THREE
Decima
The household had beenthorough in my training, which meant I’d gotten a lot of driving practice in to prepare me for the occasional missions that required I get behind the wheel of various vehicles. I hadn’t been on the road at night all that often, though. Or in the rain. The combination of the two, with the droplets slipping over the windshield with increasing frequency, made my hands tighten on the steering wheel.
Thank God the streets were pretty empty at this time of night. I could manage to navigate the periodic streetlights and the rows of parked cars along the side of the road just fine.
Which was good, because my mind kept wandering. The image of Anna’s bloody body lingered in the back of my head.
Was there something more I should have done for her? For all of the people in the household? At the time, it’d seemed like leaving quickly was the best thing I could do, but now a pinch of guilt dug into my stomach. I hadn’t felt guilt over a dead body in a long time, even all the ones I’d been responsible for.
I was totally alone now. I had nobody left. How could it be normal to leave behind the only home I’d ever known just like that?
But then, there was obviously nothing normal about the massacre I’d walked into.
I sucked my lower lip under my teeth and let my mind shift to the practicalities. I had too many questions that I needed to answer, and emotions would get me nowhere.
Who had done this? More importantly, how was I going to find them? And in what way would I end their lives? Would I make their deaths long and painful, allowing their arteries to spew blood for minute after minute before they died? That was how they’d killed everyone in the household, after all. It would be fitting.
I suspected I’d like that style of poetic justice very much.
Where would I start? I’d never been assigned a mission with so little preparation and such a vague objective. Noelle had always come with weapons, supplies, and a dossier of everything I needed to know to locate and take down my target. I’d never had to think about anything other than how to get into a specific building, evade bodyguards, or make a swift escape.
Right now, I had nothing but a stolen car, a bag of clothes and jewelry, and the knife and chunk of glass I’d tossed on the seat with the bag, which barely counted as weapons. I had no idea where I was going or who I needed to find. The possibilities spiraled away from me, so endless my mind froze up trying to process them.
It was probably shock. I couldn’t be blamed for that, right? Discovering that everyone around you had been brutally murdered was pretty fucking shocking. I just needed time to think.
Headlights gleamed in my rearview mirror. I glanced at the mirror and realized the black car I’d noticed behind me earlier was still heading in the same direction. It’d pulled closer, only about a block away.
There wasn’t anything so strange about that. I was on a fairly major street. I’d walked several blocks from the household before I’d found a car I could steal, and I hadn’t seen anyone tracking me from there. I’d stuck to the speed limit and followed the traffic laws to a tee, so I shouldn’t have raised any red flags for anyone who’d seen me drive by after.
But it was arrogance to assume I’d done everything perfectly. The car could be following me for one reason or another, and that meant I should act as if it was.
I slowed, monitoring the car behind me, and took an abrupt turn. They hadn’t put on their signal, but they appeared behind me around the bend several seconds later. They left enough space for another car to pass, but… was this a coincidence?
The rain pelted my windshield. I frowned, squinting at the road ahead. There was a little side-street right there.
I swerved quickly but not violently, my heart jumping when the tires skidded on the wet pavement more than I’d expected. With a jerk of the steering wheel, I managed to straighten out the car. There. They’d drive on by, and I’d see I was just being paranoid and—
Headlights flashed behind me. The damn car had made the same turn again.
Apprehension gnawed at my stomach. This definitely didn’t feel like a coincidence now. What were the chances that someone just happened to take this exact same route, when there was hardly anyone on the roads at all?
I had to lose them. That was all there was to it.
Spotting a gas station on a corner up ahead where the side-street met another larger road, I pressed slowly on the gas to increase my speed. The moment I came up on the station, I whipped to the side, careered past the pumps with my pulse beating in my throat, and flew onto the road on the other side.
That might not be enough. I had to take the next turn that—
A parked car I hadn’t been paying attention to pulled out into the road right in front of me. I was going too fast. I hit the brake, but the tires screeched and slid in the rain. Shit.
I hauled on the wheel before I slammed right into the asshole who’d cut me off. The car kept skidding, spinning to the side and then forward—and crashed into a telephone pole on the other side of the road.
The impact jolted me in my seat, the hood crumpling in toward me. In the same moment, the airbag burst out with a bang, smacking into my face, chest, and the arm I’d flung across the wheel to turn it. Pain radiated through my hand and the side of my torso, and my eyes stung. A chalky powder prickled down my throat.
I blinked hard, and the stinging sensation only deepened into a sharper burning. Even as the airbag deflated, the world around me looked blurred. Involuntary tears flushed the chemicals from my eyes, but I still couldn’t see for shit.
Damn it. I had to get out of here—grab my things, run for it, find another car or a bus I could jump onto.