AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I picked up the sub and chomped out a huge bite, leaving a beautifully neat and perfect circle.
That made me grin. Zara was like me; she needed a tidy life of perfection.
CHAPTER24
Zara
Lunch had beena salad at a road stop, made with ingredients so limp I doubted they’d ever grown in a vegetable patch. Resurrection at the dead of night was more likely. Still, I wasn’t going to complain—at least I had eaten something, courtesy of a wad of bills I’d found in Val’s glove box.
Sunset was nigh, and a few vehicles had turned on their headlights.
The Dodge was a pleasure to drive, and that had made my guilt climb higher. Chances were Val would track down the car somehow. Shit, he was CIA; he could just report it to the cops. I was surprised he hadn’t yet.
One black bone and I was thinking Val was just another Harry. Worse than Harry.
The man had saved me.Twice.
And if I was going to be honest with myself, I had started to like him. So yeah, I’d be lying if I said the bitter taste in my mouth was the damn salad and not regret.
I had to ditch the car—it wasn’t like me to steal. I had a code, a fucked-up code, that maybe said the only person you’ve got to look out for is number one; but that didn’t include being a thief.
“Fuck,” I whispered, wringing my palms on the wheel. “I hate being the bad guy.”
Dumb. Some people I knew would take the lot and run for the hills, and never look back.
Ethics 101—fucking somebody over was wrong.
The way I saw it, a wrong and a big right, a.k.a. chasing and killing a sick fuck like the SK, didn’t wipe the slate clean.
I was going to Hell anyway, eventually, and until I got there, the plan was to find the SK and stay away from Val.
And the Nightmare King.
On the open road, more of the C’s memories had filtered in. This Nightmare King had been a walking disaster back in the 1860s when he was last fully in command of himself. What might he accomplish now?
An image of Harry flashed in my head, and the uncomfortable weight of guilt shifted in my belly again.
How long could Val hold the Nightmare King?
I was lucky. I still existed as Zara Carter, even if I had a propensity to use big words like propensity, and saw entirely too many things that were turning me old before my time.
The Cucitrice kept going after death...or mostly had, until now.
What would happen whenIdied? Would there be a next time?
Such strangeness—I didn’t know whether to be afraid or enthralled. Death shouldn’t be a lottery.
And when Val died, what if the Nightmare King got lucky? What if he inhabited the body of a commander in a war, or a president or head of a country?
“Jesus.” I sat back, only vaguely listening to the hum of tires on the I-35 highway. “It could be World War Three.”
Or the apocalypse.
My stomach churned.
Was the 21st century about to hear the approach of the four horsemen?
The Nightmare King would laugh—plague, pestilence, famine, war? He’s all those evils in one diabolical identity.
