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She places her hands on either shoulder and kisses both sides of my face. Up close, I can see the resemblance to Sparrow. Not obvious, but it is the eye shape…the eyes tell it all.
“Mahlia!” she calls over her shoulder, keeping her focus on me and her hands stuck to my shoulders. “You have to see this!”
The older woman steps aside, and I get a front-row seat at whomever this Mahlia is. Long, black-raven hair, whiskey-colored eyes, and olive skin. She is tall and slender, with impeccable style. She is awoman.
I am a child.
I am so out of my league.
She reaches out, placing her hand on my shoulder, and electricity pulses through me at her touch. I trace the lines of her face, down past her neck to where a pendant hangs from a chain. “Wow. Well, aren’t you beautiful.” Her tone holds a hint of unease.
I blink past my initial thoughts. “Thank you.”
The older woman claps her hands, wrapping her long shawl around her body and taking the steps down until she sees Cooper and Dani. “I have not come back to Hades Hollow in some time.”
“If I had it my way, I wouldn’t be here at all,” Mahlia adds, dumping her handbag on the sofa.
The woman ignores her, looking between us three. “Well, this is going to be fun.”
Fear. I mean, real, to-the-bone fear. I’ve never felt it, but Cooper has told me for years that I need to be aware of my surroundings. That the only people who get killed are those ignoring the signs. Signs that most people choose to ignore.
I run the tip of my finger over the old oil painting. The colors swim together perfectly, but the image itself doesn’t make sense.How could this be possible?Stepping back, I look at the whole painting from a different angle.
Three men. One dressed in a dark suit that looked far ahead of its time, one wearing casual clothing, and the other the same. It isn’t the clothes that throw me off, though. It’s that they look like doppelgängers of the three men in my life right now. The iron frame wood has deep curls and patterns. Kneeling down, I turn the large picture around and see a scribble on the back.
1584
I step back, dropping the heavy frame until it collides with the wall.
“Mmhmm…aren’t they handsome?”
I jump, spinning around to find Mahlia leaning against the door of the bedroom. “Um…you mean Sparrow, Malyk, and Dion?”
Her eyes flash with shock, her shoulders back and her smile falling. “Right. Sure.” My body stiffens the closer she gets. “Diavoli dell’oceano.” The words roll off her tongue like silk, and I’m once again reminded of how different she and I are.
“What does that mean?” I ask, putting distance between us both by moving near the skylight window.
I didn’t mean to find myself up here, and ideally, I would have preferred not to. This was the primary room of the slaughter that left this house famous. There was a body left in every room, but in this room? There were many. The wallpaper is peeling from the panels, and there are brown stains all over the ceiling and floor. The rest of the house isn’t interriblecondition, but it is like it stands still. Time doesn’t exist in here.
“The devils of the ocean.” She turns slightly over her shoulder, and I see the side of her cheek crinkle with her smile. “Anyway.” She turns, brushing off the conversation. “I despise this town. Shall we go for a drink?”
“I’m…seventeen.” And if my birthday could hurry up, that would be even better.
My phone kept ringing and I knew it was her. She would want an update. She’d want to know why I was taking so long. But I couldn’t answer it right now without compromising what I was doing. I didn’t know how to go around the questions she would ask without giving too much away.
I sunk lower into my chair, swallowing my glass of wine. I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl. I hadn’t seen her since that night. The questions I had asked already annoyed them, so I knew they wouldn’t tell me where she was.
Who was she? Why was she so hurt? It didn’t make sense. No one would buy her like that. She’s used goods.
Broken.
Malyk
My skin crawls the closer I get to land. Somewhere far—far away. Away from him. Maybe even from her. She doesn’t know about us, but the one thing I will always make sure of is that she never knows aboutme. I hate that I need to come back to London, but I’m desperate to make it a twenty-four-hour trip. I have no intentions of staying here any longer because I know the longer I’m here, the more likely I’m to mess it all up.
All of it.
We’re all playing in a death match right now, and there are no guarantees who’s going to make it out alive.
