When Villains Rise (Market of Monsters #3) - Rebecca Schaeffer Page 0,33

out the window as the bus turned onto the highway and carried her far away. As her heart rate slowly calmed, she considered the story her mother had told about a woman conned by a monster. To Nita, the hardest part to believe was that her mother actually had a friend. She couldn’t picture the calculating, manipulative woman who’d raised her befriending someone. But there were a lot of things she didn’t know about her mother.

There was one thing she did know. Whether the story was true or something her mother made up to try and keep Nita away from Kovit, she wasn’t going to let her mother win. If it came down to a choice of her mother or Kovit, well, Nita knew who she would pick.

By the time Nita got back to the apartment, it was almost time to leave for the airport. Kovit was waiting in the reception room, pacing. His hair was mussed from running his hands through it too much, and his eyes had shadows under them. He sagged in relief when she came in.

“I was worried. Did you get my messages?” he asked.

Nita shook her head. She hadn’t checked her phone on the last bit of her journey. “No, I’m sorry.”

“We need to get going.”

She nodded, all business. “Do we have everything we need?”

She looked around and realized they didn’t really have anything. No clothes—everything they weren’t wearing was bloody. Just passports, some money, and their phones.

He smiled as though he was thinking the same thing. “We’re good.”

Nita sighed. “I suppose we should untie Fabricio.”

“Oh, I did already.”

Nita raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“We can’t have him going on a plane looking like he just got kidnapped and tortured. I got him some new clothes and some bandages and antiseptic. He took a shower and is just changing now.”

Nita tilted her head to one side. “That was . . . nice of you.”

Kovit shrugged. “I didn’t see the harm in letting him have a shower.”

For a moment, Nita was catapulted into the past, when she was a prisoner in the market, when she had tried to slowly build a relationship with Kovit by asking for small things. A towel. A shower. All a ploy to learn more and get him to let his guard down so she could betray him and escape.

“Did Fabricio ask for a shower?” Nita asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason.”

He didn’t see the similarities. Well, Nita wasn’t going to point it out. Yet. But sneaky little Fabricio had already started spinning his web to escape. He’d already identified the same weak spots in Kovit that Nita had, and was starting to build on them.

It disturbed Nita a little to find that she and Fabricio thought so similarly. She didn’t want to be anything like him. If someone had saved her life, she never would have betrayed them.

But even as she thought it, she wondered. Because if it meant survival, there was very little she wouldn’t do. She just couldn’t see how Fabricio selling her out was a survival tactic.

Kovit interrupted her musings. “I need to say goodbye to Gold before we go.”

Nita resisted the urge to rub her temples. She still wasn’t happy that he was choosing to let a wildcard like Gold go. But she couldn’t think of anything to sway him away from his foolishness.

So all she said was, “All right.”

She followed Kovit as he went into Gold’s room. Gold lay on her cot, gently rubbing pain-numbing cream on her previously dislocated shoulder. She wasn’t bound anymore, so Kovit must have been in here earlier. Nita sighed, thinking of both their prisoners unbound and running around asking Kovit for things and taking advantage of him. Kovit really was a terrible jailor. Nita, of all people, should have known better than to leave him in charge of prisoners.

Kovit shivered as he entered the room, and Gold tensed as she watched him eat her pain.

“Here,” he whispered, taking out his switchblade. “Let me.”

Gold stiffened, but Kovit made a small cut on his finger as he approached her, before reaching over and spreading his blood on her wound. The tension went out of both of their bodies, even though Gold remained wary. Zannie blood was a powerful anesthetic.

Eventually, Kovit lowered his hand and cleared his throat. “I came to say goodbye.”

Gold gave him a bitter smile. “Finally going to kill me?”

“No. Of course not.” He looked away. “I know you hate me, but I still think of you as a friend, May. I’m not just going