Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Harriet
Alexandru slams against the wall and crumbles to the floor.
I’ve never seen him fall before.
My ears ring. My head spins.
I didn’t think he could fall.
“Don’t look at him.”
KC stands in the doorway. He’s holding some kind of a giant gun with a silencer, and his eyes are too bright. Too wide.
“What have you done?!” I go to Alexandru and kneel beside him. He’s like a sleeping prince from a painting, lashes like dark crescents against pale skin. His beautiful charcoal suit is torn through in a dozen places, and you can see his ripped-up skin underneath, but there’s no blood.
"Hey." I touch the sharp line of his jaw, willing him to open his eyes.
He remains still. Not his usual deadly-predator-waiting-to-strike stillness, but something worse. Something final. Can enough bullets kill him? Does he need time to heal?
I fold his cool fingers closed in mine.
"I don't think he's coming back," KC says. The smugness would enrage me if I had anything left for it.
I squeeze Alexandru's hand. How many times have I wanted him dead? I can't count them. But I would give anything right now to feel his fingers tighten back.
Something hard presses into my back. The point of KC's gun. "Up."
I stand and spin around. "What have you done?"
He makes a tsk-tsk sound. "I'm going to consider that a rhetorical question." He gestures for me to move away from Alexandru's crumpled form.
I comply, ears ringing. It’s like I’m operating through a layer of gauze. My eyes keep darting to Alexandru. No movement. No blood either, but KC hasn’t noticed that yet.
“Umm...” Keep him talking—that’s my idea here. Alexandru needs time, that’s all. “How did you know I’d be at the funeral?”
KC’s face lights up. “Oh, I didn’t. But I knew you’d stumble into something eventually.
You’re predictable that way. Once I realized you were going there, I knew this would be your next stop, so I hid and waited.
” He tilts his head, studying me. “I actually admired your thought processes on the forum. Until I realized it was all just luck. You stumble on things while you organize random facts into your little rows and columns.”
“The different suspects.” I force the words out. “You really thought it through.”
“There she is.” He sounds almost proud. “I wanted you to see the pattern. And now they’re data points in something meaningful. Most murders are just... noise. Random violence by random idiots. But this? This was architecture. The forum’s going to love it.”
KC smiles. There's something behind his eyes that wasn't there at InovaSpire—a brightness that has nothing to do with intelligence.
"What? Did you not think I'd have an endgame? This is me we're talking about."
I glance down at Alexandru. Still nothing. He has to be okay. He has to be.
KC continues, "The only thing I can say about you is that you realized you were out of your depth at InovaSpire and took a lesser job.
I never quite understood it until I saw the way you looked at that supposed prince that one day when you were researching Milo.
God, the way you looked at him. And he just..
. tolerated you. A useful little pet who organizes his receipts. "
My jaw tightens. "You're going to frame us." The pieces click together. "You'll make it look like I shot him, he shot me."
"That's right! Mutual destruction. You really unloaded on Alexandru. Anger issues." He motions at the spot in the doorway. "You're going to need to stand there."
“I won’t.” I take a step back toward Alexandru. My best move right now is to ruin his forensics.
"I gave you an order."
Then his face changes. The smile drops. His eyes go to something over my shoulder and just... stop.
"Wh-wh—" He doesn't finish it.
A voice, dry as dust: "Ms. Renfield can be rather defiant."
I spin around.
Alexandru is standing. His gaze moves over me. Something in my chest unknots.
"Ms. Renfield—"
"I'm fine."
It's all he needs. He steps past me like I'm not there.
Behind me, KC makes a sound I've never heard a person make. "I shot you. I shot you. Where's the—" A scramble of footsteps. "Where's the blood?"
"It seems your architecture has a flaw."
"What are you?"
Alexandru gives him a smile that has nothing to do with warmth. "I'm the variable you failed to account for."
One stumbling step back. "Please. Please, no."
The gun hits the floor.
Alexandru's hand fists in his hair, the other gripping the front of his jacket, and he brings KC's throat to his mouth.
With a sound that is not quite human, he bites in.
KC struggles in his arms: helpless, genuinely helpless, which is something I've never seen KC be. Alexandru feeds with savage focus, chest is visible where the bullets went through. Pale, hard. No wounds. Just him.
As if he feels me watching, he looks up.
He doesn't stop. He just looks at me. Feeds and looks at me, and the intensity of it pins me where I stand like a moth to a board.
It's brutal and violent and ancient, and it does something to me I'm not going to examine.
I back up, nearly stumbling over an overturned chair, unable to look away.
Alexandru tears his mouth from KC's neck. His lips are red. His fangs are white and exact, and he's holding KC like he weighs nothing.
"Go," he says. His voice is rough and strange and not quite his.
I can't look away. I need to look away.
No, no, no, no.
I turn and I run.
I don't remember getting to my car. I don't remember starting the engine. I just drive, because driving is something I know how to do, and right now I need something I know how to do.