“And he told him that we weren’t going to look for her,” Angel says.
“Well, he was wrong,” I say, taking Heath’s hand and squeezing. “We’re looking now.”
“You heard what Mav said,” Angel reminds us. “We can’t go around announcing we know this shit. He’ll kill us. Maverick’s not even supposed to know, and you can bet there’s a reason he never told us.”
“How do we know he doesn’t have her?” I ask. “She could have been right here all along.”
“Dead or alive,” Heath mutters under his breath. Then, “Something must have gone wrong with her initiation.”
“I don’t think they’d hide that,” Angel says. “Guys die on occasion during initiation too. That’s always a risk. You survive it, you’re in. That’s the whole point.”
“Maybe we need to pay this Frederick guy a visit,” I say. “Convince him to talk to us, and find out what really happened.”
Angel snorts. “That’s not how our world works, Mercy.”
“It could,” I say. “I’m very convincing. If nothing else, you could use me as bait. If he knows who has E, or took her himself, he might be interested in another pretty girl.”
“Absolutely the fuck not,” Angel growls, so fierce I’m startled. He almost never shows me that side, and when I’ve seen it, the anger wasn’t usually directed at me.
“But if he—”
“Eternity disappeared, in case you forgot,” he snaps. “She’s been missing for four fucking years. You think I’d take even the slightest chance of that happening to you too?”
“It wouldn’t happen to me,” I mutter. I don’t offer an explanation, but Angel shouldn’t need one. He’s seen me fight. They all know who I am now. Maybe they even guess that’s why I learned, that it was one little thing I could control, to protect myself when it was too late to protect her.
“You can’t fight a gun,” Angel says flatly. “We’ll figure something out, but it won’t be that.”
“And don’t even think about trying to defy us and going to see him on your own,” Saint growls. “We’ll know.”
“Yeah,” Angel says. “We’re not letting you out of our sight until we’ve figure out what to do. With your history, we can’t be too careful.”
“Y’all are the worst,” I groan as we climb back into Heath’s truck. But really, their concern is touching, and I can’t help but feel protected and cared for in a way I haven’t for a very long time.
seventeen
The Merciful
“I wouldn’t sit there if I were you,” Ronique says when I go to sit in Annabel Lee’s chair. “Quentin Tarantulino is probably still hiding in there.”
“Is that a spider?” I squeak, darting away as if it’s already on me. I swear I can feel its little, jointed legs clawing along my back.
“Obviously,” she says, giving me a look.
“Will stand on business when it comes to Sinners, won’t sit on a chair with a spider,” Annabel Lee says in her usual, zero-inflection tone.
I stare at the offending chair. Of course Annabel Lee doesn’t have a regular chair you’d buy at an office supply store or even a cute one you’d get online for a dorm room. No, hers is a high-backed, narrow armchair that looks like she found it in a Victorian antique shop and reupholstered it with wine-colored velvet and painstakingly placed a hundred tiny, satin buttons up each side like the ones you might see on the back of a wedding dress. I don’t know what kind of hiding places a spider could find under it or inside it, but it looks like the perfect place for an eight-legged terror.
“Oh, don’t worry, he won’t bite you,” Annabel Lee says from where she’s sprawled on her bed like an ink stain. “But if you sit on him and squish him, I might murder you and feed your body to my other pets. They do need their protein. Don’t you, Skelly-Welly?” She makes her baby voice and rubs her knuckles into the possum’s stomach. He opens his mouth in ahorrifying, feral grin, tongue lolling out and drool trickling from the corner of his mouth. He’s the very last creature I’d picture with an elegant, mysterious goth girl like Annabel Lee, with her billowing silk skirt and dramatic pose, like a rejected poet who threw herself down and is waiting to perish from a broken heart.
I scoot onto the edge of her bed, and the possum’s legs immediately stiffen as it plays dead.
“Where’s Manson?” I ask.
“He went to get my lifeblood,” she Annabel, throwing a slender, ivory wrist over her eyes. “I wanted to go too but it’s too sunny out.”
“Did your girlfriend break up with you or something?” I ask, shooting Ronique a glance, hoping for guidance, but she’s on her phone, giggling over something. Probably a text from Saint. I want to throw myself down next to Annabel Lee and die with her.
“What girlfriend?” Annabel Lee asks from under her arm.
