Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters #1)(42)

I shook off that sobering picture. The scariest thing about that speech was that Caleb always meant what he said. It chilled me that I couldn’t have stopped him from doing what he’d just said if I tried.

I addressed Adam, wanting to get on with it. “Have you spoken to Villi since you arrived here?”

Lynn giggled at me. “Her hair looks like purple cotton candy,” I heard her say to someone.

I glowered at her.

Adam just smirked at me. Stupid, stupid kid. I guess he would have to be, to be a human mixed up with Villi. “Um, I’m gonna have to say no.”

The strange dragon casually gripped Adam’s shoulders, effectively holding him in place.

With no expression on his face, Caleb reached over, casually snapping Adam’s right index finger completely back. It made a sick popping noise. It sat at that horrible angle for a moment before anyone reacted. One of the sobbing kids sounded like they were throwing up. Adam held up his finger in horror, screaming.

“Okay, same question, but without the attitude,” Caleb him told him, deadpan.

Adam shook his head vehemently. “No, no. I swear I haven’t. Remember, you searched me and took my phone before we came out here.”

“What have you told Villi about us?” Lynn asked, her words slurred. That strange little broken finger seemed to have cured her of the giggles. Torture was a major buzz-kill, to be sure.

He just kept shaking his head. “Just the location of your shop, and your house.” Caleb snapped his thumb this time. More screaming and sobbing rocked through the room.

“Try again?” I prompted in a bored tone.

“I-I told them about Lynn’s following. How I thought most of them were loyal. I told them who her lieutenants were.” He paused for too long, and Caleb snapped his pinky this time.

“More,” Caleb said curtly.

“I-I told them about you, though I don’t know what the f**k you are.” He addressed Caleb. His panicked gaze swung toward Christian. He nodded in his direction. “I told them about him, though I don’t think they believed me.”

“How many does my Uncle have with him?” Lynn asked. I understood her concern. His ‘them’ answers were alarming, to say the least.

He shook his head over and over. “Dude, I have no idea. I can’t tell one of those things from another. They don’t tell me stuff like that.”

“What things?” Christian spoke up suddenly.

Adam just laughed at him like a lunatic. “You don’t even get it, do you, dude? You’re even more in the dark than I am. How can you not see that you’re surrounded by-” Suddenly, surreally, his head just disappeared, pieces of it decorating the wall behind him. It hadn’t even been a conscious action, my hand had just found the gun in my ankle holster, aimed and shot on pure instinct. He had said enough incriminating things in front of Christian. The sound in the echoing room was deafening for a moment.

I bent down, calmly re-holstering my gun. The entire room was staring at me, mouths hanging open, jaws slack. Understandable, I supposed. I swear a few of the goths started putting curses on me.

Christian was the most shocked of the four of us, of course, since he couldn’t know the reason I’d needed to silence Adam so immediately, and so permanently. “What the hell, Jillian?” he was shouting over my ringing ears. “I can’t believe you shot him when he was giving us information. Was that really necessary?”

I just shrugged, acting nonchalant. “He was just wasting our time.”

Christian threw his hands up in the air. “And here I thought Caleb was our resident sociopath.”

I looked at Caleb. “Yeah, Caleb. Where were you on that one?” I asked him, an edge to my voice. What was his angle? Usually he was the fastest draw. I was good with guns, but they weren’t even my best weapon. I needed a blade to show my real talent. And guns, well, they were Caleb’s passion. Caleb looked at a solid piece like most men would look at a lover. Was he messing with us?

But he was studying me thoughtfully. He seemed to be as surprised as the rest of us that I’d beat him to the punch.

“That was impressive speed, considering that you were drawing from your ankle. You may actually be faster than me,” Caleb’s tone was speculative, making my trigger finger start itching. Knowing Caleb, he was considering drawing on me just to find out…

“He was full of lies from our uncle, Christian,” I said, turning away from Caleb, effectively ending the tense standoff. “Villi was using him to try to hurt Lynn, and I told you only the nice parts of what that monster did to my sister. We could have never let him go. He would have led them to us.”

“Ok, ok, just someone needs to explain to me a little more of what’s going on here. I hate being kept in the dark.” As Christian spoke, his phone started ringing, along with Caleb’s. I found this to be an odd coincidence.

The connection made sense a moment later, when I realized that it was a call from the druids. Tonight was the night. Time for a Necro roast.

“Maybe it wasn’t such a bad night for Lynn to get sloshed,” I muttered under my breath.

“I will take care of cleanup, and watch over Lynn’s children,” the strange dragon spoke into the charged silence. We had been absorbed in thoughts of prep and battle.

“Who the f**k are you?” I asked him, finally.