Page 30 of Roses and Murder
Neco also grunted. Yeah, that was settled. I’d learned to speak fluent male, and that was a grunt of confirmation. Glad that was settled. One thing about Neco was that he didn’t lie. If he had no intention of agreeing with me, he would have just ignored me. And he went a step further.
Neco spat on his palm and thrust it at me.
“You have my back and I’ll have yours. No one dies but the Ghoul. We swear it. No one does anything stupid.”
Spit palm oaths were sacred, though not as legally binding as signing your name to a contract. Everyone in Guttertown knew this. Even if I didn’t know that grunt meant he agreed with me, no one in Guttertown spat in their palm and offered an oath when they didn’t need it. If you broke it, it was bad luck, and you’d be cursed for ten years.
Neco’s eye was dark and unreadable when I spit in my hand and smacked it to his to seal our vow. He held my hand a little longer than he should, and we had a little weird moment until I broke it.
I couldn’t with him right now. I didn’t need to be distracted by Neco Argent when so much was at stake. Yeah, we were kindof talking without screaming at each other, but he’d broken my heartandmy nose once and I wasn’t going to let him do it again.
He gave me a curt nod. This was where we parted. Things might never go back to how they used to be with Neco, but maybe we could at least be civil after this. I didn’t know if my plan would work and if it would, if I’d still get the cure from my father, but the Ghoul had to be stopped.
Ialways felt like people were staring at me when I left Guttertown. Neco wasn’t totally overreacting when he said I might get jumped because some arsehole thought I was too effeminate for a man. I found the whole thing wholly ridiculous because it wasn’t like that was even contagious.
The streets of Lower Cutwart were mostly empty, just like they were supposed to be when a celebration was going on. There were a few families that weren’t invited, but they were mostly just hauling water home since all the businesses were closed.
They all passed by without even looking at me. I got it. It was a big snub not to be invited to a wedding or a name day when thewhole town was there, especially when it wasn’t a mutual thing like it was with Elsbeth.
Trevils got us a lot more information than I thought possible. There were two other girls that had the attention of Barons’ and merchants’ sons in Lower Cutwart. Those were the houses Neco, and I were staking out.
The people of Lower Cutwart wanted them to marry out to get rid of them more than wanting them to have a better life. The people who weren’t invited to this particular wedding were those who’d burned bridges with the bride and groom’s family.
Probably with each other, too, because they didn’t seem to be having their own little get together. When we were kids, one of the boys broke Ronan’s charcoal. Ollie punched him in the face and Ronan ruined his life later.
Yeah, Ronan ruined his life pretty badly. We didn’t get invited to any of his name-day celebrationsorhis wedding. We threw our own party each time. None of these people were doing that. The kid that broke Ronan’s charcoal was a bully who made a lot of enemies, so we invitedeveryonehe shunned from his parties, even if we didn’t like them that much. It was a bonding thing.
These people weren’t doing that, so there was probably some bad blood there, too. They all just seemed like they wanted to get home and didn’t acknowledge me at all.
Which was perfectly fine by me, but that feeling I had when I left Guttertown that people were staring at me was worse than ever. The hair on the back of my neck was literally standing up, and I felt super exposed.
I hated it and wanted to leave, but I had a job to do. The sky decided to dump rain on me. It didn’t feel like there was going to be a storm. It had been sunny and clear all day. If the townsfolk didn’t have a barn or pavilion to move to, they’d all be on theirway home. If there had been any hint of a storm, I was guessing the Ghoul would have called this off. He still might.
There was a narrow alley between the houses. I had a very bad feeling, so I was just going to duck into the alley, peek into the window to make sure the Ghoul wasn’t inside, and find Neco. I trusted my gut. This was where the Ghoul would be.
Their neighbor went into their house with water, so clearly, I thought he might not be here yet or they’d look more tense. I peeked into their window from the shadows of the alley. They were all sitting down to eat.
Lightning lit up the alley and I jumped when I realized I wasn’t alone. This was the Ghoul. He was dressed too nice to not be related to the Barons, but his clothes were ill fitting and dirty.
Before I could run, he slammed me against the wall and had his blade to my throat.
“Why are you following me?” he demanded. “You must be really stupid.”
Clearly, because I was alone in an alley with a serial killer. He’d never taken on Guttertown before, so I wasn’t going to stand there and let him kill me.
Fuck that.
Lance was definitely going to have Ollie’s balls and he might maim my face again, but I knew her cook’s secret now. He already knew mine, and I had no intention of doing anything about that.
I was honestly a little mad at myself for not guessing Lance hired a Theran and was hiding him in the back because there was honestly no way a human could have noticed someone pissed in the house once and rolled in beds. Not with all the blood and gore all over the houses.
He told me why he was banished from his people, and that wasn’t his fault. Ollie looked slightly worried I was going to take that for Basselt fitting my code and doing away with him, but I helped raise Rowena. Some kids were wild and feral. If youdidn’t sit on them, they snuck out and got into trouble. I told Basselt as much.
He was on our side and that was all I cared about. He was risking his life and freedom to help. The Madame was able to tell us one thing that helped with the intel Basselt gave Lance. Depending on where the Ghoul was in the disease, he was either going to be really weak or he might be in the stage where he thought he was invincible and would fight like that if someone challenged him.
Which didn’t bode well for us. Barons had some training, but they fought with rules. If it was a regular brawl where both parties fought to the best of their abilities, they’d get destroyed because they couldn’t fight outside their choreographed moves. They had no reason to think they needed any other training because no one was allowed to fight back.
Except the Ghoul was twisted. He’d use his training and fight dirty. He was also contagious, so I’d be trying to keep contact limited. Still, if Lance’s plan worked, I wouldn’t have to touch him much.
