All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(83)

“You know my name.”

“How about that, Vie?”

Without thinking about it, I rubbed my face again, because the sound of that harsh, rattling breath came back to me, and the sight of those glassy eyes, with tears pooling in the corners, and the darkest part of me whispering you did that, you did that and you fucking loved it.

“Lawayne’s alive?” I said, forcing myself to speak.

The blonde crossed her legs, studying me, and said, “He’s alive. He’s a little confused about how things went down—that’ll happen when you get shot twice and lose a lot of blood—but he’s pretty clear on one thing: you.”

“What about me?” Trying not to be obvious, I reached for the door. If she moved for a gun, if she were here to pay me back for what had happened to Lawayne, even though it wasn’t my fault, I’d run. Well, I’d try to run.

But she gave me that considering look again, and her lips twisted as though she wanted to spit, or maybe she just needed a smoke. “Lawayne says he wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.” Then she leaned towards me. “I sat in my car. In this car. I watched you run down that alley, and I watched Salerno waddling after you, and I thought that kid’s dead.”

“Thanks for the help.”

“Don’t talk like a bitch, kid. It doesn’t suit you. I know Sal, or I knew him. He wouldn’t go down easy. So go on, spill. What happened?”

“What you said.” I reached again for the door. “He met a lady cougar. And if that’s all you want—”

“It’s not. Lawayne sent this for you.” She flipped a flash drive into my lap. “And he says he owes you, and he knows he owes you, but the deal still stands. You got something for me?”

I shook my head. “Tell him I’ll give it to him personally.”

Her expression could have flattened a skyscraper. “He told me I was supposed to—”

Sliding the flash drive into my pocket, I said, “I’ve got stuff to do.”

“You know what I think?”

“Jesus. Do I want to?”

“I think you and Sal were in on it together. And I think you got the drop on Sal because he thought he had you pegged.”

“You think that I lured Lawayne into an ambush? Try it the other way around. Lawayne set the meeting, and when I showed up, he stuck a gun to the back of my head.”

“Lawayne set the meeting, but you had plenty of time to talk to Sal. In fact, you had a nice long minute with him after you left Lawayne’s office.”

“Right.” I forced a laugh. “While he was beating the shit out of me, I managed to convince him to work with me to kill Lawayne.” This time, I got the door open. “Maybe he just followed Lawayne. Maybe someone else tipped him off. Maybe it was you. Now, you know my name. What’s yours?”

This time, her hesitation dragged out even longer. “Lena.”

“Well, Lena, you tell Lawayne I’m coming to see him, because I keep my word and I’ve got what he wants. If you’ve got any ideas, though, about coming after me, or if you think you can squeeze me because you’ve got some half-baked idea that I was in with Salerno, you’d better think twice. Otherwise I’ll tell Lawayne everything that went on between you and Christian, and I think Lawayne would like to know all about what his half-brother did.”

“How’d you—” Her cheeks flamed, and her hand rattled the gear shift. “You mother-fucker.”

“Nah,” I said. “I hate my mother. Think about what I said, though.” I slammed the door, and the town car slipped off into the night. Quiet, no drama, no big scene, nothing to mark what had happened between us. But I knew I’d crossed another line. For the first time in my life, I’d used my ability to blackmail someone. Sure, Lena wasn’t a good person, and sure, I’d done it to protect myself. Compared to what I’d done to Dad, it shouldn’t have mattered, but it made me feel dirty: as gray and oily and broken as the Slipper’s parking lot.

I turned towards the apartment. He would still be in there, in that dark, freezing hole, still breathing those rattly breaths, still staring off at nightmares only he could see. Nightmares I had awoken. The Wyoming wind shrieked through the night, and the cold stung my eyes, my lips, my heart. I checked that the flash drive was safe, buried my hands in my pockets, and started the long march into town. I wanted to see what Lawayne had sent me, and I needed Becca’s help to do it.





After my time in Becca’s house, I had a pretty good guess which window was hers. A pretty good guess, but not a certainty. My first pebble clinked against the glass. I juggled two more with numb fingers, trying not to move too much, trying not to wake the pain lurking in my back. At night, in October, this part of the world was as cold and dark as the North Pole’s asshole. No movement showed behind the window, and so I tossed the second pebble. It pinged against the frame, loud enough that my hackles rose. Still nothing, though. The wrong window, maybe. Or maybe Becca was out with friends. No, not with school tomorrow. Maybe—I tossed the third pebble, and another clink came from the glass.

Warm yellow light rushed behind the curtains like a big, sun-filled waterfall. The flimsy white cotton revealed a shadow, and then a corner of the cloth peeled away from the glass. Only a fraction of Becca’s face appeared in the opening, not enough to read any emotion. She twitched the curtain back into place, and a moment later the lights died. A minute passed, and then another.