I see the reason for the smile when I spot the identity crisis from hell walking our way. Sarah/AJ has become some combination in between the sweet-and-innocent stripper persona and her previous robot-assassin persona.
She’s the most disturbingly terrifying woman I’ve ever encountered. And that says a lot.
I can’t read her worth a damn.
“Why’s the shit show here?” I ask Maya as she parks the car in the abandoned lot—that we’re not supposed to be in—and gets out. “Or don’t answer, since you’re now running the show,” I add while shooting a dry look toward Axle.
He just heaves out a breath and shrugs a shoulder in humble defeat.
“She has more power in the relationship than you, I’m assuming,” Kara says from the front with a single nod. “Which makes me appropriately anxious.”
“Be even nicer to the blonde,” I warn her as I get out.
I hear her murmuring, “What the fuck is going on around here?”
We skipped the mafia shit and kept all things Herrin-related in the meeting earlier today. Kara doesn’t need to be dragged into extracurricular club activity. We’ll deal with the mafia-that-swears-it’s-not-really-the-mafia shit storm later.
Kara’s been mostly quiet, observant, and pensive, and it’s hard as hell to read her too.
“Top of the mornin’ to ya, gov’nah,” Sarah/AJ says as she curtsies toward me, distracting me from Kara, as she keeps her distance and stands off to the side. “You owe me a favor.”
Shiiiiiiiit.
Schooling my features, I give her a single eyebrow arch. “Cashing in so soon?”
“Afraid so. I need someone who shoots almost as well as I do, because I have a job and a goal. You read people better than I do. See if you can catch something I’m missing in my little interrogation, and cover my six from a safe locale during a raid I need to handle,” she says as if it’s not a big favor to ask.
“I even have your bike here,” she adds like it’s some sort of incentive.
She gestures over her shoulder to where my bike is most definitely sitting.
“Pretty please with two cherries on top,” she adds with that crazy-bitch grin that always gives me a full body shudder.
“Fine,” I bite out.
“We’ll keep an eye on Kara,” Axle tells me from behind.
I give a dismissive, I-don’t-give-a-fuck hand toss, because it’s not like that needed to be said. He knows she’s crafty and plotting her escape.
“Drex’s sister, I presume? Who’s worse? Me or her—”
“You,” I state with zero hesitation.
“Define your version of worse,” Sarah tells me as I straddle my bike and tug on my helmet.
“Unapologetically psychotic and claiming to simply be misunderstood, while never giving yourself a new name to represent the melding of your latest identity crisis,” I inform her as I rev the bike, glancing over my shoulder to see Kara staring at us with a frown.
“I’m still just Sarah. I’ve told you this,” the lunatic behind me groans while wrapping her arms around my waist.
I rev the bike again, cutting my eyes away from Kara’s.
“I’m going to stop asking you for favors,” I tell her as I drive across the desert, following the direction in which she points until tire hits pavement.
Then I give it hell, and the crazy bitch leans back like she has a death wish. Her hair better not get caught in anything. Snake will put a bullet between my eyes if anything happens to her on the back of my bike.
His crazy almost matches hers.
She sits up abruptly, pointing over my shoulder. “It’s just up here. Take a right, left, left, right, left—”
“Are you fucking serious right now?” I ask as I slow up and take the turn.
“It’s just up ahead,” she says with a smile in her tone.
I don’t ever find her funny.
We pull into a domestic-as-fuck house with wind chimes, flower beds, gnomes, frilly curtains, and five cats eating out of one bowl.
I don’t know my life anymore.
“Sarah…”
“Come on in. I’ll fix you some tea for the interrogation,” she says as she hops off and starts heading inside, wearing some sort of belly-dancing outfit I weirdly haven’t noticed until now.
“I’ll skip the fucking tea,” I tell her as she heads inside.
“Fine with me. Hurry up,” she says over her shoulder as I pull off my helmet and follow her in.
When I get inside, I pause, because it’s like she found a store for cat lovers and bought all the available inventory in stock.
Even the sofa has a covering with kitty paw prints designed on it. Cat chairs. Cat clocks. A tiger-holding-up-glass coffee table. There’s even a cat puppet hanging over the edge of the sofa arm.
“I take it you’re still not doing well with the break-up,” I call out, clearing my throat when I spot a cat-sized coffin next to her woodwork station.
Crazy. Bitch.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she says in an assuring tone. “Come down to the basement.”