Page 138 of The Wicked
He sighed, dropping it. “It’s about your artist.”
That caught my attention. “Did he speak?”
Casmiro shook his head. “No, I’m beginning to think he’s never going to. We need you down there; maybe your presence would change something.”
I locked my jaw. “Are you telling me that my professional team is incapable of torturing answers out of a simple artist?”
“They’ve tried all the methods; his fingers have been chopped off; I’m guessing his inability to work has made him incompliant.”
“Ah… I see. Poor thing.”
“It has been three weeks. He’s wasting our time, and Street hasn’t gotten any new leads for the next painting yet.”
“Hm. How unfortunate.”
Casmiro glared at me, standing straighter. “Be serious, E. If we go on like this, the artist will be dead before we pull out any answers from him.”
“You want me to speak to him.”
“Yes. He will talk when you… do your thing.”
“My thing?”
“You know… The Wicked thing that works for people.”
I wanted to laugh, but my expression remained blank as I said, “There is no such thing asThe Wicked thing.”
He sighed. “I think you should show your face once, so he knows we mean business.”
“I’m sure he knows we mean business. The team chopped off his fingers. Cruel. Impressive. But I have work to do. We should be traveling to Turin in a few days for the dinner—”
“We still have time for that. This is important.”
I suppressed the urge to groan, doing away with my unseriousness. “I know it is important.” I stopped to think, my brainissuing me ugly ideas. “He should be taken to the hot room. Open his wounds, and leave him there for an hour; I’ll visit him afterward.”
“Okay.” He moved towards the door, eyeing me… “I can leave you alone, right?”
“Hm.”
He stood there, staring at me like he needed another confirmation. When the silence dragged on, I sighed, motioning to the door.
“Get the fuck out, Casmiro.”
“Right.” He cleared his throat. “See you in an hour.”
And then he was gone.
I shook my head, returning to my desk drawer to take out the phone box. Without a second thought, I opened it, turned it on, and spent the next few minutes setting it up. Some things took a few minutes for me to get used to, but I quickly mastered it.
I saved Angelo’s number, followed by Casmiro’s and Gemma’s, before clicking on the messaging icon next to her name.
The screen switched to a blank message space.
I hesitated, knowing it had been almost a month since she had given me her number. I didn’t want to give the wrong impression by proceeding to use the number, but she had been kind to me, oblivious of my world—from what I could tell, she didn’t care if I was covered in blood. It was strange.
But I was inquisitive; it took quite a lot for another human to have mecurious.It was effortless with Zahra because I became a completely different person when it came to her. But with Gemma, I simply wondered why she had chosen to ignore my bad and focus on the good she could see, the good I seemed to have.
Why haven’t I forgotten our encounter? What is there?
