Could it be? The smoke did dull my senses slightly, and my glasses were so foggy. But still… How similar could two people be for me to make such an insane mistake?
I know Rakan. He’s been a regular in The Daily Grind for weeks. He’s been inside me, for heaven’s sake. I like to think that, at the very least, I wouldn’t mistake him for some other guy.
“I’m not the killer you met, Iris.” The simple sound of my name on his lips makes shivers run down my spine. For the wrongdamn reason. “The creature you saw… He’s ancient. He kills selectively. Everyone he targets made a wish. He considers that sufficient justification.”
I can’t help but shudder. That matches the conversation between the murderer and his victim. The harpy must have made a wish to be more beautiful. The djinn clearly took offense and murdered her.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean the killer was not Rakan.
I look at him, at the way he’s standing there in the middle of my cramped apartment. I try to feel the same fear I did in the alley. It just… doesn’t come.
Maybe it’s stupid, but I believe him. And yet, there’s something that doesn’t quite fit. “I didn’t make a wish. I didn’t do anything except hear a scream.”
Rakan nods, but his face only gets darker. “That’s true. But you’re still a loose end.”
A loose end. Of course I am. Because even djinn murderers with some kind of twisted agenda know better than to leave witnesses alive.
“Well, isn’t that just great?” I ask, hysteria threatening to suffocate me. “I bet you’re really happy with yourself, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say that, no.” His voice comes out careful and measured, and I hate that I notice. “I would never want you hurt. Surely you must know that, Iris.”
“Oh, really?” The laugh that comes out of me has nothing funny in it. “I’d have never been there if not for you. But I needed to make sure your littlediversiondidn’t make me a single mother.
“Fun times, right? But why would someone like you care about that?”
He doesn’t answer. He stands there and takes it, which is almost worse than if he’d argued back. I’m more terrified and furious than I’ve ever been in my life. I spent the morning trying to outrun the night before, too rattled to make good decisions. The decision that I did make… It was to walk into that alley and witness a harpy die.
It’s going to cost me, and I hate myself for that. I hate Rakan even more.
“Whatever you might think of me doesn’t change the situation,” he says once I’ve finished my rant. “You’re in danger, and you’re coming with me.”
I don’t like the sound of that. Even if he’s right, even if someone is hunting me… I just can’t bring myself to trust him, not really.
After all, why would a monster mogul like him protect a random barista like me? He’s already made it clear that I’m nothing but a notch on his bedpost.
“Absolutely not,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“That isn’t one of your options.” He narrows his eyes at me. It’s the first time he’s ever looked at me like that, in anything remotely resembling anger. “You’re coming with me tonight, Iris, because the alternative is staying here alone and exposed.”
“Get out of my apartment.”
He doesn’t move. I understand then that nothing I say is going to change what happens next. He’s already made his decision. But as luck would have it, so have I.
I cross to the kitchen drawer and pull out the taser Camille gave me eight months ago.“For emergencies. Don’t argue with me,”she told me. Well, this is certainly an emergency. “I said, ‘Get out’,” I tell him.
He looks at the taser, then back at me. “Iris, please. There’s really no need for this.”
Except there’s every need. Maybe there always was, from the very first moment he walked into The Daily Grind.
Rakan takes a single step toward me, and I don’t hesitate. I fire the taser directly at his chest. He doesn’t flinch. He stands there while I hold the trigger.
I stare up at him, and for a few moments, I feel completely hypnotized. Pressure pulses in my wrist, too intense, too potent. And then Rakan is right in front of me, and he is holding my wrist in one massive hand.
At first, I try to jerk away. “Let me go, Rakan! Let me go!”
“If I weren’t holding you,” he says, his eyes not leaving mine, “you’d be missing a hand.”
I blink, and for the first time, I realize I’m no longer holding a fully working taser. Only the smoking ruins of it are left. My hand is completely unharmed, gold-dust motes dancing around my fingertips.
