11 #3
My tongue seems desperate to speak, which is a wholly unnerving sensation.
I want to confess, and I fight against that desire, and then I fight against the fighting, because of course this won’t work unless I give in.
If I at least say something, perhaps he’ll let up.
There are things I don’t want the Warden to know, but there are also plenty of sins I don’t mind divulging.
I clamp down on whatever I was about to say and force a different truth into my mouth. “Last year I killed a man against Gabriel’s wishes.”
The Warden stills, pulling back so as to better see my face. I try to affect an air of dreamy indifference, the way I imagine someone in his thrall might look.
“Go on,” he urges, lifting a hand to lay it against my cheek. I do my best not to react to the electric heat of his touch.
“It’s the only time I can remember Gabriel being truly, openly furious.
He’d sent me after a Regiment agent he believed was no longer trustworthy.
I was to confront the man—face covered, of course—and blackmail him.
Not my usual type of job, but I was the only one available.
I convinced Gabriel I could handle it. For once, I didn’t want to have to kill someone. ”
I can’t remember what the agent had supposedly done wrong, but the scene comes back to me in a vivid rush.
Cornering him in the hallway, my gun pointed at his chest. The way his voice echoed and his lip curled in derision when he said he could tell I was a woman.
He was tall. His house was too warm. My skin was stuck to the inside of my leather jacket.
I feel the rage all over again as I continue.
“He was laughing. Said something about how pathetic it was that anyone would send a little girl to threaten him. Then he made a joke implying all my sins had been of a sexual nature. I threatened to shoot him, and he goaded me, saying I wouldn’t dare. ” I lick my lips. “So I shot him.”
“As seems to be your move,” the Warden murmurs.
I hide my satisfaction. There’s a reason I picked this story, after all.
“I was in a bad mood that day. I made sure he would die, but not immediately. I wanted him lucid long enough to realize I’d made good on my threat.
Gabriel was furious. Later, he got Yannick to hit me.
Just once.” It was the only time Gabriel had ever punished me that way, and the sensation of betrayal had stung far more than the blow.
“Who is Yannick?”
“Another of Gabriel’s hired sinners.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Three.”
These questions I really do answer without thinking. It seems to make the Warden confident enough to ask, “Did Gabriel send you here tonight?”
“No.”
“What about last night?”
“Neither time,” I affirm.
“Do you know a place and time during which Gabriel will be virtually unprotected?”
“Yes.”
“Do you truly want him dead?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me dead?”
That brings me up short. I can’t deny it—he’ll know I’m lying. “Yes. But not as much as him.” It’s the best I can do.
The Warden smiles, pleased. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.
” His hand falls away from my face as he takes a step back.
It’s a moment before I realize he’s letting the spell break.
I give a slight shake of my head, prepared to feign a return to normalcy, before I remember a diabolist’s influence is meant to leave someone confused and disoriented. Fucking inconvenient.
I blink up at him, making my eyes wide and innocent, then quickly switch to a frown. Short-term memory loss or not, there’s no version of me that would look at the Warden with anything but contempt. I have to be cautious not to overdo it.
“What?” I demand, because it was what I would have said if I’d regained sense to see him staring at me. “You look like an idiot.”
He rolls his eyes and takes me by the elbow. “Come on.”
My entire body tenses at his touch, and not in an entirely unpleasant way. When I attempt to yank my arm back, he holds fast. I have the strange impression he’s trying to be gentle about it, but his grip is unbreakable, his fingers like iron. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The Warden’s gaze is withering as he leads me over to the door, apparently not needing to look where he’s going. “Making sure you don’t get into trouble. You need to sleep it off.”
“Sleep what off?”
“Exactly,” he intones, using his free hand to turn his collar up against the wind.
He maintains a brisk pace, all but dragging me along beside him.
I assume it’s because he expects me to be in some sort of fugue state, but I still can’t fathom where he might be taking me.
Do diabolists feed off more than just sins?
Do they take advantage of people in other ways?
If so, there isn’t a shot in hell of me maintaining this ruse.
“Where are we going?” I demand, not sure I want to know the answer.
The Warden gazes straight ahead. “Home.”
“You don’t know where I live.”
“No shit.” One side of his mouth tugs up in a smirk. “Luckily, however, I know where I live.”