Page 31 of Destined Dawn
“No,” Rhi says, biting her thumb in a way that suggests to me she’s not sure of that.
We don’t have long to contemplate what the psycho is up to though. He returns after only a few minutes, a bottle of ancient-looking liquor in one hand, and six shot glasses balancing in the other. He slams them down on the table.
“If we’re not going to fuck, we can at least have fun.”
“I don’t like your kind of fun,” Azlan growls. And considering this morning’s monologue about neck snapping, I have to agree.
“Right!” The assassin laughs. “Because a man who is as good at killing as you are, can’t possibly hate it.”
“We’re not killing anyone,” Rhi says. “Maybe we should just go to bed,” she mutters.
“To fuck?” Barone asks eagerly, making my hackles rise.
“To sleep!”
“Nah, that’s no fun.” He twists the lid off the liquor bottle and lifts the neck to his nose, taking a sharp sniff. “Fuck me, that’s strong,” he says, blinking.
He slops the bottle over and lets the clear liquid drizzle into each of the glasses, spilling half of it over the tabletop. Then he rights the bottle and slides a glass to each of us. I glare down at mine.
“There’s no way in hell I’m touching that stuff,” Azlan growls.
I dip my little finger into the liquid, half expecting to see my skin sizzle off. When it doesn’t, I dip my finger in my mouth and suck. A sickly alcohol mixture hits my tongue. “It’s not half bad,” I confirm.
“You don’t know what the hell is in it and we could be attacked at any moment,” Azlan says, ever the fucking soldier. “We need all our faculties working.”
Barone tips the shot straight into his mouth, swallows and slams his glass on the table. “My faculties,” he says, “have never worked.” He slaps a load more liquid into the glass.
“Fuck it,” I mutter, knocking back my own shot. Immediately, a warm sensation swims through my body and some of the tension I’ve been carrying ever since the academy was attacked leaves my shoulders.
I wipe at my teary eyes, focusing back in on those around us. Rhi’s shot glass is half way to her mouth.
“Miss Blackwaters,” I warn her, “you know you can’t hold your drink.” She glares at me and swallows the thing in one go. It leaves her coughing and spluttering and I shake my head. “What did I tell you?”
She gives me the finger and reaches for her water glass.
“So you’re going to sit here and get wasted?” Azlan says with obvious disapproval.
“We could fuck instead, but little rabbit doesn’t want to do that. Probably on account of all the fucking she did earlier.”
Rhi chokes on her water and I give Tristan Kennedy the stink eye. We all know what they were doing earlier. We heard it loud and clear.
“We could make things more interesting,” Spencer says, spinning his untouched glass in his fingers.
“More interesting, how?” Rhi asks, her eyes already a little squiffy.
“We could play ‘never have I ever’.”
Azlan folds his arms over his chest, his biceps bulging in annoyance. “I left school a long time ago.”
“I’ve never played it,” Barone says, his glass already empty again.
“Me neither,” Rhi says.
“We’re not playing ‘never have I ever’,” I say, in my teacher voice.
“It might be a good way of getting to know each other better,” Rhi says.
“You only think that, Miss Blackwaters, because you’ve never played it.”
