Burn for Me
“Touch me again,” she breathed.
Another braid, weaving in between the others. Was he actually going to undress her right here? I followed their movement. Oh no. He wasn’t taking her clothes off, like she thought. He was braiding them into a noose around her neck.
“Don’t you dare.”
Mad Rogan ignored me.
“I mean it. Stop.”
“Don’t interfere,” he said.
“If you’re too embarrassed, you can go wait by the fountain,” Harper murmured and glanced back at Rogan, her eyes half closed. “I wouldn’t have expected you to employ a prude. You’re an interesting man . . . full of . . . oh my God . . . surprises.”
The braids twisted again.
“Rogan!”
Harper leaned forward, stretching like a limber cat ready for a stroke of her owner’s hand. Her words came out in quick, breathless bursts. “Give her a hundred bucks, tell her to buy something so she’ll leave us alone . . . More, Rogan. More . . .”
The noose snapped tight, clamping Harper’s neck. She gasped for breath, her mouth gaping.
“You can’t just strangle her.”
“Of course I can,” he said.
Harper clutched at her dress, clawing at her neck, trying to get it off her throat.
I pulled a gun out of my purse and pointed it at Mad Rogan’s leg. “Let her go, or I’ll shoot you.”
Mad Rogan turned to me. “You would shoot me?” He looked genuinely puzzled.
“To save her life, yes.” Even if it meant he would crush me a moment later. “Let her go.”
Harper’s face turned bright plum red. She struggled, her back rigid.
Mad Rogan looked at me. Looking into his eyes was like staring straight into the dragon.
I took the safety off my Kahr. “Please let her go.”
The noose on Harper’s throat fell slack. She fell back into her chair, gulping air in hoarse breaths. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Look at me.” Mad Rogan leaned forward. Menace and contempt dripped from his words. “Did you know Adam would blow up the building?”
“Yes!” Harper gasped. “Yes, I knew, you sick fuck!”
True.
“Do you know what was in the deposit box?”
“No!”
True.
“Do you know what was in the building next to the one Adam burned yesterday?” I asked.
“No!”
True.
People were looking at us. Blood swelled in the scratches on Harper’s neck where she had clawed at herself.
“Do you know what Adam is planning?” I asked.
She glared at me. “You think Adam is planning something? Adam just wants to burn shit! He’s just a glorified O’Reilly’s cow. He’s a means to an end. You have no idea what’s coming. Soon the Change will happen, and the only thing that will matter will be whose side you were on. I’ve earned my place. I was on the right side. I will be on top. You, you fucking bitch, you’ll rot in hell with this fucking pervert! I hope you two fucking suffer.”
Harper jumped to her feet and ran away, sobbing. A large cityscape billboard hanging from the second-floor bridge moved slightly, turning up as she came toward it, about to peel off the bridge. If it fell on her . . .
I put my hand on Mad Rogan’s arm. “Don’t.”
The board stopped. Harper ran under the bridge and deeper into the mall, her cell phone to her ear. I thumbed the safety back on and put the gun away.
“You would have shot me over her?” Mad Rogan asked.
“You can’t just kill people.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s morally wrong. She is a person, a living, breathing human being.”
“Morally wrong according to whom?” he asked.
“According to the majority of people. It’s against the law.”
“Who is going to tell the law?” he asked. “I could’ve snapped her neck and shot her up on those arches above us. Nobody would find her for days until pieces of her started to fall down.”
“It’s still wrong. You can’t just kill people because they annoy you.”
“You keep saying ‘can’t,’” he said.
“You shouldn’t.” It was like talking to some alien creature.
He leaned back and examined me. “I’ve helped you and protected you. More, you need me to apprehend Pierce. So you have both an emotional and a financial interest in maintaining a working relationship with me. I’m important to you. She insulted and belittled you. She’s a completely useless human being. In five years she will still be doing exactly what she’s doing now, flitting from club to club, supplying tabloids with gossip, and bitching to her friends about her mother, except the clubs won’t be quite as nice and the tabloids won’t mention her quite as often. She contributes nothing.”
“Are you trying to make me feel guilty for protecting her?” I asked.
“No, I’m trying to understand. You’re not annoyed at her.”
“I’m annoyed at the people who taught her that her only goal in life should be attaching herself to someone with better magic. I’m annoyed by her because she thinks that having a little bit of money lets her belittle other people. But I’m not threatened by her in the least. Rogan, I own my own business. I’m good at my job. I’m successful enough to keep the roof over our heads and be respected by my peers. My family loves me unconditionally. And when some strange man calls me and orders me to be somewhere, I don’t drop everything and rush over. I’m free. I make my own life and my own choices. I’m not desperately trying to earn the approval of people who think I’m worthless because I don’t have enough magic or because I’m failing to meet their expectations. Don’t you think that if Harper was honest with herself for a moment, she would wish she were me?”
“You’re giving her too much credit. She can change her life any moment she wants to,” he said.
“You still can’t kill her.”
“Yes, I can. I wasn’t necessarily going to just yet, because I wanted information, but your argument that I shouldn’t is baseless. You do realize she participated in an arson that resulted in a man dying?”
“You can’t kill her, because it’s against the law. Because you live here in this country and its laws apply to you no matter how much magic you have. We let police handle things. We have a justice system. Because killing random people just because they did something you don’t like makes you the bad guy.”