Vengeful (Villains #2)(65)

June scanned the park—there was no sign of the man in black, but she glimpsed the other one sitting in the grass, tattoos wrapped around his forearms and a book open on his knee. She saw a flash of pink nearby, a forgotten Frisbee. She picked it up, spun it between her fingers, and then lobbed the plastic disc at the man’s head.

It connected with a light crack, and June jogged up to him, a bouncy young brunette, all apologies and sunshine.

“It’s all right,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “Takes more than a Frisbee to knock me over.”

He offered it back, and when her fingers brushed his, his life flickered through her like a film reel. He was so open, so human. Mitch Turner. Forty-three. Foster homes and skinned knees and bloody knuckles in a street brawl. Computer screens and car tires screeching. Handcuffs and a prison cell and a cafeteria, a man with a makeshift knife, a muffled threat, and then—June saw a face she recognized.

And thanks to Mitch, she now had a name to go with it.

Victor Vale.

In Mitch’s mind, the man was lean but not yet gaunt, washed out in prison grays instead of fitted blacks. A flick of his wrist, and another man who threatened collapsed with a scream.

That meeting, like a hinge in Mitch’s mind—beyond that moment, his memories were all marked by Victor’s blue eyes, his pale hair. Until they found her. Sydney, bloody and rain-soaked in a too-big coat. Sydney, who wasn’t human. Sydney, who Mitch didn’t know what to do with, how to handle. Sydney, and now a different kind of fear.

Loss.

And tucked into all of that, like a slip of paper in a book, a last memory. Another blond girl. A body buried by fire. A choice smothered by regret.

“Sorry,” June heard herself say again, even as the man’s memories flashed through her head. “My aim is just awful.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Mitch, radiating kindness, warmth.

He sat back in the grass with his book and smiled. June smiled back and said good-bye, her focus already turning to the girl under the tree.

*

Unknown Number: I forgot to tell you.

Unknown Number: My name is Sydney.

June cradled the cell phone in her palm. She already knew the girl’s name, of course, but it was better, coming from her. June wanted things to happen naturally, even if they hadn’t started that way.

Nice to meet you, Sydney, she wrote back. I’m June.

Good, she thought with a smile.

Now they could be proper friends.





V





THREE WEEKS AGO


THE HEIGHTS


THE elevator chimed as it reached the fourteenth floor. June stepped out into the hall and approached the cream-colored door. She half expected to find a spare key on the doorframe or under the mat, but there was nothing. No matter. Two thin bits of metal and a half minute later, she was in.

Marcella Riggins’s apartment was pretty much what she expected: leather sofa, plush white rug, copper sconces, all money, no soul.

Still, there were a few surprising touches. The chunk of wood missing from the bedroom door, the rotted line like burned paper showing the path of destruction. The tiny, glittering pieces of glass on the counter and strewn across the floor. But the thing June inspected first was the record player. It was the kind rich people bought for decoration instead of function. But a small stack of albums leaned beside it, even if they too were just for show, and June flipped through until she found something upbeat, savoring the scratch of the needle.

Music poured into the apartment.

June closed her eyes and swayed a little.

The song reminded her of summer. Of laughter and champagne, the cold splash of pool water, of veranda curtains and strong hands and the scrape of the slate walk against her cheek and— The song scratched to a stop as June removed the needle.

The past was the past.

Dead and buried.

She wandered through the bedroom, drew an absent hand across the clothes in the closet—half of which appeared to have fallen victim to Marcella’s wrath. Her cell buzzed.

Syd: I’m so bored.

Syd: I wish I was there.

June wrote back.

June: You could be.

Syd: I can’t.

The words were routine, at this point, even if they both knew the outcome wasn’t really possible.

After all, June could be anyone, while Sydney, it seemed, could only be herself. Conspicuous in its constancy, Sydney’s presence would negate June’s own advantage. And, of course, there was the matter of the others—of Mitch, and more importantly, of Victor. June hadn’t, at first, understood the nature of that relationship, or the degree of Sydney’s attachment, until Sydney finally broke down and told her everything.

*

IT was last fall, and they were on one of their late-night calls, each of them perched on a rooftop, cities apart but under the same sky. Syd was tired—tired of living out of a backpack, tired of never settling down, tired of not getting to live a normal life.

June had wondered, of course, why they moved around so much—had spent a good long while assuming they were on the run. But there was more, she knew it, and she’d been waiting for Syd to confide in her.

That night, she was tired enough to tell the truth. “Victor’s looking for someone who can help him.”

“Help him how?”

“He’s sick.” A long pause. “I made him sick.”