Lie Like a Villain

Chapter 16 || Honor Among Thieves

Rachel stared across the café table as Jason stared out the window. The emergency vehicles threw sharp, flickering lights over his scratched and bruised face. He hadn't looked at her once. Not when she finally came in after him. Not when she plonked a coffee on the table in front of him. Not when she sat down, her own cup steaming but untouched in front of her.

Most of the gawkers had lost their initial interest in the affairs across the street and were settled back in their seats, or had gone home for the night, or left to do more interesting things than stare. Still, Jason's eyes searched the crowd, slowly thinning as more uniforms arrived and set up a perimeter around the building. The unmarked cars that had been blocking the road had left a long time ago, making room for other emergency personnel. Rachel's own car was parked next to the smoldering building, tantalizingly close and impossibly far away. None of that was changing. But still he stared.

She frowned. Her fingers drummed her own styrofoam cup, the heat teasing her skin. "That's going to get cold, you know."

He just hummed in response. She didn't drink hers either. She didn't trust her stomach.

"If we're gonna sit here while all that dies down," she said, "the least you can do is start explaining."

"Not here," he muttered.

She hit the table, drawing the looks of a couple other patrons. Jason startled, glancing in her direction—but still not really at her. Drawing her hand back, she lowered her voice. "If not here, then nowhere."

His eyes closed, as if for a second, he just couldn't keep them open anymore. Then he returned to his watch at the window. "Then go." His voice was dead flat. "Like you said, you should be getting away from here."

"A sorry thank you that is," Rachel bit out.

He flinched.

She simmered, glaring him down, but he still wouldn't meet her eyes. Her hand clenched. "I don't think you really want me to go," she said. "I think that you're feeling sorry for yourself, but I'm gonna tell you, right now, I'm feeling pretty sorry for myself too. I had a gun," she whispered, "in my own—" Rachel cut off, still not able to fathom it. "What was that?"

"I don't know," he muttered, eyes on the window.

"You know something." Still, he wouldn't look at her. Her stomach coiled into knots, and she sucked on her lip so hard it hurt. "Jason, you promised. You said you'd tell me whatever I wanted to know."

"And you said I was a liar."

"Honor among thieves," she said sharply. "Right?"

He winced. For the first time, she wondered if it was at her words or his shoulder. He shifted in his seat. His lips sealed shut. The barista called out someone's order. A patron entered, and someone else left.

Finally, he said quietly, "I'm sorry she scared you."

"Ana?" The admission cut Rachel like a knife to the stomach. The kid was freaky, sure, and that scream had been... Her hair fell into her eyes, head shaking. "But how? How does a person—?" Rachel didn't even have the words to ask.

"I don't know." He shrugged his good shoulder. "And you wouldn't believe me if I tried to tell you what I do."

The bloodcurdling scream rang in her ears, the sense of death, the endless, sharp misery in its tone a void dragging her deeper in. She wrapped her hands around her coffee, trying to borrow its warmth. "Tell me anyway."

Instead, he muttered, "We have to figure out how to get her back."

Rachel's nails dug into the foam. "She tried to kill me, and you want to drag her back?" She didn't know how Little Miss Creepy had done it—attempted murder by melody or whatever that was—though she supposed that was half the horror. It wouldn't tie her gut into so many knots if she understood it.