“Not for me!” she pushes out, eyes wild. “Your boyfriend will take care of everything because he doesn’t want to watch you die. I will kill you if you get in my way.” Her eyes are narrowed.
I don’t doubt it for a second.
“I’m hungry. Hungrier than I have ever been.” I see her hands shaking. She swallows down excess saliva. “If you want me out of your life for good, I will also need a lead on how to find my next meal.” She scratches at her arm. She has this twitchy way about her that reminds me of a drug addict. Then she laughs, but it holds no humor. “I thought that finding someone with so much power would stave off the cravings for a while longer. Years instead of months.” She winces and then scratches her arm again. “I was wrong. It’s made me worse.” She pushes her hand to her belly, like it’s cramping. “I need more. You are my sure ticket to making that happen. I’ve watched the two of you. Listened to you going at it like rabbits. I needed to do this now. It couldn’t wait. Too much longer and…” She’s started talking more to herself than to me. “Too risky otherwise.”
“Why are we here?” I ask. “Why the stop?”
“We’re here because I know you, Morgan. You’re going to try to play the hero. Don’t! For your boyfriend’s sake…don’t do it! You know what it’s like to live with guilt. You don’t want that for him.”
“Don’t you dare speak to me about guilt!” I shout at her. I almost surprise myself with how angry I sound. It’s not just anger, it’s frustration as well. I swear, if I could break free now, I would kill her with my bare hands. I would choke the life out of her. I would look into her eyes and watch her die and not have a moment’s remorse. I realize in the same breath that it isn’t true. She has Lyre’s power and the key to helping Andy. “I thought you were my friend,” I finally say. I’m still hurt by what she did. I wish it wasn’t true, but it is.
She looks almost sad for a moment. “Someone like me can’t have friends. I’m sorry for betraying you.”
A laugh is pulled from me. “You aren’t sorry. You don’t know how to feel sorry. How to feel guilt or loss. Spare me!”
“The hunger overshadows everything. It’s who I am.”
There is a small part of me that wants to feel sorry for her. Like a few grains of sand on a beach. Like sand, I blow the emotion away, and it scatters into the wind. “Andy is dying. You did that.”
“I needed to eat…just like I need to eat now. It isn’t personal.”
“It is to me. You didn’t have to hand us to the centaurs like that.”
“Deal’s a deal,” she says with a shrug. “What was I supposed to do? I spent months getting to know you. Working on our friendship. Getting you to trust me. You gave me all of nothing in all of that time.”
“I didn’t give you nothing. I gave you friendship. I gave you trust.”
“You?” she snorts. “You have walls a mile high. You don’t know how to trust.”
“I walked into what I thought was an abandoned warehouse on the word of a friend. If that’s not trust, then I don’t know what is.”
She smiles, her gaze is distant. “I was shocked. I hadn’t expected it.”
“You’re the first non-human I ever trusted and look where it got me.” I shake my head.
Lilith lifts her brows. “I had to do whatever it took to survive. That included making friends with you.”
“What do you mean?” I frown. “What were you hoping to gain by making friends with me?”
“I needed names and locations of non-humans. Particularly those with power. You encrypted your computer. Never left your phone for a second and never talked about your work except in passing.”
“We live by rules.”
“I would have found the info I needed and been on my way, but no…” She shakes her head. “You were too careful. At least, you were careful until you ran headlong into that warehouse. I really didn’t think you’d do it.” She sighs. “And now you’re in a relationship with the hybrid.”
“We’re not in a relationship,” I say, too quickly and with too much venom.
She narrows her eyes. “I thought you were in love, Morgan.”
I ignore the jibe. “You still haven’t explained why you sent Andy and me into that trap.”
“I guess you may as well know; it won’t affect me either way.” She pulls in a breath. “The centaurs promised me the location of a hybrid demigod if I gave them a couple of Seekers on a silver platter. The second you stepped into that warehouse, the information was texted to me.”
“Information about Lyre?”
“Yes. His name. His address. Where he worked. It was easy after that.”
“How did they get that info in the first place?” My mind is working.
“I didn’t know then. I don’t know now, and I don’t care. I must say, I was quite fascinated to find out you’d survived the centaurs. That’s why we’re having this little conversation in the first place. You’re a fighter. Not today.” She stares at me for a moment, her dark eyes becoming darker. “Two things, firstly – I believe I’ve mentioned this one several times now, but I’ll tell you again just to be sure – I will kill you if I have to. What I haven’t mentioned yet is that I’ll kill your boyfriend too if need be. If you get in my way or step out of line, I will put a bullet in his brain. That would make you responsible for the death of the two men closest to you. I need his friend’s power.” She scratches her arm. “I no longer have any need for your doctor. He’s used up, like yesterday’s takeout.” She scratches again. I don’t even think she knows she’s doing it. “And like yesterday’s takeout, he can be thrown out with the trash for all I care. You would do well to remember that.”
I grind my teeth to stop myself from throwing insults at her. They won’t help me. They won’t help Lyre.
“There’s one more thing you need to know.”
“I can’t wait.” I raise my brows.
“If I die, then your boyfriend’s powers die with me. I overheard you two talking. We might not be as strong as some of the species and we might only have human-strength eyesight, but harpies have great hearing.” She taps one of her ears. “I know you’re hoping to get Lyre’s powers back. As long as I’m alive, you’re in with a chance.” She winks at me. “I die, then they go with me. I urge you to think about that if you get trigger-happy. I know how you Seekers love your guns. Be a good girl. Stay submissive. I will be out of your hair as soon as I have that tall-drink-of-water’s powers.” She wipes her chin when saliva runs down it. “I don’t like getting blood on my hands.” She pulls the gag up, tying it tightly behind my head. “I prefer subtle and quiet. The less drama the better. Let’s go and do this thing.”
This is a real dilemma. If she dies, Andy will die too. Lyre will lose his powers for good. The other alternative is to watch her steal someone else’s power and then to watch her walk away. I’m not happy with either scenario.