When Villains Rise (Market of Monsters #3) - Rebecca Schaeffer Page 0,99

time before they were dealt a losing hand.

She clutched the towel close, pressing it to her chest like it could stem the blood flowing from the wound in her soul, trying to imagine what she’d do without Kovit. The hard truth was, she could still do everything. Her life wasn’t over. She could still go to college. She could still have power over the black market. She could still live her life.

But it felt empty. Hollow. Like the whole world had lost its color. She didn’t need Kovit to achieve her dreams. She didn’t need his help against the market. Kovit wasn’t a tool she’d lost, or a change of plans. Kovit was Kovit. He was the person who held her when she cried. Who entwined his enemies with hers, so that she wouldn’t be alone. He bought her breakfast and told corny jokes. He slaughtered the people who tried to hurt her. He made her smile.

There, on the floor of the bathroom, Nita finally broke down. She curled in a puddle of his blood, clutching the towel, as the wound in her soul bled her dry, spilling out in her tears until she was empty inside.

Thirty-Nine

WHEN NITA FINALLY CAME OUT of the bathroom, she was a little more put together. She wore the scrubs and had washed most of the blood from her skin. Her face was still waxy, and her eyes were still dead, but she wasn’t covered in the blood of her best friend anymore, and that made a lot of difference.

A policeman was waiting for her in a chair by the bathroom, and he rose when she approached.

“Can we talk?” he asked. He kept his voice slow and gentle, and it was clear he was trying to be considerate of her shock.

All she wanted to do was tell him to fuck off. To slide Kovit’s switchblade across his throat. He was an obstacle in the way of her one and only goal, the last thing in this gray world that had any color in it.

Kill her mother.

That was all that was left. Kill her mother, end this once and for all. Get vengeance for Kovit, vengeance for herself, end her mother’s brutal control over Nita’s life.

After that . . . Well, there wasn’t an after that. Nita couldn’t envision it. She knew it wouldn’t bring back the color, knew it wouldn’t fix what was already broken. But she’d feel goddam good doing it.

“Señorita?” The policeman sounded worried.

Nita forced her hands to unclench, forced her mind away from the switchblade and her mother. If Kovit did survive, she wanted him to have a chance. On that slim possibility the world would be good to her, she needed to cover for him. She needed to protect him.

So she nodded and forced herself to reply with, “Yes. We can talk.”

The policeman led her back to the waiting room chairs, giving her worried glances. She seated herself on a black plastic chair, and he brought her a cup of water. She didn’t drink.

“Am I correct in assuming that’s Kovit Sangwaraporn in surgery right now, the zannie all over the news the past couple of days?”

There was no point denying it. “Yes.”

“And you are?”

“Nita.”

“Nita . . . ?”

Nita tried to remember what name she was using with INHUP. She had so many aliases, it felt weird to actually use her real birth name. “Anita Sánchez.”

He waited a moment for her to give the rest of her name, but she didn’t have more. They’d used American naming customs, so she only had her father’s surname.

“And what’s your relation to Kovit Sangwaraporn?”

“He’s . . .” Nita chose her words with care. “He’s my friend.”

The officer nodded slowly. “How did you meet?”

“On the black market. We’d both been kidnapped and were up for sale.”

The policeman was taking notes. “And you’re . . .”

“I’m harmless,” Nita lied.

“How did you two end up for sale on the black market?”

“I was kidnapped. Wrong place, wrong time,” Nita whispered. “Kovit had been a prisoner of a mafia group for years. They finally got tired of him resisting their demands and decided to sell him.”

“Demands?”

Nita met his eyes. “You’ve seen the videos.”

The policeman stilled. “I have.”

“I don’t really need to explain what his life was like, then, do I?”

“No.” The man sighed softly. “No, I got it.” He cleared his throat. “So what happened next?”

“We escaped, and we both made our way to INHUP.”

“Both of you?”

“Yes,” Nita lied, weaving her story to match as closely to the truth as