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“Jesus, Sabra!”
I look back only to find Layden turning quickly so his back is hidden. But his face is down like he’s ashamed. Not that Sabra notices. She just keeps giving orders. “Jeans, too.”
Layden starts unzipping his jeans, and I have to spin away again as my cheeks go thermal nuclear.
This makes me think about what Sabra said about me being a god in a human suit. A sinking feeling fills my stomach. It’s a very convincing human suit. It reacts and feels and is constantly yanked back and forth by its physical needs and driving emotions.
Most times, I forget there was a world before. Because Sabra’s right. I try to forget the before.
“Come on, let’s get back. I want to start testing the properties of this,” Sabra says. She starts walking determinedly to the car. I follow, not looking behind me since I know Layden’s just in his boxers and shoes.
“Do you feel hungry?” Layden asks Sabra.
She stops in front of me, then turns back, beaming at him. Obviously, she has no compunction about looking at him in his unclothed state. “No. And we’ve been out here for hours. Usually, my stomach would have started cramping a long time ago.”
I blink at the ramifications. “Congratulations,” I say to Layden. “You did it. I’m so happy for you.”
I say it with feeling because I want to mean it. I hope I mean it. But after the confrontation in the circle with Sabra, all I feel is mixed emotions. Stupid human suit.
“Yeah,” Layden says. “We did it. Thank you. Both of you. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
We all clamber into Sabra’s car, Sabra and I in the front and Layden in the back. I lift my passenger’s side visor mirror to look at him, adjusting it so I only see his face. “I’m so proud of you,” I tell him, and he smiles wide.
He reaches a hand up and squeezes my shoulder. I feel the touch all the way to my toes.
“So,” Sabra asks as we pull out of the parking lot and onto the road. “What will you do now? The world’s your oyster. You can go anywhere you want. Do anything.”
I frown, and Layden’s gaze connects with mine again in the mirror.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not in any hurry.”
I look down and readjust in my seat, pulling my shoulder away from his touch. He withdraws his hand.
You trapped us all. Sabra’s words echo in my head. Is that what I do?
And always Vlad’s voice. Are you a selfish little girl?
I see myself like a spider in that other dark, frigid realm. Waiting and spinning, patient for so long, selfishly drawing human after human into my web and feeding on their life force.
Oh, I got myself into the human realm eventually, all right, as they fed on others, an unending hunger. But only so I could keep trapping victims in my net and using them for my own gain. By then, it was all I knew.
I look back at Layden, smiling in his new freedom.
Once, Sabra and I were best friends. More than that, we were like sisters. And now she hates me.
Would Layden start to hate me eventually, too, if I asked him to stay?
Chapter Nineteen
LAYDEN
Present Day
“We need a plan,” I say to Phoenix as we run for the garage. “What’s to stop what happened last time from happening again if we manage to catch her?”
Dammit, I should have spent last night planning for when Ammit popped her head up instead of… well, what I was doing. Now we have to come up with something on the fly.
Phoenix’s stride falters a little, but she keeps going, pulling out her phone. “Vlad, we found Ammit. I need a driver and to borrow your car.” She rolls her eyes. “Look, do you want this problem solved or not? I need it now if we have a chance of catching her.” She nods into the phone. “Good, have Lucian meet us at the garage.”
