though it was plenty damaged from Emily and me reading it. He was being gentle.
So, he wasn’t reading.
Not drinking his beer either. Well, Ernie’s beer, actually.
I knew he was on guard. That much was sure. His gun was on the table. Mine was beside me. He was rigid, listening, I knew. Eyes going to the doors, windows. Waiting.
I could see the army in him.
He focused on me when I spoke. “Yeah, I’m sure this is where I wanna be,” he replied.
“I didn’t think you’d be too hot on playing babysitter to me, while Saint goes off on some mission to finally kill his past.” I paused. “Or, at the very least, I thought you’d be on the team wanting to kill him.”
He chuckled. It was real, genuine, though the rest of his body stayed taut. “Ah, that would’ve been far too predictable. And you’re too smart to think I’d be that predictable.”
I grinned back. “Well, that is true. So why are you helping him then? Because you’re a good person?”
He sipped his beer. Really sipped it this time. “Ah, we both know I’m not a good person. That good people have long gone the way of the dinosaur, if they’d ever existed at all. Not doin’ this ’cause of Saint. Doin’ it because I like the bitchy author who frequents my bar. Who’s a damn fine writer. Wanna read more of her books. Want her to stay alive to write them.” He glanced down at the gun, then toward my bedroom, to where the body had been.
I forgot about it, the spot where I’d ended someone’s life. That was a sign of something very wrong in me, the fact I didn’t have the exact spot tattooed in my mind. That I didn’t put a rug over the faint bloodstain that darkened the light hardwood floor. I barely even noticed it now. And when I did look down at it, did stare at it for long enough to bring the face, the blood, the death, the smell, I did it when I felt dry, when I needed to tap into the mind of a killer.
Because that’s what I was.
I never wanted to go this far for a story. I never would’ve. Pain, death, didn’t arouse me. It interested me, sure. The minds of those who committed those vile acts. But no, I didn’t want to do it.
Until I had to.
And the worst thing about it?
It made me into a better author.
A worse person, to be sure.
“You can take care of yourself,” Deacon continued. “But I’m here just to liven up my night.”
I raised my brow at him.
Then the night got plenty live.
Or plenty dead, in Deacon’s case.
You’d think I’d remember details.
I was all about the details in my books. It was half the reason they could be used as doorstops, if anyone so wished.
My editors tried to hammer that out of me. That attention to detail. That penchant to describe everything. The mundane. The parts of humanity that made us boring. Uniform. Stuff everyone did.
But I had to put it in. I didn’t want my books to be filled with monsters. With horror. I needed humans in there too. Reality. That made it all that much more terrifying.
So yes, the detail was important for the horror.
But I was plenty horrified and I didn’t get any of the details.
The blood splatter had been warm on my face. There was no shot. A silencer or a sniper rifle, I’d say. Good shot.
Deacon hadn’t been expecting it.
Then again, no one is really expecting to get shot in the chest, are they?
Though I’d like to think I reacted quickly, it didn’t help. I couldn’t remember it clear enough to say I reacted quickly. But I remembered getting up, blood hot on my face, hand clasped around my gun. It was cool. Heavy. It grounded me.
Deacon had stared at me in horror, or was it in death?
Wasn’t I practiced in death? Shouldn’t I have been sure whether I was dead or not?
But I think I had a reasonable excuse.
I’d been shot too.
But not with a bullet that would kill me, like it would kill Deacon. A tranc dart. It was only a sting, like a bee. I’d even been able to reach up, touch the end of it, grasp it with numb hands.
Then nothing.
Or was I telling that story too?
See, the details. They weren’t right. They were patchy. Made up.
But the situation was very real. Me being tied to a chair in what seemed to be