Page 23 of Blood, Bones, and the Bratva Bogeyman

The words land heavily.

“I keep wondering if any of it was real,” I admit. “The nights we all spent under the stars, talking about what we would do ifwe ever escaped this life. The secrets we all shared. The pinky promises we made. Do you think she meant any of it? Or were we just steps in a plan she created long ago?”

For a few minutes there’s nothing but silence.

Then Sunni replies softly with a hint of pain her voice. “She was our sister in every way that counted. That’s not something we can turn off. So, maybe she meant it once, but she chose another path. One that led her away from us. And now, we get to choose too. Because the Reaper . . . that person isn’t our friend, Cressida. She’s something else entirely. She’s a monster and I’m not going to grieve for a monster. Not anymore.”

I lean my head back and stare up into the starry sky as I play over her words. There’s one truth that settles inside of me.

My frienddiddie that day seven years ago.

I loved her, I lost her, and I grieved her.

I don’t have it in me to do it again, so I won’t.

ten

The Reaper

Deathissuchadramatic, finite thing.

So poetic. So useful.

I shed my old skin like a snake. Cracked open the ribcage of the life I had, peeled out the soft, trembling thing inside, and taught it how to bite.

Cressida used to say I had a soft heart.

And I did.

But soft things rot.

Especially in this life.

So, I carved the weakness out, bone by bone, until there was nothing left but purpose.

Now they whisper my name like a ghost story.

The Reaper.

I like that.

Iearnedthat.

The warehouse is cold and empty except for the hum of the equipment and the ghosts of the ones who never made it back out.

I watch the new batch cook, the serum simmering in its sterile little container, red as a heartbeat and just as volatile. This one’s stronger. It’s faster and meaner, burning through the veins and stripping the soul bare.

It’s beautiful.

One of my volunteer’s coughs behind me, the wet sound in his lungs alerting us to his impending death.

His hand trembles as he labels the vials. He knows better than to speak without permission. I like that about him.

He flinched when he first saw me, like some part of his lizard brain recognized the wrongness under my skin.

Smart boy.

But he stayed. They always do. The broken ones. The lost. The angry.