Page 60 of Reaper and Ruin

I didn’t want to leave Violet alone, but I couldn’t take her with us either.

Because a nagging voice in my head said the first place we needed to check for Nyah was that pile of dead women.

19

WHIP

The dump site was hard enough to get to, even in good conditions, but after all the rain we’d had the other night, the track in was almost completely washed away. My car was too low to the ground, and we were forced to abandon it about a mile out and go in on foot.

I was just glad we weren’t trying to dump a body. Because dead people were heavy, and I’d barely recovered from X trying to kill us with oysters.

The stench hit before we crested the ridge. Not just rot. Not just the sweet, coppery reek of old blood. This was deeper. Feral. Foul.

Levi moved quietly beside me, his eyes sharper than usual, like being back at a crime scene brought him into focus.

X…not so much.

In the last two minutes alone, he’d tripped over a fallen branch, announced it was a hate crime, and then spent the rest of the walk swatting at invisible flies.

“Remind me again why we’re going toward the body pit and not, say, literally anywhere else?” X asked, brushing leaves off his shoulder.

“We need to see if she’s here,” Levi muttered.

I jerked my head in his direction. “Excuse me?”

He looked at me. “What? Like you aren’t thinking the same thing I am? She’s been missing for at least eight hours, Whip. You think there’s not even a remote chance that’s linked to the fucking shitstorm that’s surrounded us these last few weeks? You didn’t come out here with even the slightest suspicion that we might find her body newly added to the pile we found the other night?”

I didn’t want to think about that. I barely knew Nyah.

But Levi was right. We were supposed to be searching the town for any sign of her, and after a single sweep of the main street, this was where I’d driven.

Levi sighed heavily. “Listen. I told you both about my old cellmate, Lynx, being out of prison.”

X slapped his own arm, then winced, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the sting of the slap or the bug that had bitten him. “Is that the guy who taught you how to give good head? If so, Whip says thank you.”

Levi shot him a look. “Lynx had my back. I was in a bad situation, one of my first nights there. Lynx got me out of it. I owe him.”

I eyed Levi. “And yet you’re bringing him up as we walk toward a pile of dead bodies. All women who died in pretty horrific circumstances, if the sneak peek we got the other night was right.”

Levi sighed. “Yes.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You think he did it.”

Levi shook his head. “No. I don’t want to believe that. He never admitted to hurting a woman. Not to me. But is he capable if the price is right?” He lifted a shoulder. “If Lynx is in town—if he’sworkingagain—he’d leave a message. He always did. Four claw marks.”

“Maybe I should start leaving a calling card on my dead bodies,” X mused out loud. “I don’t know what though. Maybe a star carved between their eyes. Ooh! Maybe polka dots on their ass cheeks.”

I squinted at him. “Just leaving an X for your name is too original?”

X’s mouth dropped open, and he pointed at me. “Now you’re thinking! The press will know me simply as X!”

“Everyone knows you simply as X,” I said dryly.

“Fair point. Maybe I could be X-Man!”

“Pretty sure Marvel has the copyright on that.”

“Dammit!”