“Impressive,” Reaper remarks. He reaches out for her, and I’m reminded of how badly Blaze had panicked over the tiny rat snake I’d rescued. “So she’s bigger than Carly.” His voice is deadpan, but there’s a slight smirk on his lips as he glances at his sister.
Carly pouts and slaps him on the shoulder. “I’m not short. You’re stupidly big.”
I hand Echo over to Reaper, and he takes her carefully. I nod in approval at how he holds her, and I’m confident that he isn’t going to drop her. Carly strokes Echo’s back, apparently awed by the feeling of scales, too.
I go back to the bed and tap my leg impatiently.
“Are you allowed to have her here?” Carly asks after a while.
I nod, and in a complete deadpan say, “She’s my emotional support snake.”
“Things like that are why people hate the idea of emotional support animals,” Reaper says, but he doesn’t seem too perturbed.
“No, seriously!” I say to Carly’s skeptical expression. “If I didn’t have Echo to care for, who knows what I’ll do in my free time!”
Like stab even more people, probably.
Actually, it might be time to start doing that, because Blaze, Asch,and River are all avoiding me. I get Asch is probably brooding, and maybe I understand why River isn’t around, but Blaze? He’s supposed to be tossing me around in his macho attempt to subdue me.
Okay, maybe I’m horny, too.
I could go find one of the many other college boys on campus who are hard-up, but for some reason it’s not particularly appealing. Most of them would freak out when they saw my cut-up chest, and the ones who didn’t… meh.
“Speaking of free time…” Carly comes to sit next to me on the bed. “What did you mean with your text? About Declan?”
Reaper turns his attention to me, though he’s still lightly stroking Echo’s scales as she twists around his arm. He’s surprisingly deft with her, keeping her in his hands instead of allowing her to crawl too much over his arms.
“Well, I wanted to castrate him, but the other Chaos douches got there in time to rescue him,” I tell Carly. “I’m figuring out a plan, though. He’ll be incapacitated for a while anyway, and I found his stash of roofies.” Reaper’s cheeks flush red, but he doesn’t comment as I continue, “I crushed it all up and scattered it to the wind, don’t worry. Anyway, that means he’s not going to be doing this again to anyone anytime soon.”
As I talk, I notice Carly getting more and more still.
“Why is he incapacitated?” Carly asks quietly.
A niggling voice in the back of my head tells me it’s time to shut up, but if I listened to reason, I wouldn’t be me, now would I?
“I stabbed his leg. I missed the artery though, which is a bad job on my part. I guess I subconsciously did want him alive for the castration part.”
Carly’s face pales, and she shakes her head. “Why would you… You could go tojail, Pandora.”
I laugh, because it’s such a stupid sentiment.
I’m not going to jail.
Certainly not for something as simple as stabbing a frat boy. Evenif Declan did want to press charges—I know he won’t—Blaze wouldn’t let him go through with it.
And, hell, if Declan tried anyway, Papa and Daddy and Uncle Slayer would make any charges go away.
“He hurt you, Carly! I wasn’t going to let him get away with that.” I smile at Reaper. “You agree with me, right?”
“No,” he says.
It surprises me enough to where I stare at him instead of replying.
He continues, “It’s my job to protect Carly. Not yours.” Ah. So that’s really what’s going on. He’s sore because he’s not the one to have avenged his baby sister.
“Fat lot of good that did Carly at the party,” I say viciously.
Reaper’s eyes narrow, anger flickering dangerously in his expression. “I’ll handle it,” he says tersely. He holds Echo out to me. “Thank you for identifying who it was. But I’ve got it from here.”
