It was a bit of pity—the same feeling she’d had when she and Rex had left him in the Empty Quarter desert to die. Zero trust, just suspicion and pity with a dash of curiosity.
“So,” Amber said, wiping at the sides of his mouth with his napkin and leaning across the linoleum table. “I’ve got a question.”
Taras picked up one french fry at a time, placing them in his mouth and contemplating every single one before swallowing it. His light eyes met Amber’s dark stare. Diana had found herself on the other end of that stare one too many times already, and she could see something stirring across Taras’s face—anxiety or attraction maybe.
“What makes you so positive that this information you have on Zabójca is going to bring him down?” Amber asked, tucking his hands under his arms.
“Well, I don’t know that it will do that exactly,” Taras said, his eyes rolling up but covering the animosity by pretending to look out the window. “But I know that it will get in his head.”
“Does anything get in that guy’s head?” Amber scoffed.
“Everyone has a weakness,” Taras replied. “In his case, more than one.”
“You can’t give us a little hint?”
“If I told you right now...” Taras stuffed in another fry and took a sip of his light beer, making a sour face after too big of a glug. “You would certainly kill me.”
“Arrest you probably…” Amber corrected, his eyes sliding to Diana. She gave him a knowing look and a slight shake of her head. “Ah, okay. Well, maybe you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” Taras said. “Just as I am right about Rex Tennison.”
“Don’t—” Diana warned.
“What is it, Diana?” Taras asked. “Why can you not admit that he is still alive? You see me here across from you, do you not? If I am living, so is he.”
Shaking her head, not wanting to hear this, Diana murmured, “You’re so dumb.”
Taras stiffened. A sharp hurt ran across his eyes as he pushed his plate away from him and finished his beer.
“I live as he lives… I die as he dies…” Taras continued. “Your son, on the other hand—”
Diana jumped across the table, knocking her plate off the edge. It smashed against the ground, her half-eaten burger and fries flying across the already-stained carpet. With one hand, she grabbed the collar of Taras’s sweater, holding it for a second and then using it as a ripcord to bash his head against the table.
Customers across the restaurant gasped at the sound of Taras’s forehead smashing against the linoleum.
Diana stormed out of the restaurant, taking the stairs up to the room they’d rented. The curtains squeaked along their ancient metal track as she ripped them open, letting the June day into the musty room, needing something to help her breathe. Her heart was pounding in her ears, Taras’s mentioning of Wesley uncovering some of the darkness she’d been pushing down for weeks. Did Taras want her to kill him? He was well on his way to accomplishing that if it was his goal.
She sat down on the bed. It hadn’t been that long since she’d had a panic attack in a motel. But that time, she’d been chasing Kennedy, overwhelmed by the idea that the man downstairs in the diner was adding her to his personal ledger of trafficked souls. That was when Cameron Snowman had still been an ally and not an enemy, when Diana had bonded with Cameron over his father’s time in the SEALs and regaled him with the story of his valiant death.
Exactly what Cameron had wanted.
Maybe Taras had been sent by the Readers to mess with her psyche. And she’d accepted him in with open arms because of a story about a damn spider.
She was spinning, reeling in her thoughts.
There was a soft knock on the door. Slowly, after the click of the keycard, it opened, and Amber stepped inside.
“You okay?” Amber asked as the door shut behind him.
With her hand clutched over her chest, more than just a small amount of tears burning at the sides of her eyes, and her legs curled around the side of the bedspread, Diana nodded.
“Uh…” Amber said, keeping his voice low and gentle. “You know I trust you a lot, Weick, but I don’t believe you on that one.”
He sat down on the bed opposite her, his knees almost touching hers.
Diana didn’t want to talk about this. She was vulnerable and panicking, and all she wanted was a fucking release.
With one warm palm against Amber’s scar, she pulled him into her, kissing him hard. Sensing her need or just needing comfort himself, he immediately wrapped his hands around her waist, grabbing her from her bed and pulling her onto his. They were on top of each other, rolling, melding together with groans, warm fingers and avoided conversations.
But they didn’t get much beyond a teenage make-out session because Taras barged his way into the room. Not knocking, fast-walking right by them toward the window.
“Don’t mind me,” Taras said in a singsong tone.
“God,” Amber exhaled in Diana’s ear. “This fucking prat.”
“It was your idea to share a room,” Diana whispered back.
“Because I don’t want him to sneak off in the middle of the night.”
“I have no plans to do so,” Taras replied. “But if you two would like some time, please let me know. I can make myself busy. Either that or I can occupy myself between the two of you.”
Diana gagged as she peeled herself off of Amber, rezipping her hoodie.
“Ah, but I was right,” Taras murmured, still staring out at the town and the mountains beyond it below.
Rearranging her clothes and flattening her hair, Diana slid herself off the bed, standing behind Taras.
“There they are,” Taras said, again in that annoying melodious way.
“Who?” Amber snapped.
“Zabójca.”
They all rushed to the window. Zabójca and David
