Page 142

I can see her profile. She’s not angry anymore. She’s turned on as hell.

With his other hand he undoes his belt, shoves her short skirt up, and before I can give them the privacy the moment demands, he’s up against her, pushing inside her.

Her back arches, head drops back, and the look on her face is—

“Just as I suspected, everybody is having sex but me,” I mutter irritably.

I punch the screen off and hurry to the next one.

And stare blankly at the screen for a long, pained moment.

“No,” I finally manage to say. “He would not come back here first. He would come to me.”

But he wouldn’t. And he didn’t.

Barrons is back.

Standing in a room I can’t place, a deep gash of a stone chamber. I think, Please tell me it’s not the sex club I’ve heard so many rumors about. Please tell me I’m enough.

Ryodan moves into view.

Where are they? What are they doing? Why didn’t Barrons come to me, tell me he was back?

I watch the screen, never taking my eyes from it. Minutes creep by and nothing changes. They don’t even appear to be talking. Just watching something.

I shake myself from my trance and punch the next button.

The Rhino-boy club disappears, revealing another dimly lit stone room.

A shadow moves in the darkness.

What the hell is down there?

What are they watching?

The thing separates from the shadows, stumbles toward the light, cringes and stumbles back again.

I suddenly can’t find enough oxygen in Ryodan’s office to breathe.

My hand flies to my mouth as I stare, staggered.

Dageus MacKeltar is not dead.