The man swallowed, gaze focused on Kovit like he was afraid he was one of the weeping angels from Doctor Who, always moving closer the moment you looked away from them. His eyes turned to the cheese grater, slowly, like he was turning his head to see the monster behind him.
Finally, he closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.
Kovit jerked suddenly and spun to the man, swearing, even as the man emitted a moan that sounded more like a suppressed scream. Kovit grabbed the man’s jaw and tried to pry it open while Nita stood there staring.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
The man’s body jerked and spasmed and his eyes rolled toward Kovit, red-rimmed and scared. Blood bubbled from between his lips.
Kovit finally managed to open the man’s mouth and a torrent of blood streamed out, a wash of red covering the bound man and spattering across Kovit. So much blood.
“He bit his tongue off.” Kovit’s voice was inflectionless. “He’s drowning in his own blood.”
Nita stepped forward, but there was nothing to be done. The tongue had an artery, and if you bit through it, it could kill you, albeit more slowly than if you cut the artery at your throat or your groin. Which was probably why the man had decided breathing in the blood and drowning himself in it was the better way to go.
Kovit was pounding on the man’s back, trying to get him to cough up the blood, but he’d closed his mouth again and continued to inhale blood to prevent himself from coughing it out, even as his chest spasmed, choke reflex trying to save him.
Nita stood still. It was pointless to stop him from drowning when the blood loss would kill him soon anyway. Besides even if she could help him, she wouldn’t. She was going to kill him anyway. If he wanted to spare himself from whatever Kovit planned, she couldn’t really blame him.
Kovit shivered softly as the pain flowed through him, and the man choked on his own blood, gasping and retching. This continued for seconds, minutes, a horrifying tableau that Nita was frozen in.
Finally, the man died.
Kovit let out a small soft sigh when it happened and looked mournfully from the cheese grater to the man.
Nita held back any signs of relief. She hadn’t wanted to see the results of Kovit’s experiments with the cheese grater. She let out a short breath and took a picture of the dead man’s face. She needed to finish the plan.
She turned on data and opened the browser that would allow her access to the darknet. Her whole body relaxed and a gentle smile crossed her face when she saw the pale, stylized onion in the corner. It was familiar, a relic of her childhood. She’d been working on this internet for as long as she could remember. This was her world.
She made herself a new account in the major black market forums. Her fingers hovered over the username box until she finally typed in SCALPEL.
Kovit looked over her shoulder as she wrote. “Your username is Scalpel?”
Nita blinked and looked up. “Yes. And?”
“It sounds like a supervillain name,” he commented.
Nita rolled her eyes. “Well, no black market dealer uses their real name. Going by Scalpel is better than a picture of my face.”
“True, that.”
Nita posted a review of the GPS link selling her phone’s location.
You hunt me and I hunt you, in Peru or Canada. I will burn you down.
She uploaded the pictures of the murdered people, with a screenshot of her online exchange with them selling her information to lure them in. When she finished, she closed the phone and took a deep breath.
She’d killed people hunting her.
Her stomach tightened, and she straightened her back. She felt strong. She felt powerful, like she could do anything.
She kind of liked it.
And that, more than Kovit and his talk of rules, more than anything else, finally scared her. She liked feeling powerful. She liked feeling like she’d won.
Luring those men in and killing them made her feel powerful, in a twisted sort of way. In control. She wondered if this was how Kovit felt when he hurt people, this feeling of control in a world where they were almost always helpless and tied to other people’s whims. She wondered if that was why he made his own pain rather than take what already existed. She wondered if that was why she dissected.
She swallowed, and her chest tightened.
Something was really wrong with her.
“Nita?”
She shook her head. She was being silly. Why shouldn’t she feel triumphant? Why shouldn’t she be proud? She’d killed bad people. She’d sent a message.
She straightened her back. This was exactly what she wanted. She should feel proud.
“Yes?” she asked.
He opened his mouth, but she never heard what he was going to say.
Because the front door blew off its hinges.
Eighteen
NITA AND KOVIT dove in different directions as the door flew inward, followed by a rain of bullets. Kovit rolled behind the couch, and Nita ducked behind the kitchen counter.
Two figures stepped through the door, guns blazing like they were trying to make fireworks inside the deserted apartment.
Nita lay flat on the floor behind the counter, trying not to be seen. She wished she could see Kovit by the couch, because she was worried the flimsy couch fabric would afford little protection from the bullets.
She peered around the corner tentatively.
There were two people, both of them with scarves over their mouths like a Wild West film, presumably to protect them from the security cameras they thought were operational. They weren’t, Nita had checked.
One was a man, mid-twenties, white, medium-brown hair. The other was a girl, maybe Nita’s age or a little older. Also white, with dirty blond hair that was short and pressed against her head like it was painted on. A series of stud earrings and small hoops ran up one pale ear, while the other only had a single stud. There was something familiar about her, but it was hard to tell because most of her face was covered in the scarf.
The girl smiled, sharp and cruel. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
She hefted her gun, and narrowed her eyes as she swung it around.
How the hell had the black market found them here?
Nita tried to recall if she’d posted anything specific when she taunted the market. Were there clues to the address in the background of the pictures? But even so, they were here so fast.
Or maybe, she realized, eyes widening, they’d been tailing the group that Nita had lured here. Hunting the hunters when they realized they’d caught the scent of prey. They had probably been lurking outside the building, and waiting until the other group had caught Nita, then planning on bursting in and stealing her.
Dammit.
The girl and the man began walking forward, and Nita tensed. If they went much farther, they’d see Kovit behind the couch. And they’d have a clear shot.
She knew she was the target, but she didn’t want to find out if they’d shoot anyone with her.
Taking a deep breath, she dove out from behind the counter.
The two black market dealers spun toward her, guns blazing, but Nita was already moving, ducking around them and into the hallway outside the apartment.
They fired at her as she ran, and Nita scrambled down the hall and around the corner, toward the elevator banks.
There was no time to wait for the elevator, so she kept going, shag carpet squishing under her feet and white walls blurring past.