Page 71 of Of Flame and Fury
I groan.Really?
We turn around slowly. Emme jumps when she sees what’s up. I don’t jump. My jaw is too busy crashing to the floor with how messed up this situation is.
The curtains are gone, replaced with a concrete gray wall and bathtub you might find in Rome back when Julius Caesar was your bath buddy. A woman, very naked and very wet splashes about, having the time of her life in that tub.
She winks at us, her blue eyes blazing, and goes to town on the largest and roundest set of breasts I’ve ever seen in real life. Dark hair gathers around her shoulders and curves.
“Oh, my,” Emme gasps. “It’s you.”
“It is not,” I fire back rather defensively. “My boobs aren’t that big or round.” I wave in giggly girl’s direction. “And look at her nipples.”
“They’re a tad exaggerated,” Emme agrees. “And her nipples very much point north not south—”
“Mine don’t point south.”
“Taran.”
“They point straight, damn it.”
Creepy gal giggles, splashing more water and very entertained by our bickering.
“Taran,” Emme says, again, evidently trying to get me to focus. “Look at her. She has your hair and eyes and…It’s you. Johnny recreated you with his twisted taste.”
“All right. I get it,” I say.
“You do see it?” she presses.
“No, Emme. And I don’t want to. This situation is messed up enough without the little perv making versions of me he probably whacks off to.”
“Oh.” Emme grimaces. “Did you have to take it there?”
Creepy gal shoots me an impish grin and a rather seductive smile, very much reinforcing I’m very right to take it there. “Gawd,” I groan.
Emme clasps my elbow, her touch soothing me. “Come on,” she whispers. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We’re leaving?” I question.
“Well, yes,” Emme says. “She’s not doing anything. All she did was laugh and take a bath.”
It must be a beautiful place in Emme’s head. In my twisted mind, the bitch blows up, and demon children crawl from what’s left of her boobs. “She hasn’t done anythingyet. That doesn’t mean she won’t or that her death won’t weaken Johnny significantly.” I point out. “Let’s just kill her and get it over with.”
As I always, I said the wrong thing. Creepy gal abruptly stops laughing, and the candles burn out one by one, leaving us in darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I lift my right arm, firing up Sparky. Her light is our sole beacon in the room, casting a sphere that stretches to the foot of the tub.
Droplets pour down the concrete, forming tiny rivers that part at our feet. Asplat, like the sound of a wet towel striking something hard, has us edging back. Sparky illuminates, spreading her light and showing us how deeply screwed we really are.
Webbed fingers glide down the tub’s cement surface, the claws at the tips scraping lines into the tile.
Splat.
Another webbed hand follows.
Splat.Splat.
Oh, joy, here come feet.