King ignored me, too busy with his search.
I leaned in closer, bending down a little. Something was living inside there.
Suddenly a pair of eyes met mine. “Jesus!” I stumbled back, pointing. “There’s a head in there!”
King said nothing and kept to his task, but I knew the bastard heard me.
“Why is there a fucking human head in that jar?” I yelled. “And why the fuck is it moving?” That was when I noticed another one next to it. Both were watching me, their mouths opening and closing, as if crying out for help.
Dear God. Dear God. What the fuck?
“God has nothing to do with those two, Miss Arnold,” King called out from his perch. “And do not feel sorry for them. If they still had bodies, they would rape you or sell you as a sex slave if given the chance.”
I covered my face and turned my back, unable to look at them. “Are they alive?”
“Yes.”
Heads. Living heads. Screaming in pain. “Jack, you can’t leave them like that.” My request had more to do with me than with them. Something so gruesome and terrifying had no business existing in the world.
“King. My name is King. And I may do whatever I like. Ah! Here it is.” He held out a small wooden box in his hand. “Catch.”
I held out my hands and caught it. The thing was about the size of a shoebox. I wasn’t going to ask what was inside because I didn’t care. I just wanted him to start giving me answers. Who erased his memories and threw him in the ocean? Why? Was he as evil as he believed? What was in that newspaper that changed his mind about walking away from his past life?
“You ask too many questions,” he said.
“Yeah, well, you don’t give enough answers,” I threw back.
He climbed down and faced me. “How is this for an answer: If you do as you are told, I will make you a very wealthy woman, Jeni. Wealthy and powerful.”
Do what? I frowned with confusion. He kept skipping over critical information. “Wait. Never mind. I don’t care. And I have no interest in being powerful or wealthy.”
“You genuinely mean it.” He sounded surprised. “You do not wish to have money, to be the sort of person who fears nothing?”
I wouldn’t flush a winning lotto ticket down the toilet, but I didn’t want to be some sort of supernatural mob boss, which was what I assumed he was getting at.
I shook my head no.
“You are lying to yourself.” He grabbed my chin and gazed down into my eyes. “If you could punish the man who killed your mother, would you do it? How about the person who broke your father’s legs? Having power means making sure those who harm you or your family pay with their lives.”
“I’d rather see them go to jail.” As I said those words, I knew it was a lie. We’d both witnessed what happened to people who hurt me.
“You would never feel helpless again, like you do about your mother.”
Her death caused the sort of pain that never really went away, especially because there’d been no justice. However, even if I wanted that sort of power, which I didn’t, I’d come to learn a few things over the past several days. “What’s the price?”
He dropped his hand and lifted his chin. “My little Seer is catching on.”
“Yes. And?”
“I want you to help me kill the people who murdered my wife, son, and unborn daughter. Then I want you to kill the person who put me at the bottom of the ocean.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The news couldn’t be more shocking. King had a wife! He had children. I never imagined him with a family, but the fact they had been murdered was awful. Just awful.
And I slept with him. Technically, there was nothing immoral about that, but it just felt wrong. Had he known why there was a huge hole inside him, I doubted anything would’ve happened between us. He was still in mourning, still angry. And me? I didn’t know how I felt about him.
Jesus. I speared my fingers through my hair, feeling like I’d somehow defiled his poor wife’s memory or, at least, I’d been an accomplice.
My heart grew heavy. Did I dare ask what happened? Did I want to know the gory details?
No. It would make it all too real. That didn’t stop my mind from teeter-tottering between wanting to offer my deepest sympathies and flat out deny his request to kill the murderers. Besides, why did he need my help? He was a thousand times more powerful than me.
He shook his head of thick dark hair. “You behave as if you have a choice, Jeni. You do not. As for why it must be you, I have my reasons.”
“You can’t force me to kill a bunch of people, no matter how bad I feel for you.” But make no mistake, I felt pretty bad. I knew what it was like to lose people.