“How’d you know where I was?”
I paused for only a second to think up a lie. What was around you? Bars, the homeless, filth on top of filth—
“Strip club,” I answered smoothly. Amusement arched one of her eyebrows.
“You went to a strip club?”
“I was on my way when I saw you go into the bar. It didn’t look like the most Christian place, so I followed to make sure you weren’t getting into any trouble.”
Sarcasm showed in her expression before I heard it in her tone. “I’m touched.”
Yet, she seemed to believe me easily enough, settling down against the mattress. A yawn stretched her mouth wide, her fingers curling into fists as she stretched out on the bed. A twinge of pain pinched her face, and the cry from earlier inside the bar echoed through my head.
“Did they hurt you?”
She shrugged me off like it was nothing. “Only once.”
Usually once was enough to make an impact on a person. Scarlett really didn’t seem to care. In fact, she almost looked goddamn disappointed.
Something was off about this woman.
“Why were you there, Scarlett?”
Sleep was coming for her fast and hard, but that didn’t stop her eyes from possessing the ability to electrocute from across the room with one wicked glance.
“Death is a party. Life is the waiting list. I was just looking for them to show me a good time.”
What the fuck?
I didn’t understand riddles and didn’t trust anyone who spoke in them. “Hmm,” I hummed, ignoring her little poem and nodding to her drink. “Drink some more. That’s always my cure for any injury.”
“Alcohol,” she mused thoughtfully. “Healing wounds inside and out since 2000 BC.”
“I don’t know if that’s historically accurate?”
She popped one shoulder up at me. “Someone I know told me that. They’re big on random facts, so I’d trust it.”
About fifteen minutes later, Scarlett was out cold. Sleep had snuck up on her so fast, her phone still hung limp in her hand. I turned my attention to my own phone with the tickets already pulled up.
Time for this shit show to hit its finale.