Vipers and Virtuosos (Monsters & Muses, #2)
Sav R. Miller
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PROLOGUE
There’s blood everywhere.
It soaks my clammy palms.
Burns my eyes where it drips down my forehead.
The smell of death singes my nostrils, permeating the air like noxious fumes, and all I can think about is how angry my mother will be when she gets home.
My vision blurs as I try to move—from the blood, or the sudden sharp pain that licks down my spine, I can’t be sure. Whatever the cause, it immobilizes me, and I choke out a puff of air.
What if he comes back?
Oxygen rattles from my lungs, catching on the thick sludge blocking my throat.
A throbbing sensation prods at the base of my skull, then seems to echo all over; in my ribs, across my collarbone, and zinging down my legs.
I manage to wriggle a hand up, sliding it over my stomach. My index finger snags on a slit in the fabric, but that can’t be right.
I’m wearing a dress.
It was finally warm enough outside after a cold start to spring, so I put on a dress.
Why is there a slit in the middle?
Wetness gushes around the pad of my finger as I press down. It stings, but I keep pressing, keep investigating. Maybe if I figure out what’s happened, I can fix it.
Agony ripples through my abdomen, but for some reason, I don’t register it completely. It’s a tsunami breaking before it hits the shore, whipping against me with the dull aftershocks.
I’m leaking, bleeding out on my mother’s white carpet.
God, she’s going to be so pissed.
With every bit of strength I can muster, I will my body into motion. I have to get out of here before it gets worse, although it’s hard to imagine how it can at this point.
Shards of glass dig into my back as I shift, attempting to find some sort of purchase on the floor.
Footsteps, deliberately heavy, thud beneath my head. Fear sprays down my spine like a broken faucet, my body recognizing the danger before my brain has even caught up.
Goose bumps prick along the back of my neck, and I fall as still as humanly possible, hoping it’s enough. That maybe if he thinks I’m dead, he’ll leave me be.
I should know better, though.
The men my mother dates aren’t satisfied until they’ve tasted the slaughter.
A shadowy figure breaks through my hazy gaze as he looms over me, clutching a piece of broken glass in one palm.
Manic, yellow eyes glare down at me and a sinister smile stretches across his face.
His belt is unbuckled, pants undone, and crimson in the shape of desperate fingerprints paint his neck, his face, his white shirt.
My brain revolts against the image, disgust rising like a high tide in my chest, but my body doesn’t respond.
All I can do is stare.
Watch as he bends, sliding the sharp edge of the glass across my face. I feel it glide up from the corner of my lip to just below my eye, and for the briefest moment, I pray.
Pray he gouges them out, so the last thing I see before I go is darkness and not his face.
I pray he finishes me off quickly.
Worst of all, I pray my mother’s not too angry when she gets home, because there’s only one thought playing in my mind when my vision blurs again, then goes totally black.
And that thought is that there’s blood.
Everywhere.
1
My mother used to say beautiful things were wrought from the most unimaginable pain.
Then she’d put her cigarette out on my stomach, in case I needed a reminder that whatever beauty I possessed was still a work in progress.
When she died, I know people expected me to mourn her.
That’s what kids are supposed to do when they lose a parent.
Then again, most parents don’t try to sell their kids to their crime lord boyfriend, who deals almost exclusively with sex trafficking.
The only thing I mourned was that I didn’t light the match.
My brother Boyd insists that’s a good thing; he says murder changes you. Rewires your soul into something bleak and broken.
But so does trauma, and I’d much rather be haunted by the sounds of my mother’s last screams than the echoes of my own. Maybe the pain would be a bit more bearable if I’d gotten to witness her suffering, too.
When I swallow, familiar discomfort wrapping around my windpipe, the scars on my cheek and at the corner of my mouth throb. The only remaining evidence of memories I can feel, but not picture.
Besides, I certainly don’t see my brother losing any sleep over it.
In fact, watching him adjust the cuff links of his neatly pressed, dark-gray suit in the hotel bathroom, Boyd looks more rested than ever.
“Riley,” he grunts, his hazel eyes focused on their task. “Stop looking at me like that.”
I swing my legs off the king-size mattress tucked in the corner. “Like what?”
Boyd’s jaw tics, irritating the pulse in his throat—not that you can really see it beneath the tattoos. Ink spans the entirety of his body from the neck down, a plethora of images etched permanently into his skin. Standing there with his dark-blond hair slicked back and frown lines framing his lips, he looks more like a member of the Mafia than his friends who are actually made men.