Page 32 of Roses and Murder
“How do you plan on fixing this?”
Neco grinned at me like a psychopath.
“Knocking the shit unconscious actually made it easier.”
I hoped so, but I really didn’t want to hang for this. Also, things might never go back to how they used to be with Neco, but I never wanted to be that man’s target.
Ifully planned on making Beck get drunk with me so I could lose my mind Lance was a woman. Sometimes, people did that in Guttertown and we respected it, but you knew them before and then you knew them after. Lance had always been Lance. We all grew up together and at no point did I know Lance wasn’t a man. I had alotof questions.
But first, I had to fix this.
“Do you think you could track Trevils to the Merchant District and bring him here?” I asked Basselt. “We need witnesses they trust.”
“That’s dangerous for Basselt,” she said.
“Look, I don’t know what to call you. Do you prefer Lance? It’s dangerous for everyone if Trevils isn’t here.”
“My name is Lucy but if you can’t call me Lucy in private and Lance in public, then call me Lance. If you’re going to go back to being an arse again, then just don’t talk to me at all.”
I was so confused. We knew Mark as Mark and then she wanted to be Amelia, so we called her Amelia. Wealwayscalled her Amelia. No one called her Mark anymore, in private or in public. If someone called her Mark behind her back, someone was probably going to whoop their arse.
Still, I could do that. I just needed to know what Lucy preferred. And I had no intention of things going back to how they were before. If anything, I needed to explain myself even better than I’d planned before because if I’d known Lance was a girl, Iwouldn’thave broken her nose. I was going to have to live with that.
“How much time do I have?” Basselt asked.
“Don’t shift,” I said, because he already said he was faster on four legs. It was too much of a risk. “If he wakes up, I’ll just thump him again. It would beimmenselysatisfying.”
This man killed countless women and children, but he’d also cut Lucy. I didn’tknowshe was Lucy, but I’d been in love with Lance since we were kids. It didn’t make a difference to me either way what gender she was or what gender she wanted to be. I’d let her go because I thought we were related, but now that I knew she wasn’t, I was going to make it right and make her mine.
I couldn’t kill the Ghoul because that wasn’t the plan, but I’d love to knock the shit out of him.
I had my next target, too. When she forgave me, I was going to find out who gave her those scars on her torso and really enjoy killing them.
Getting my period in front of Ollie should have been the most mortifying thing that happened to me, but this was worse. There used to be a time that if I was going to tell any of my friends my secret, I probably would have told Neco first, but he ruined that and I still wasn’t totally sure why.
“What happens next?” I asked.
Because I honestly still didn’t know. And I was really frazzled, so I wasn’t exactly thinking on the fly like I usually would.
“You’re going to go knock on that door and ask the family to come outside.”
“Neco, it’s storming, I’ve got a black eye, your shirt doesn’t fit, and I’m bleeding through it. Are you insane? Don’t answer that.”
“Well,Ican’t knock on the door because I gave you my shirt.”
“Arsehole, people lose their mind overmynipples, but yours are perfectly acceptable in public.”
He just sighed.
“Someone has to stay in case he wakes up again and I’d prefer that not be you, okay?”
That made sense, but I was a mess and so was the weather. They were nice and dry inside. I wouldn’t come out, either. But then my brain started working again. I didn’t need Neco to tell me how to do this. I marched to the front door and just started banging.
A man threw open the door and glared at me like I was trash.
“We don’t have money for you and I’m not letting you in my house,” he sneered.
“Don’t want any of that. Ever heard of the Ghoul? He was planning on murdering your entire family tonight, but my partner and I stopped him. If you want him to actually pay for targeting your family, Elsbeth, and the other families, I need you to come outside. Are you getting what I’m saying?”
