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“Of course, naturally!”
She heads for the kitchen, grabbing a dish towel with which to dry her sodden hair. She’s grinning, and her dark green eyes have that horrid glint in them, like oily poison gleaming. She whips her dish towel aside and limps up to me, forcing me to take a step back to avoid being dripped on.
“Did you have fun?” she asks.
Her voice is hoarse; I have the feeling she’s about to have one hell of a cold.
“As much fun as one can have playing a game with a cheater.”
“Oh, don’t sulk,” she says with a burst of laughter that quickly turns into a cough. “The contract didn’t—”
“Stipulate anything about cheating, yes, I know.” I wrinkle my nose at her, noticing the trail of rainwater she’s leaving behind her. “Go shower, you’re making a mess.”
“I can’t shower,” she says, struggling out of her leather jacket.
“Why not?” I step out of her way as she wrestles with it and finally throws it on the ground.
“Because, Luca, I’ve spent all day in the fucking rain and my leg is well and truly fucked and I think I might very much be about to pass out.”
And she stands for a moment, teetering in her puddle in the midst of my living room, and I realise her eyes aren’t gleaming—they’re glassy and out of focus.
“Oh.” I smile, more to myself than to her. “You actually are, aren’t you?”
She opens her mouth to say something, shivers all over, stumbles backwards as if she’s trying to make it to the couch on time. She doesn’t, and when her eyes roll back, I step back and watch her. I make no attempt to catch her when her entire body goes limp.
I might have lost the first hunt, but it’s a true consolation prize to watch Willow Lynch crumple to the floor at my feet.
16
Brittle Sugar
Luca
The idea of leavingWillow in a soggy pile on the floor is too tempting not to consider. She’s wasted my time and flouted the rules of my game, damaged my property and laughed in my face. It would be quite satisfying to abandon her on the floor like so much trash.
But of course, the idea of her rain-soaked, mud-streaked body on my marble flooring is horrendous to me, and she is, after all, an asset for the time being. I might not care a whit for Willow’s wellbeing, but I’m a man who always takes care of his assets.
I bend down to scoop Willow up over my shoulder. Even soaked through, she’s still surprisingly light. Her reckless bravado projects the image of an indestructible woman, but in reality, she’s as brittle as sugar. I could crush her between my teeth like candy.
In her room, I dump her onto the bed and peel her wet clothing off her body. She’s deathly pale, her skin cold and clammy to the touch. She’s going to be ill, and she deserves to be. I can’t pretend the thought of her suffering doesn’t give me joy.
When she’s down to her underwear, I fetch the bandaging kit the doctor left with me. I pull on surgical gloves and unwrap the blood-stained bandage around Willow’s leg. The filthy fabric comes away with a viscous squelch that makes my stomach clench in disgust.
Underneath the bandaging, Willow’s leg is a mess of lacerated flesh, seeping fresh blood. It doesn’t look like it’s evenbegunto heal. If anything, it looks worse than it did after Cerberus first bit her.
“This is what you get for being so fucking arrogant,” I tell Willow.
She’s lying completely still, but there’s frantic movement underneath her eyelids, as if she’s having an argument in a dream. Her lips are completely drained of colour, and her hair is forming a wet halo on the pillowcase.
I disinfect and dress her wound. When I’m done, I sit back and admire the display of my impact on Willow. The bruising on her rib has darkened to a mottling of angry purple, dark green and sickly yellow around the edges. There’s bruising on her side too, and her legs, and on her elbows, where she must have tried to cushion her fall when she fell from the fence.
My breath catches in my chest, and I’m stopped in my tracks while I’m examining Willow’s arms. I pick up her left wrist, holding her arm up to peer at the skin.
From her wrist to her shoulder, the skin of her arm is striped with thin silver lines.
I couldn’t possibly explain why this gives me pause, but it does.
Both her arms are thus covered with scars. I even find a few right on the inside of her thighs. How is this the first time I’ve noticed these?
