of his colleagues saw us take him—they’d never believe he escaped before we’d raked him over the coals. From the sounds of your past exploits, they’d have killed him for being a loose end. This way he ends up in the same place without spilling anything about us.”
He was still spilling—spilling brains all over the concrete floor. I averted my eyes, swallowing down the bile that was rising in my throat.
Omen had a point. The Company had murdered their own people before for compromising the organization through no fault of their own. I’d seen Thorn himself murder several Company employees in the past couple of weeks. They’d just always been actively trying to murder us at the same time, so it’d been easier to keep down my dinner at the thought.
“Well, I’m going to need a ride downtown in about an hour,” I said. “I think I’m going to tour the sights outside until then.” I turned on my heel and marched back out before any more of the fleshy stink could reach my nose.
Meandering around the vacant fairgrounds didn’t do much to lift my mood, even with the good news I’d gotten from Vivi. I lobbed discarded pop cans at a target game that had been left in place while Pickle rummaged for treats by a snack stall with empty racks. Exerting my muscles distracted me a little, but that gnawing uneasiness lingered in the back of my mind.
I let my voice carry across the concrete yard. “In a messed-end town in a dread-sent world, the beast-blend boys can stress their girls…” Nope, even warping lyrics was taking me in a gloomy direction.
This was my life now: murder and mayhem and never setting my head down anyplace any other human wanted to be. Maybe I wouldn’t have anything like a normal life back in a month—maybe I wouldn’t next year.
It’d been easier not to think about long-term plans during the hunt for Omen’s captors when we’d had no idea who we were up against, and then when it hadn’t seemed all that sure I’d even be alive in a few days’ time. Easier not to wonder if I was meant for a normal human life at all when I hadn’t had an obnoxiously domineering shadowkind insisting I had some kind of supernatural power.
That was impossible, wasn’t it? The uneasy quiver rose through my chest again, but the memory of Omen calling me a coward hardened my resolve. I glared at a tattered popcorn bag drifting across the concrete and pictured it going up in a burst of flames.
Burn. Burn!
Not so much as a flicker of heat wavered off the paper shell. With a surge of relief that maybe was a tad cowardly, I shook my head.
Of course I couldn’t set a piece of trash on fire with will alone. The rest… it had to be a string of coincidences. Heck, when you played with fire as much as I did, was it really surprising that now and then something strange would just happen to happen?
My restless rambling led me back toward the funhouse. As I skirted an ancient-looking transport truck someone had left parked between the building and the now-deserted go-kart track, voices reached my ears. I paused out of view to listen. Hey, long-time thief here—why would you expect me to be above a little eavesdropping?
The first voice was Thorn’s, even more somber than usual. “—pick them off a few at a time, and it hardly seems to make any difference.”
“We’re getting there,” Omen replied. “Even I didn’t know how complex this mortal conspiracy was going to be. But all that picking away at them will get us closer to shutting them down completely.”
“It’s not the kind of war I’m used to fighting. They’re not the kind of opponents I’m used to going up against. To kill one who’s been talking to us cheerfully as if we’re his comrades…”
“Just because they don’t fight the same way as the armies of times past doesn’t make them any less formidable. If anything, they’re more so, don’t you think? If they came at us in a horde with swords swinging, you’d make mincemeat of them in an instant, and we’d be done with it.”
“That’s true.”
My hackles were starting to rise at the thought of Omen badgering Thorn into acting against his conscience when the shifter’s voice softened.
“I do appreciate all you’ve offered to me and this cause already, old friend. I wouldn’t have called you out of your seclusion if I