The Annihilator (Dark Verse #5)(5)

Shoving the memory away, she stayed where she was. At her easy acquiescence, he smiled and left.
Standing alone at the edge of the alley behind the building, Lyla turned her neck up for the glimpse of the night sky, her heart heavy at seeing nothing but the dark. She knew the stars weren’t visible in the city some nights, she’d just hoped they would be. It had been too long since she had seen them, and too little in her short but hard life. But there was nothing tonight, no moon, no stars, just endless black littered by gray smoke and clouds.
She wondered some days what the point of her existence even was, on days when the future looked as the sky did—bleak, hopeless, endless. But then she reminded herself of the one thing that kept her going, the search for one little answer that made her wake up every morning and brave the day.
Suddenly, the hair on the back of her neck rose.
It was his scent that reached her first, a scent she’d only inhaled a few times in all the years he’d watched her, a scent that had imprinted itself in her mind. She’d only been so close to him a few times, and she didn’t know exactly what he smelled like because she hadn’t scented many nice things in her life, but it was distinct and male, and it was him.
She knew he was behind her. She could feel his breath on the top of her head, feel the heat of his larger body at her back, feel her dormant senses flaring to life as they always did in contact with him. And having him at her back always made her feel both chased and cherished, the dichotomy of emotions difficult for her to comprehend herself.
God, she hated him, she hated her response to him, hated that she wanted to hate him deeper but couldn’t, and she hated that he knew it and didn’t care one bit.
She stayed still, not breaking the silence with a single word. She had asked him the question a few times, and each time he had fucked with her mind, and left her confused, frustrated, and angry. She just held onto the anger now, as she had for many years. Anger was good. Anger made her feel. Anger reminded her that she was still alive.
“Did you enjoy his touch?”
The voice, his voice, came quietly from behind her. If death had a voice, it would be his. Again, she didn’t know what his voice was similar to, because she didn’t have anything to compare it to. But she knew she’d heard the voices of many men in her life, and his was, without a doubt, the most dangerous of them all.
It reminded her of a vague story she remembered someone telling her, a memory that was faded and probably from before she got into this life—the story of a man playing pipes and making all the rodents in town follow him, right off the edge of a cliff to their deaths, happily and merrily as they danced along. He had that kind of a voice—deep, alluring, seductive, a voice that could lead people obliviously to a cliff and to their own demise, making them enjoy it while they remained blind. A dangerous, dangerous voice on a dangerous, dangerous man. The voice of death beckoning the mortals to test their mortality.
It was just her luck that she had found him, of all people, that fateful night years ago.
She kept silent, refusing to follow to his tune.
“I asked you a question, flamma,” he reminded her again.
So did I, she wanted to say. 
She didn’t know why he called her that. She was sure he knew her name, and was even more certain it was as close to a term of endearment as a man like him could get. In the beginning, when he’d called her that, it had filled her with hope and made her feel a sense of belonging. As the hope dwindled, she knew it meant nothing. It grated on her. She wasn’t his anything. A man like him wasn’t endeared to anything.
She grit her teeth, her jaw locking in place, the urge to turn around and look at him acute in her body. But she knew his games, and she knew the best thing she could do was not play along. He wanted her reactions and withholding them gave her the power, at least momentarily.

‘You will never hear my voice again. Go to fucking hell!’

The memory danced across her mind, the last time she had been alone with him, her failed attempts of getting answers from him having led to an angry promise. Up until now, she was proud of not having uttered a word to him.
A silver car came to a stop in front of the alley.
Taking a deep breath, ignoring the man at her back who was clearly hidden since there was no reaction from Fifteen, the man who had purchased her for the night, she walked to the car. Getting into the passenger seat, she strapped herself in, hating her translucent robe and the way Fifteen looked at her. They all looked at her but no one saw her, none except the man who watched her like it was his religion.
She turned to look out the window where he stood, barely making out the silhouette of his body. A lighter came to life in his hand, momentarily making him visible. She watched as he played with the lighter, before looking up, their gazes locking as the car began to move.
“Can’t wait to fuck you tonight, sweetheart,” the monster at her side chuckled.
She held her tongue, resisting the urge to tell him the only penetration tonight would be a bullet in his body.

Chapter threeLyla


There was something about seeing someone die that she could never get used to. No matter how many times she’d seen it at this point, it always jolted her when it happened. A normal, moral person would feel shock and grief and disgust and fear. Yet she, possibly because she knew these men were the bottom of the barrel, felt nothing but relief, and even vengeance to a degree. The only sadness she felt was for the families. She imagined a wife wondering why her husband hadn’t come home, only to find out he was out cheating and screwing a sex slave behind her back. That was fucking sad. She felt more for a woman she’d never met than she did for the man in front of her.