Page 65 of Virgin Sacrifice

This time she didn’t respond but merely pursed her lips.

My grip tightened around her delicate collarbone. She rolled her eyes again, and for a moment, the world faded to black around me.

“You’ll have to forgive me for not taking advice from one of my stalkers.”

I increased the pressure around her neck. “Need I remind you whose campus this is?” I enunciated each word deliberately.

“Oh, it’s yours. That’s been made very clear to me, and I think we can both agree that I won’t be running in the woods anytime soon, Ali!” She hissed my name like a curse.

Where was that delicious fear I had come to drink down, and why did I find a measure of satisfaction in her petulant defiance?

“Is there anything else you want to tell me? Think carefully.”

She sat in silence, her lips pressed into a thin, pensive line. I didn’t like that. I much preferred them full and trembling.

Part of me wanted to stay here and play with the little devil well into the night, but as I much wanted to see tears running down those pretty cheeks, something told me it wasn’t the time yet. She was playing at being cocky now, and I needed her to sit with the aftermath of our encounter.

I wanted my questions in her head. I wanted her to worry about what I knew and what I would learn. I wanted her to know that I was looking for answers, and that I would find them. I wanted her fear because her fear would make her sloppy, and that was how I’d get what I was looking for.

That, or I’d hire an even better hacker than me to dig into her past. I was good at that side of the business, but I had no delusions about being the best.

“It was my birthday last week, but I suppose you already know that.” Her voice was softer and seemingly without guile, which warned me she was up to something.

“November second, All Souls’ Day.”

“Mmm, yes,” she said. “All Souls’ Day, when good Catholics remember and pray for their departed loved ones. Especially the poor souls trapped in purgatory.”

“I didn’t take you for a practicing Catholic.”

Luz smiled at me, a wry, bitter expression that twisted something sharp inside me. “Not at all. I can’t even claim that my mami dragged me to Mass against my will. But she still taught me some things. I may not have been raised a good Catholic, but she was.”

There was even less on her mother, Sofia Torres, and for the first time, I considered that I was missing something there.

“Aren’t you going to wish me a happy birthday?”

“Belated birthday,” I corrected her.

“Fine, belated birth—‍”

The sound of a door slamming shut nearby cut her off and sent me striding across the room to investigate. Bader Hall was closed for renovations, and no one else should be here right now.

A quick scan of the hallway turned up nothing, but by the time I had assessed the situation, she was up on those stupid fucking crutches again and was nearly at my back, trying to make her escape.

“If that’s all, I need to head back across campus. Autumn’s waiting for me,” she said, dismissing me.

I was tempted to snatch her back up, throw her on the desk, and show her just what I thought of her attitude. It was what Nix would do. But I wasn’t my twin, and I had my own plans for Luz, and I wouldn’t abandon them in a hormonally driven rush.

She clomped away from me and down the hallway. I would follow her at a distance to make sure she did indeed arrive at her destination. I had too many questions left unanswered for her to disappear now.

One way or another, I would get what I wanted from her. Whether it was at my fingertips or at my blade, only time would tell.

Chapter thirty

Luz

My heart felt heavy in my chest, causing me to sway back and forth on my crutches as I stumbled back to Jackson College House. I could feel the specter of Alister behind me at a distance, and I tried to remember when I had become so accepting of his and Nixon’s constant haunting.

Probably around the same time that you began to accept that they most likely weren’t your stalker . . . or at least not the most concerning of your stalkers.

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