Wicked Misery (Miss Misery) by Tracey Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

for me. I show up. So who are you?”
    “A nobody like you.”
    “Way to flatter a girl you’re meeting for the first time. You know my name?”
    “Yes, Jessica.”
    Well, shit. “What’s yours?”
    He laughed, and I shuddered. It was not a pleasant sound. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll tell you later.”
    This was getting better by the second. “Are you a Gryphon?”
    “Are you?”
    Was he serious? The urge to bang my forehead into the gryphon’s muscular stone thigh was strong. “Look, you asked me to meet you here, so what do you want?”
    A foot crossed the threshold of the corner. I shifted position, leaning against the gryphon’s legs and peeking beneath tail feathers for a better view. A black-clad leg followed the foot, and a second later his whole body appeared. There wasn’t much to note. Average height and build if I had to guess. The most important part—his face—was covered in a ski mask. That wasn’t promising. Though to be fair, a scarf covered mine, so I shouldn’t judge.
    “I want to get to know you. I’ve never met another like me before. We’re rare and wonderful creatures. Aren’t you excited by the possibilities here?”
    “Mildly curious. What do you mean like me ?”
    As he strode around the statue, I continued to creep along behind it so that the stone beast was always between us. My inability to taste his emotions made me want to scream.
    “I mean we share a talent. A gift. A wonderful gift that means we’re not prey like the others of our race. Just the opposite—their fears and pain sustain us. They’re our prey. We’re like preds without the horns or the spikes.” He made a noise similar to a giggle.
    I cringed. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t sense him. He thought himself a predator? Nice. I had a feeling that if I could pry into his emotions, I’d be very disturbed about what I found. For reassurance, I patted the set of twin knives against my ribs.
    “How did you find me or figure out who I was? Did a pred tell you?” My mind churned through all the preds who might know the Soul Swapper’s identity. Really, there weren’t many. A lot would know me by sight, but very few by name.
    “A pred?” Note-writer snorted. “No, I figured this out all by myself.”
    He sounded proud. The urge to bang my head against the stone grew stronger. “Good for you.”
    “Thank you. I thought it quite special, but to be honest, it was mostly a lucky accident.”
    “Oh?”
    “That’s how fate works, you know.”
    “I’m not big on fate. Tell me how you found me.” So it couldn’t happen again.
    I craned my neck to look through the gap between the gryphon’s feet. Empty lawn. My heart double-timed it. Crap. Where had he gone?
    “I told you—fate. Fate has great things in store for us. Why else could such rare creatures as ourselves come to be? Why else would it bring us together?” His voice was thinner, distant. He must have been searching for me inside the Tribute’s walls.
    “I don’t know about you, but I was cursed.” I plucked one of the knives from its sheath. The tiny, nicely balanced handle rolled around in my hand, and the blade shone in the moonlight. I squatted and hid it between my legs, my eyes fixed on the Tribute’s doorway. “So now that you found me, what do you want?”
    “To have fun. That’s why I came looking for you. I’ve had no one like myself to play with, and that sucks.” His voice changed tone again. Damn. He must have left the Tribute by some other door. This was getting annoying.
    “What do you do for fun?”
    “I particularly like the Meat Matches. Do you go?”
    Figured. I held in a groan. “No.”
    I had gone. Once. It wasn’t long after I’d turned eighteen, when my gift had first blossomed. Lucen had suggested I give it a try, and I—stupidly—had been curious enough to test the limits of my misery-sucking power.
    Now, to be clear, the Meat Matches were illegal. Just witnessing them, never mind