enjoy.â
âCan I ask you something?â I said. Leo nodded, fishing in his pockets and pulling out a squashed pack of smokes. He offered me one, but I shook my head.
âDid Marty the metathrope have anything to do with this?â I said. Leoâs laughter sent a warm feeling up and down my spine. How fucked up was it that a Russian leg breaker who raised zombies on the side and had just finished spot-Âwelding my skin was calming me down? It wasnât like I held the torture against him, I reasoned. For most Hellspawn, what heâd done to me would be foreplay.
âMartyâs a lovable nut job, but heâs way too chatty for my liking,â he said. âIf he knew me, your reaper would know me.â
âGood,â I said. âOne less person I have to kill when I get out of here.â
Leo leaned back and managed to look like he owned the room, even though it was a shitty garage and we were the only Âpeople in it. âSo youâll help me?â
âI told you,â I said. âEven if I wanted to, I canât.â
âSee, I think thatâs bullshit,â Leo said. âYou couldnât stop me from hurting you. I have all the power here. I could make you hurt so much youâd forget your own name, but I wonât. I choose to try and persuade you.â
âI hope youâre better at cutting than talking,â I said. âBecause this is not changing my mind.â Hounds didnât turn on reapers. Reapers made them, and we served them. Unconditionally. Turning on your reaper was a taboo that had only one outcome. Reapers were our masters. That was that.
âYou can choose to fight back,â Leo said. âYou can choose to tell this Gary, this asshole who sent you here to be ripped apart by a deadhead without a second thought, that youâre not a slave.â
He tilted his head, his black eyes catching the light and reflecting my pale face back at me. âTell me that youâre fine with this. Tell me that youâre truly happy being a hound, like the others, and thisâll be over. Tell me being Garyâs dog is everything you want.â
I felt something like a rock land in my stomach. Usually I didnât think about anything except the job, the next contract to collect on. I didnât think about me and Gary, beyond what heâd do if I failed him.
I sure as fuck didnât think about how Iâd ended up like this, how Iâd gone from dying in the mud, broken and bloody, to a hellhound bound to Gary.
That was how Gary got me, after all. I was afraid, of dying, of crossing, of finding out what was waiting for me. I let him take my soul and turn me into his monster, together for a hundred years and a hundred moreâÂthe same deal every hound got with their reaper.
I was less than halfway through my sentence, and I was already skating so close to the edge of death I could see across the chasm to the day Iâd spend eternity in the Pit.
All that stuff I didnât usually think about knotted up, squeezing a sound from me that was less than a whimper.
âAva.â Leoâs fingers wrapped around my arm and squeezed. His hand was hot and hard and strong, and when I managed to meet his eyes, I felt wet, stinging tears slide down my face.
âI hate him,â I whispered.
âI know,â Leo said, reaching out and brushing away a tear with his thumb. âBelieve me, Ava. I know what it is to be under someoneâs boot.â
I choked on whatever was making my throat tight. I refused to call it fear or especially grief. I didnât feel anymore. Iâd left all that with my broken body, there in the mud, when Gary took me in.
Nothing I could tell Gary was going to save me. Iâd known that as soon as Iâd showed up in Vegas. I was already on thin ice because of Bob Dobkins and this was the kill shot.
This was my life, had been for more lifetimes than any human got. And I