Page 15 of Dragon’s Rogue

For a second Jack’s eyes glazed over. Yeah. Keep looking, asshole. See what you’re missing. See what you fucked up by getting yourself hooked on magical crack.

Or maybe the glaze was just lack of oxygen.

She never should have gotten involved in this job.

She pulled on her sweatpants, commando. Jack was still sitting on the scarred wooden floor, skinny and pathetic, his eyes red-rimmed and his hands shaking. He sniffled.

Fucking sniffled. Like a five-year-old.

“Jeez, Rebel,” he whined. “If I don’t bring the boss what he wants, he won’t give me my next fix. You have to get that box. What the fuck happened?”

“What happened,” she said, pulling her sweatshirt over her head, “was that your boss didn’t bother to tell me that someone else is after the box too. They waited for me to break into the vault, and then they snuck up behind me and tried to take the box right out of my hands.”

Jack dropped his head into his hands. “No… fuck, no… this can’t be happening.”

“He also didn’t tell me that the thing was magically booby trapped. When I opened it to make sure it was the right piece…”

Jack’s head came up. “You opened it?”

She stared at him. “He told me to.”

Jack’s eyes were huge. “No way,” he said. “He told me not to open it. He told us both not to open it.” His voice dropped. “God, Rebel, you fucked this up so bad…”

That wasn’t possible. She could have sworn she’d heard the words ‘open the box.’ She’d been going over the instructions in her mind, and the words were reverberating in her brain, until she couldn’t not open it. Open the box. You must open the box…

Jack had his head in his hands again, moaning. “Shit, Rebel, he’s gonna kill me. He’s gonna kill us both.”

“Jack,” she said, trying to snap him out of it. “Jack!”

She didn’t know whether to smack the living shit out of him or feel sorry for him. He used to be a decent guy. A little greedy, a little weak, a lot on the wrong side of the law. But sweet and funny and good-looking, and he’d actually cared about her.

Once.

Until he’d discovered ‘magical crack’, some kind of high that only sorcerers could provide. Then, like any other addict, he stopped caring about anybody but himself and his habit. And anyone could use that weakness to make him do whatever they wanted.

When he came to her with this job, she hadn’t realized how strung-out he was. The boss must have been keeping him well-supplied.

Apparently, he was a fucking wreck.

“You have to go back and get it. Now.” Jack was staring at her intensely, struggling to his feet.

“Are you insane? I can’t go back there tonight. The alarms were going crazy. The cops are probably there right now.”

Jack was clutching the chain around his neck again. Rebel got a glimpse of some kind of amulet. He was sweating harder now, his eyes dilated until the color disappeared and all she could see were the pupils.

Which began glowing a dull red. Rebel stepped back. Holy hell.

Jack’s body twisted, and he grunted in pain.

Then a black crater the size of a fist opened in his chest.

A fucking hole in his chest.

Rebel backed up further, until her butt was against the dresser. She knew she should run, but she was frozen in place, staring at the abomination happening to her ex-boyfriend.

The hole grew deeper, emitting a deadly black fog. It seemed to go on and on, much further than the width of Jack’s body. Like a long dark tunnel heading into nowhere.

With a robed, hooded figure in the far distance.