The Annihilator (Dark Verse #5)(19)

Light filtered in through a small window, but she couldn’t move her limbs to get up from the soft bed. It felt wonderful to simply lie and soak up the comfort, as her mind tried to recall the last thing it could remember.
Drugged. She'd been drugged.
A dark room. Cameras. Heat. Him.
Him between her thighs, devouring her over and over until she lost consciousness. She didn’t know how long he ate her out after that. The idea sent an odd shiver of thrill down her spine—the idea that she had been completely at his mercy to do as he pleased. The thought, with anyone else, filled her with terror and disgust. And yet, closing her eyes and imagining her invisible lover in the dark, she couldn’t completely throw the thought out.
She was an idiot, that’s what she was. A fucking idiot for trusting the most dangerous man she could find, who played with her, had no allegiance to anyone or anything whatsoever. And yet, he had showed up every time she had needed him. And though it had been a trap for him, he had come for her again.
What game was he playing?
Frustrated at herself for letting the question circle her mind, she tried to sit up, struggling under the heaviness of the lingering effects of the drug.
The door opened. Three entered the room with one of the girls she didn’t know but had seen in the building. The contempt on the woman’s face made her stomach drop. She looked at them both, trying to understand what had happened.
“I don't understand what’s so special about you,” the older woman remarked, her lips curving in a sneer. “He has been lining the street with bodies in your wake.”
Three indicated for the younger girl to set a tray of food on the table beside her as she kept talking. “I don’t know what you got yourself into last night, but he killed Mr. H because of it.”
Lyla felt her breath hitch. “What?”
The older woman shook her head. “Yes, foolish girl. Mr. H died because of you. Do you know how good he was to the girls? How generous? Thanks to you, Set him on fire alive.”
Lyla stayed silent.
“Congratulations, the higher ups are going to watch you like a hawk now."
A sliver of anger rippled through her.
How the fuck was any of that her fault? Mr. H hadn't been a divine pagan of virtue. He had drugged her and touched her and she wasn't sorry he died. She wasn't sorry any of them died. But once again, someone else’s actions had impacted her life, and she just didn’t want to deal with it. But living in the world she did, trapped as she was, what choice did she have?
Three poured her a glass of juice and pointed to the food. “Rest for a few days, and then get packed. Orders. You have a new... assignment. You’re moving.”
Biting her lip, Lyla swerved her eyes from the girl at the door, back to Three. She knew better than to ask about her new station. She would find out when she was escorted to wherever she was going.
“Any news on Malini?” she asked her handler for the last time, knowing she would know or at least have some inkling of where the girl could be. If she was moving, she needed to ask for one final time.
The older woman’s eyes chilled. “She’s been contracted. I won’t tell you again.”
But it was odd for someone under contract to not come back for any of their stuff at all. Possessions, as meagre as they were, were important to every girl in there. She knew that. They were things they had collected over the years, little trinkets of comfort that mattered to them because nothing else did. All girls who were contracted were given a last trip to pack their stuff and say goodbye. But not Malini. She had woken up one morning, gone to work at an online auction, and never returned. While it was entirely possible that whoever had bought her hadn’t allowed her any time to return, something inside Lyla couldn’t shake off the feeling that it wasn’t that. Something else had happened to the other girl.
Keeping her thoughts to herself, she drank the juice and ate the toasted bread as Three left. The girl, a blondish, petite beauty, hesitated in the doorway, her eyes going to where their handler was disappearing.
“I don’t know where they’re sending you, but it’s not good,” the girl whispered urgently. “Just... be prepared.”
With that, the girl rushed out too, leaving her alone with her thoughts, a maelstrom in her mind. They were sending her... somewhere not good.
She didn’t know what was coming, but she didn’t know if she was prepared for it.

***
For the next few days, Lyla rested and let her body recover from the aftermath of whatever drug she had been forced to consume. She was given a few days off work, so she just rested and wandered in the house, eavesdropping on different conversations. That was how she stopped outside the kitchen, listening to the chatter inside.
“What do you think the deal is with the Shadow Man and Lyla?” someone asked.
Lyla pressed into the wall, curious to know what others were thinking about the whole thing.
“I didn’t even think he was real until all this. Now, I’m not sure what to think.”
“I think he’s just a client gone territorial,” another voice chimed in.
“Lyla hasn’t had a client since she came here,” a girl pointed out. “He takes them out.”
“Maybe he loves her.”
Lyla gripped her shorts, her heart racing. He wasn’t capable of loving, and she wasn’t desperate enough yet to imagine he could.
Two girls laughed inside, the sound chipping into her. “That doesn’t exist here, Millie. Maybe he just wants to get her out.”
“But why hasn’t he already then? It’s been like... what six years?”