Kiss Me Deadly: Tales of a Paranormal Romance

specifically that bothered her about Velvet and Nick?

* * *

“Velvet?” Amie’s horrid voice crept in, destroying the quiet solitude of Velvet’s cell and waking her ... rudely.

She pushed herself up on her elbows and sighed. “What do you want, Amie?”

The girl slunk across the shadowy room and sank onto the foot of the mattress.

“It’s just that I feel like we have quite a connection, you and I.” When Velvet didn’t respond, she continued. “Since we share the same job and all.”

Velvet stared. She had no clue what the girl was talking about. Didn’t Amie hate her? Hadn’t that been established? They were both Body Thieves, that was true, but beyond that, as far as she could tell, they had absolutely nothing connecting them. Since Velvet wasn’t a complete skeez.

“You look pretty in the soft glow of the candle light.” Amie slipped her hand under the sheet and inched it toward Velvet’s calf.

She threw the sheet off and glared at Amie’s hand, then up to her surprised face and back to the hand. Velvet was glowing all right, but this time it was the furious glow of the remnants of her nerves being pushed to the far side of enough.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Velvet demanded as the girl snatched her hand back into her own lap and hung her head in shame. Then Amie broke into sobs and darted out of the room.

What the heck was that about? Velvet wondered. Apparently it’s crazy time.

Was she putting out some sort of lesbian vibe? She knew she could be a little butch, but she liked to think of that as assertive. And she certainly thought other girls were pretty, because they were—some boys too. But she’d never made any passes at Amie, unless the girl viewed contempt as a come-on.

Velvet decided she wouldn’t be able to sleep unless she got to the bottom of this. She hopped out of the sorry excuse for a bed, out the door, and into the open-air hall. Behind the thin doors and drapes that rustled in the doorways, she heard the soft snores of sleeping souls; saw the flicker of candles and the acrid scent of incense wafting through Vermillion’s air from the balconies of the massive pagoda.

She crept toward the far end of the row, half expecting Amie to jump out from the shadows and pin her to the wall with a kiss as unwanted as a tissue full of ether. Or scurry past with someone’s bunny, ready to boil it alive.

Outside the canvas flap draped across Nick’s doorway, Velvet heard whispers, soft cooing.

She shook her head, the ire rising inside her like bile, thick as curdled milk.

You didn’t run far, did you Amie?

Bitch.

Craning to listen, Velvet curled her fingers around the tattered edge of the curtain and gripped it with such intensity her knuckles glowed a metallic color in the cracks of her skin. “You’re so beautiful Nick,” the girl whispered. “So strong. What do you see in that girl? That horrible ugly girl?”

What the hell? Um ... no. This was not happening.

Velvet tore at the curtain with such force the rod holding it dislodged from the wall and clattered against the cobbled hall. Inside, Amie gasped and fumbled to cover her nude torso with the edge of Nick’s blanket. The boy looked genuinely stunned, the light from the globes of gaslight on the far wall lit up a face so groggy that Velvet could almost mistake it for deep sleep—if she didn’t know better.

If she didn’t know what Amie was capable of.

Dirty whore.

She wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest to find the girl smothering Nick with kisses.

“What’s going on?” Nick growled, inching up onto his elbows and grinding sleep crumbs from his eyes like a four-year-old.

“Why don’t you ask your friend?” Velvet didn’t like the sound of insanity creeping into her voice, the high-pitched lilt of the super jealous didn’t suit her and she knew it.

“What?” Nick startled and jerked his feet up and away from Amie. “What? What?”

“Oh for chrissakes!” Velvet shouted. “Cut the crap, Nick. I heard her. I saw her!”

“It’s true, Nick,” Amie sighed. “She was right outside. She knows everything. It’s useless to deny it. Tell her.” She urged him with a sympathetic nod.

Velvet simmered. Eyes darting from the girl to Nick, back again.

“Tell her what?” he howled, slapping the mattress angrily.

The girl simply shrugged, letting the sheet fall loose from her nakedness.

Velvet cringed, turning to search Nick’s face, watching him go from tense teeth-grinding anger to a shocked realization that he was caught, no doubt.

His mouth dropped open.

“You don’t deny it then?” Velvet challenged. “You’ve done things with ... this...” She flipped a hand in Amie’s direction. “Walking STD?”

“Hell, yes, I deny it.” Nick snatched the sheet away from Amie and bound it around his waist, hiding the lucky clover boxers Velvet had given him for his birthday, but not his magnificent torso. It would have been easier to be disgusted with him, if he didn’t look so hot, but Velvet was pretty sure she could still manage it.

He rushed across the floor toward Velvet. “I don’t know what kind of game she’s playing.” His head whipped in Amie’s direction, and he yelled at her. “Put your top on! Jeez.”

Velvet turned and stomped outside, her feet tangling up in the drape and nearly tripping her. She would have fallen flat on her face if Nick hadn’t caught her mid-dive and twirled her into his arms.

“You’re crazier than her if you think something happened in there!” he shouted, eyes wild with terror.

She jerked her head away, staring off down the passageway.

The dead are nosier than you’d imagine. Soon after the yelling started gray heads were poking out of doorways and around corners, whispering intently, hot for some new gossip.

Vultures, she thought.

She pushed Nick away. “Just stay away from me, unless you want to be picking nerve endings out of your smashed skull.”

Letting go of her, Nick crossed his arms and glared. “Fine!”

“Fine is right,” she mumbled over her shoulder as she marched back toward her room, glowering at each and every startled soul on the way and slamming the flimsy door behind her.

A crack splintered up its shoddy center.

Velvet glowered back at it and flinched.

She wished they’d never come to Vermillion. And more than that, she wished they’d never met Amie Shin. And more than that she wished Nick had never laid eyes on the skinny bitch.

Amie.

This was all her fault, after all. Of course, how hard is it to push a tiny Asian girl off your junk? Damn boys and their weak fortitude. It was all only a matter of time, she supposed. It’s not like she’d ever had a relationship work out.

Even when she was alive, boys had been a fleeting quantity. All façade. And all the same inside. Pervs.

But she’d thought Nick was different. She was sure of it.

She glanced up at the door and whispered, “If you’re different Nick Jessup, you’ll knock on that door in the next five minutes.”

Velvet lay on her side and stared at the crack and waited.

And waited.

Until finally she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

In the morning—or what passed as morning in Purgatory: just a different shade of night, as far as anyone could tell—Velvet piled her dreads atop her head and bound them in strips of leather from her suitcase. She