up.
“I met with Five, One, and Nine a week ago. I know One was looking for you. We’re trying to get everyone together.”
“For what?” Seven asked.
“A go at Langley,” Six said. I watched Seven’s eyes widen a small bit. “Stay close and I’ll find you when we’re ready.”
“Do you think we’ve been hacked?” Seven asked, finally seeming truly concerned about what was going on.
“I don’t know, but I’d watch your back.” Six held out his hand.
Seven took it and gave it a firm shake. “You, too. And get rid of that cat sooner rather than later.”
My eye twitched at being called a cat again. I flipped Seven off as he moved back to his car, right as Six turned around.
He stepped up to me, his face as stoic as ever, and reached up, plucking a piece of glass from my hair.
“Let’s go.”
I heaved a sigh, then climbed back into the car.
It was silent the entire way back to the motel. Silent as we walked up the stairs.
Silent as we entered. Silent as I stripped off my clothes and threw on a T-shirt before climbing onto the bed.
Silent as my mind was numb.
“She would’ve died even if you weren’t there,” Six said as I stared at the wall.
No. Shut up.
“She might not have. If he’d gone in the morning like he was thinking,” I said, my voice low and notably lifeless.
I suddenly found the combination checkered and floral pattern of the wallpaper very interesting.
“Then many others would have died.”
Why was he still talking?
“What the fuck do you care? We’re all just cattle to you. Stupid animals that roam the earth.” A tear slipped from my eye, landing on my wrist.
“I know life is important to you.”
I turned to look at him, my brow furrowed. “Why are you talking to me? You never do it willfully. I’m always poking and prodding, so why now?”
He stood next to the bed, arms at his side, looking almost confused. “Because you’re upset.”
“And? With all the times that you’ve hurt me, how is this one different?”
His jaw ticked, and he looked away.
“That’s what I thought.” I turned back to my wall.
He stood there for another minute, then moved to the bathroom.
The anger at him letting Seven kill her tore at me. I knew he couldn’t stop it, and there was relief that it wasn’t him who killed her, but deep inside, I wished he’d let her go.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
I knew it wasn’t a possibility. They were absolute.
Except me.
Six had kept me alive for over two months.
The sound of the toilet flushing filled the room as he stepped out of the bathroom. There was a rustling of clothes and then a dip in the bed, the awful springs bouncing.
I wanted to tell him to sleep on the couch, but he wasn’t my boyfriend.
He was my captor.
Six was an unfeeling machine of death, not a lover.
All the times we had sex held no emotional ties. They were fucking and nothing more. Just as he said—the purpose was pleasure.
Like a stupid, crazy ass girl, I began to think maybe it meant more.
When his arm wrapped around my waist, I jumped. But just as with every night, I melted into his bare chest. Molded my body to his.
Yes, he made it obvious in more than one way that night that he didn’t want to kill me yet, but that didn’t equate to emotional ties. I was alive because I was of use. Nothing more.
“Just because I’m a sociopath doesn’t mean I don’t know what love is,” he whispered.
I froze as I tried to decipher his words. “Can you love?”
There was a pause, then close to my ear a very distinct. “Yes.”
The breath left me as tears filled my eyes again. A heat spread through me.
What was wrong with me?
The love of a sociopath, a killing machine—was that really what I wanted?
As a tear slipped down my cheek, I knew the answer. An answer that not only scared me but made me question myself.
Yes.
I sat in a daze the next morning.
No snarky remarks. Not even many words.
There was blackness and a fracture and a huge ass identity crisis happening within me.
The death Six and the Killing Corps dealt was real. It was rivers of blood and piles of bodies.
And I was a part of it.
I’d added a drop to the bucket that overflowed with red.
Lacey was a different person from Paisley, and the lines between them were no longer blurred by obscurity. It was hard and absolute, and cracked,