smile.
âYeah, I wasnât going to say anything.â He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled off the black wife beater underneath, handing it to me. âHere.â
I lost a few seconds staring at his chest, at the twin stars inked on his collarbones and the deathâs-head that took up the space from his heart to his abdomen. The hood and the scythe were a humanâs fantasy of Death, from someone who didnât know what really happened when you met a reaper. Cyrillic alphabet ran up his ribs, and his biceps were covered in roses, spiderwebs, and groupings of tiny crosses and skulls.
The daggers Iâd glimpsed were pretty intricate and surrounded by red blood droplets, as if the ink had actually pierced him. Shirt off, I could see where he got his strengthâÂhe was all muscle on his thin frame, the kind of body designed by genetics for inflicting damage.
Leo put his shirt back on and buttoned it, not meeting my eyes. âAre you going to ask me what they mean? Because we could be here for a while.â
âThey mean the same thing as me having fangs and claws does,â I said. â âStay the fuck out of my way.â â
Leo poured the last of the gasoline-Âsmelling vodka into a dirty glass and drank it. âClose enough.â
âYou really donât have to stick with me,â I said. âYou donât owe me anything.â Truthfully, I wanted Leo to stay more than I wanted anything, except maybe to have never met Lilith. But he wasnât going to, so why prolong things?
âI told you, itâs not about owing,â Leo said. âWeâre mutually beneficial. You could use a hand and I could use someone who can keep a deadhead off my ass if my father catches up to us.â
I nodded. âOkay. But if youâre gone when I get back with burgers, I wonât hold it against you.â
Leo shook his head. âThieves like me believe in loyalty, Ava. I get that you probably havenât had a lot of that, but Iâm not going to dump you after all this.â
I backed out of the room and walked out to the county road without saying anything else. Leo was right. Iâd never had somebody stick around when things werenât going their way. Iâd sure as fuck never had my loyalty repaid by anything but more orders at best, and a knife in my back at worst.
Iâd died because I was loyal. Loyalty was for stupid girls and brainless thugs, and I wasnât either of those things anymore.
Lilith had me by the throat, so Iâd go to Wyoming. Iâd do what she asked, but Gary was goneâÂLilith showing up in his place proved it for my purposesâÂand as far as I was concerned my contract was void. Clint Hicks was my last roadblock, and I decided then that when I did find him, pet shifters or no, Clint Hicks was going to be one sorry son of a bitch for getting in my way.
Â
CHAPTER 11
W e crept out of the motel room predawn, before day-Âshift maids started their rounds. I figured not giving a fuck was a prerequisite for employment in a place like this, but Leo insisted.
âMy father has a lot of Âpeople willing to do a lot of things,â he said, shrugging back into his suit jacket. âRight now, his one and only priority is finding me and feeding me my own nuts. The fewer Âpeople see us, the better.â
âFine.â I shrugged. My arm still twinged with every motion. I hadnât slept much, waking every few minutes whenever someone in the walkway stumbled to the ice machine or one of the happy customers in the upstairs room moaned.
Leo patted himself down for his crushed pack of Russian cigarettes and a lighter, sticking a smoke between his lips. He lit it while we surveyed the parking lot. âThat one.â He pointed at an orange Sprint that was more rust than paint.
I shook my head. The Sprint had left a glossy puddle on the pavement under the transmission, sported expired tags,