Page 61 of Secondhand Soul

Lazarus takes the pizza in silence. Chews. “Thanks.”

“Welcome.”

“You got a shovel just in case we need it, Miss Assassin?”

“And a tarp. Always.”

VICTORIA THINKS THE plan is a good one, which shocks the hell out of me. If someone told me, “Go lay down in that open grave. Sure, I’ll pull you out, not bury you alive,” I would have problems with it.

Victoria is more concerned about accuracy and staging. “You’d take all of my clothes and jewelry off. You don’t want identifying objects left with the body. And if you could wash it down, you would do that, too.”

“I’m not gonna... You’ll freeze to death. It’s thirty degrees out here.”

She shrugs. “So we have to be fast. First, you ought to do a shot of me on the ground on the side of the grave, partially wrapped in tarp. Make sure they can see my face. Then, one inside the ground. I don’t know how you’re going to get away with the fact that I’m not missing limbs and covered in blood.”

“Just because I had to go full monster to get free doesn’t mean that I would always hit the instant destruction button,” I grumble.

“There’s a button?” Victoria raises her eyebrows. “Have I found it?”

“Not a literal button,” I snap, but I like this.

Fuck, I’m such an idiot, but I like this. I like being with her. Plotting. Planning. Talking. Existing. All of it, any of it, with her.

“Make sure you tell him that you found out I was working for him and that it’s all his fault. That the phone call tipped you off,” Victoria adds, pulling things from her trunk.

“I don’t think he’s the type to feel guilt,” I point out.

“Yeah, but he can feel annoyance. I want him to be pissed at himself for calling me and ruining my whole game plan, wasting his money, his time, and losing his quarry that he’s been tracking for ages.”

A snarl escapes me.

Victoria throws an apologetic look over her shoulder as she bundles up a few things in a rolled-up piece of sturdy black tarp. “The game plan he knew about, Lazarus. It had already changed for me.”

“So you say.”

“Well. If you don’t believe me, I guess you can turn this little pretend photoshoot into reality pretty easily. C’mon. Let’s go.”

I climb into her car, realizing belatedly that Victoria is so not dressed for the weather. She didn’t even put on pants with her sweater dress, which I’m starting to think is just a baggy sweater. I can see the edge of her underwear as she settles in the driver’s seat. Her breath escapes in white clouds as the car sputters and purrs to life, engine on, but the heater still taking its sweet time to catch up. “You are going to get so sick,” I fret.

“I have to look dead. Pale. Cold and lifeless. The cold helps.”

I privately decide that when this is over, I’m taking her to the apartment, getting her warm and fed, and not letting her leave if she’s feverish or has a runny nose. I don’t know if you can get those things from lying down naked in this weather, but I bet you can.

“Let’s make this fast,” I grumble, rubbing my hands.

Victoria shivers and clicks the heater off. “Just as long as it’s good, it can be fast.”

Why does that sound like a double entendre to me?

I’M TRYING NOT TO LET Lazarus see how badly this freaks me out.

I betrayed him so completely. I played a part so well, so sincerely, because my lies were turning into truths.

What if he’s doing the same thing?

What if once I’m down there—pow-pow? Or as I turn—my airway is crushed by a big gray hand from behind?

To protect his parents, he’d do it. I wouldn’t blame him for playing my tricks on me, but to even suggest it might make him angrier. I felt like we had a few moments where he was downright friendly tonight.