Sloane’s chewing stops for a moment as she regards me with a thoughtful pass of her thumb over her bottom lip. It’s the first time her gaze has really settled on me, and it burrows right into my skull. “That’s for me,” she says. “Orb Weaver is for them.”

Sloane’s eyes have darkened, and with just a blink she’s gone from a sexy, runny-nosed and ravenous beauty to a wicked, remorseless, iron-willed killer.

I nod. “I get it.”

I might be the only person who does. 

Sloane keeps her unwavering stare pinned on me. “What’s your deal, pretty boy?”

“My deal?”

“You heard me. You show up to fuckwit’s house, let me out of his cage, burn his house down and take me for ribs and beer. Yet, I know basically nothing about you. So, what’s your deal? Why were you at Briscoe’s?”

I shrug. “I came to hack off his limbs and enjoy his agonizingly slow death.”

“Why him though? We’re a little far from Boston. I’m sure there are plenty of lowlife drug dealers for entertainment up there that you don’t need to come this far for one guy.”

A weighted silence thickens the air, both of us paused with ribs heading toward our mouths. A sly smile spreads across my lips as Sloane’s face falls.

“You totally know who I am.”

“Oh my God.”

“You do. You know what I like to hunt on my home turf. How long have you been a fan?”

“Dear Christ, stop.”

I chuckle as Sloane drops her forehead onto the backs of her bent wrists, a rib still clutched between her sticky fingers. “Which one was your favorite?” I ask. “The guy I flayed and strung up on the bow of that ship at Griffin’s Warf? Or what about the guy I suspended from the crane? That one seemed popular.”

“I can already tell you are the worst.” Sloane keeps her hands up in a futile effort to cover the flaming blush igniting her cheeks. Her hazel eyes dance despite the glare she tries to shoot my way. “Send me back to Briscoe’s cell.”

“Your wish is my command.”

I look toward the serving station and raise my hand at the waitress who takes all of one second to spot me before she starts heading our way with a growing smile.

“Rowan…?”

“What? You said you wanted to go back to Briscoe’s, so back we shall go.”

“I was joking, you psycho—”

“Don’t worry, Blackbird. I’ll deliver you right back to your smelly little cage. I’m sure it’s still standing despite the fire. Do you think any maggots survived? You can peck them from the ashes if so.”

“Rowan—” Sloane’s hand darts out and encircles my wrist, leaving sticky fingerprints on my skin. A jolt of electricity crackles through my flesh at her touch. I can barely contain my amusement at the rising panic in her eyes.

“Something wrong, Blackbird?”

The waitress stops beside our table with a bright grin. “Can I get you something?”

I keep my eyes on Sloane, raising my brows as her wild gaze flicks between me and the exits. “Two more beers, please,” I say. Sloane’s glare turns flat as it alights on me, her eyes narrowed to thin slits.

“Coming right up.”

“Like I said,” Sloane grumbles as she unfurls her fingers from my pulse. “The worst.”

I give her a lopsided grin. Sloane’s gaze catches on my smile, and her glare softens even though I can tell she doesn’t want it to. “You’ll love me one day,” I purr, keeping hold of her eyes when they reach mine. My tongue passes in a slow lick over the sauce she left on my skin. Sloane’s eyes glitter in the warm afternoon light filtering through the diner’s windows, that dimple next to her lip a shadow of the amusement she can’t quite contain.

“Don’t think so, Butcher.”

We’ll see, my grin says.

Sloane’s dark brows flick as though she’s issuing a challenge, then she shifts her attention to her food. “You still haven’t really answered my question about Briscoe.”

“Yes I did. Hacking limbs. Enjoying agony.”

“But why him?”

I shrug. “Same reason you picked him, I assume. He was a piece of shit.”

“How do you know that’s why I picked him?” Sloane asks.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I reply as I lean my forearms against the aluminum trim on the Formica table. Sloane raises her chin, her expression indignant.

“Maybe he had nice eyeballs.”

A laugh bubbles from my chest as I pick up another rib. I let the silence linger, taking a bite before I reply. “That’s not why you pry their eyeballs out of their skulls.”

Sloane’s head cocks to the side, her eyes shining as she assesses me. “No?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“Then why would I do that?”

I shrug, not ready to meet her gaze despite the way it beckons me. “The eyes are the windows to the soul, I suppose?”

Sloane scoffs and I look up to catch the shake of her head. “More like ‘foster a raven and it will peck out your eyes.’”

My head tilts as I try to decipher her meaning. Very little is known about Sloane, or at least very little makes its way to the press. She specializes in other serial killers and she leaves an intricate crime scene. That’s pretty much it. Any other theories the FBI might have about the Orb Weaver are half-baked. From what I’ve read, the idea of the elusive vigilante being a woman hasn’t even broached their little formulaic, predictable brains. Whatever her past and her motivations, whatever she means by her comment, it’s all still locked away.

From the second we met, she sparked my curiosity, fanning banked embers into glowing coals, and now she’s ignited the first thread of flame.

I want to know. I want the truth. 

And maybe I want her to feel the same curiosity about me.

“Did you know I was the one who killed Tony Watson, the Harbor Slasher?” I ask.

She lowers the beer glass from her lips, her movement slow, her eyes locked to mine. “That was you?”

I nod.

“I thought he got into a scrap with someone he was trying to kill.”

“That part of the story isn’t wrong, I guess. He did get into a scrap and he definitely tried his hardest to kill me, he just didn’t succeed.” That piece of shit Watson. I beat him until his skull cracked and his body seized, then watched as a final, bloody, gurgling breath spasmed past his broken teeth and split lips. When his body stilled, I left him in the alley for the rats to gnaw.

It wasn’t a pretty kill. It wasn’t elegant. There was nothing staged or clever about it. It was visceral and raw.

And I enjoyed every fucking second.

“Watson wasn’t as stupid as I thought. He caught me following him. Tried to ambush me.”

A thoughtful hmm passes from Sloane’s pursed lips. “I’m bummed.”

“Bummed why, because he didn’t kill me first? Harsh, Blackbird. I’m wounded.”

“No,” she says on the heels of a barked laugh. “It’s just that I had such a cool plan for him. The bodies of his last five kills were already mapped out on my web,” she says. Her sticky fingers dance in my direction as though tracing a pattern in the air. She doesn’t even look up. It’s as though this isn’t some giant revelation she just dropped on the table between us.

A map. In the web. 

“Not that it would have mattered, I guess. It’s not like the dumbass fuckwits at the FBI have figured that out yet. But even so… you went and fucked it up,” Sloane continues, not looking up from the next bone she tears free of the carcass before her. A heavy sigh spills over the meat that she raises to her lips. “I guess I should be grateful. Maybe I underestimated Watson too. Given Briscoe kicked me into his cage so easily and he was a lazy prick, I’m not sure I would have fought Watson off as well as you did.” Her bright, unusual eyes find mine through strands of raven hair that have fallen over her brow as a charming glare flays my blackened soul. “It physically pains me to admit that, by the way. But don’t let it get to your head, pretty boy.”