Dark Halo (An Angel Eyes Novel)
Page 2
“What are you talking about? Now you have to read it.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” to keep moving.inow
“Sure you do.”
She tipped her face to him now. “Why?”
“Because I dare you to,” he said.
She shook her head. “Mom says dares are never a reason.”
Girls! “I double-dog dare you then.”
“You’re weird. You know that, right?”
“I triple-dog dare you,” Marco said, the grate scratching at his lips. “And now you really have to.”
“I already told you. I don’t have to do anything.”
“But that’s how a triple-dog dare works. You can’t back down. Not ever.”
She closed the book and pressed it to her chest. “All right then,” she said. “I’ll read it. But it still sounds gross.”
Even now, he can feel his face stretching like it did that day. She crossed to her side of the street and sat down on the curb. Her mother was busy sifting through the cab, dropping blankets and pillows and bags onto the sidewalk. Liv turned her eyes on the neighborhood then, examining it, twisting the comic book in her hands. Even from his perch on the fourth floor, Marco could see the disappointment on her face. He couldn’t blame her. She looked like she was used to something better. She deserved something better.
Something fine.
Something just like this place, he thinks.
She had a bedroom made up for him when they arrived yesterday. He was tired. Frustrated at his last encounter with Jake and Brielle. Angry at them for reasons he had trouble naming. So he didn’t argue when Liv insisted he rest. Shades of burgundy and brown, deep and rich, filled the room with warmth, but when the French doors were closed behind him and Marco climbed into the gigantic bed, the sheets felt like shackles, the lavish room a cell.
He could think of nothing but Henry Madison. A pedophilic old man who was directly involved in the child trafficking operation that got Ali killed. The last time Marco laid eyes on him, the monster was disappearing into thin air. It’s something that continues to plague him. Just days ago he learned that Henry was Liv’s grandfather. Her grandfather! After her mother died, he was made her legal guardian. The thought of what she suffered at his hands is enough to turn Marco’s stomach.
But Liv promised to take him to Henry. That’s why he’d followed her here. That, and the need for distance. Just a few short days with friends had proved too much for him. After the psych hospital, Stratus was filled with too many loving, caring people. Too many pats on the head and hugs from less tortured souls.
And Brielle.
Her scrutiny was all too knowing. “You’re not going after Henry?” she’d asked, but she couldn’t understand how badly he needs this.
According to the authorities, the investigation is still ongoing. Several traffickers have been arrested, including the madam and the child pornographer who were found at the warehouse. But Henry disappeared that night and has not been pursued by law enforcement. Marco is determined to make him pay for the part he played—not only in Ali’s death, but in the pain inflicted on those children.
Marco needs this.
He needs revenge.
But it’s not the only reason he followed Liv. Ever since he’d tried on the halo at Jake’s house, the nightmares have been coming. He thought putting some distance between himself and the halo would bring a reprieve, but the opposite seems true. Since leaving Stratus, the images have grown. They arrive with more frequency and in more detail. And even more content.
It’s not just Brielle disappearing into the fire anymore.
He’s reliving memories of Ali. His precious Ali. Good memories. Their first date, spent wandering the very Rose Gardens that sit beneath him. In his dreams the memory is recreated in staggering detail, conjuring moments he’d forgotten. Like Ali hopscotching down the brick walkway honoring the Rose Queens crowned at the yearly Rose Festival. Tiger’s blood snow cones from the snack shack, sugary juice staining their lips red. Ali standing on a bench in the Shakespeare Garden reciting sonnets in her mother’s British accent. Laughing so hard at her effort that he almost impaled himself on the sundial there. The memories slice into a heart that’s not yet healed.
Even thinking about the dream now turns his blood cold as it races through his body. His hands shake, and all he can think about as he stares at the city below is that he wants to murder one of its residents. If distance from the halo won’t stop the dreams, perhaps avenging Ali’s murder will.
Guilt flickers in his stomach, but he snuffs it by repeating aloud the only words that seem to calm him: “Henry deserves to die.”
And if anyone deserves to serve him that death, it’s Marco.
His hands slip against the banister as he turns that thought over once again. The truth is Liv deserves it more. He wipes his clammy hands on his jeans. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. Liv brought him this far. She’ll make sure he gets an audience with Henry.
At least that’s what he thought last night. Image after image attacked him as he lay in that sumptuous bed—Brielle consumed by flames, Ali laughing at his Sean Connery impression, ten-year-old Liv being hauled away from the burning school on a stretcher. Henry disappearing from one nightmare and reappearing in the next. Over and over they’d played on the insides of his eyelids, on the ceiling of the room, on the underside of the thick, stifling comforter. He’d flipped and turned, fighting the images as best he could. “Why didn