Playing Dead: Book One of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 26

Conversation had left me numb.

Declaring he was too tired to talk anymore, Harper had finally rolled onto his side, facing away from me and told me to get some sleep. But how could I sleep? I would like to have said it was because I felt anger, rage, the urge to find Brandon and rip out his throat, but strangely I felt none of those things. I wasn't sure I knew how to feel anymore. In a daze, I lay down on the bed next to Harper, not caring when he shifted further away as if having me close disturbed him.

Lying on my back, I stared up at the ceiling, unblinking and the emptiness inside me festered and rotted like the damp in the walls. I couldn't make sense of anything but the longer I lay there, the more I was certain of one thing. The old Megan really was dead and I was glad she was dead. Her face, her clothes, her life just made me want to throw up. Everything about her made me want to curl over and retch up harder than I had when I had been in Harper's basement.

I turned my head to look at him, noting the smooth skin of his back and the dragon tattoo that curled around his hip. Shifting onto my side, I stared at his sleeping form, willing my mind to tap into his and probe at all the dark secrets that were locked inside although I wasn't sure I could cope with much more. The more he had told me, the more confused I had felt. The more he had revealed, the more the numbness and emptiness had set in. Finally when sleep eluded me, I got up and dragging my blanket with me, I went downstairs and curled up on the old sofa, staring into space until at some point, exhaustion won me over and I drifted into a restless sleep filled with images of great beasts, snarling and snapping at the corners of my vision and Clara's laughter piercing the darkness.

Sometime later, I awoke with a start, sensing somebody in the room and sitting up straight, I found Harper standing in the doorway watching me. His eyes were cold, his face hard and tense and in his hands he held my clothes, now dry but still covered with the stains of our adventure in the woods. He threw them over so they landed on my feet.

"Get dressed. We're going out," he said tersely.

"I see you're your usually chirpy self," I snapped, rolling my eyes and reaching for my jeans. I pulled them on, not caring that he was still glaring at me. "So what do we have planned for tonight? Are we going on a job? What poor unsuspecting princess do you have in your sights now?"

"Still pissed off about that are we? Your husband betrays you and yet I'm still the villain."

"Well you did the deed," I sniped, ignoring the vest top and deciding to stick with the t-shirt he had given me. "Besides, I don't remember my husband ordering you to throw me down in your basement and turn me into one of you."

"No, that was definitely not in the contract. Although I can't say he was all that bothered how I killed you."

I bit my lip as I tugged on the boots and fastened the laces, conscious not to rise to the bait. The hunger was creeping in again and I knew by now how much it seemed to feed my anger and the last thing I wanted was to lose control. "Where are we going?" I said instead.

"Let's call it a little lesson in how not to bungle your kills and leave your leftovers stinking out the whole street," he sneered. "Because right now you're just a fucking liability and we can't have that can we?"

Following him out of the house, I resisted the urge to shove him down the steps and send him sprawling into the gutter. He took off at a fast walking pace and I nipped at his heels, aware that any headway I had made the day before had clearly been imaginary as he remained as silent as stone as we walked; our footsteps clipping at the pavement.

"Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?" I asked.

"At least I woke up in the bed," he shot back and the acid in his voice burned unmistakably.