ to watch my shows, and all anyone can hear is them bickerin’ at the top of their voices.
