love Kat Forrest more than anything,” and detailing how she’d visited sick children in the L.A. hospital cancer ward. With her TV show cameras running, of course, because she didn’t go anywhere without them.
At this point if I walked into a cancer ward, small children would scream and try to escape, probably getting tangled up in their IV lines in the process.
Flora Romero was a saint. And Joaquin Pollard had killed her. It was at that point that I wished someone would go ahead and make sure that Kat became a saint, too, because it required the person to die first.
Harsh, I know. I didn’t really mean it.
Probably.
What stung was the betrayal of it all. How she had—
Aw, hell. I slowed rapidly, almost missing my turn. I’d gotten so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself that I’d overflown the intersection by a hundred feet. I turned, sweeping around, remembered I didn’t really have to follow the streets, and drifted back toward the road I was looking for. I was high enough up that I could hear the calls and cries below as I passed overhead, but not close enough to hear what they were actually saying. Which was probably good, because if anyone had said something along the lines of “Hey, there goes the Goodyear blimp!” I would have pretended I was a meteor and crashed right to earth on top of them. Which would not have improved my image.
The sun was starting to get closer to the horizon but was still hours from setting, and I started looking for my next turn. I wasn’t far off, I knew, three streets and then a left. I slowed, letting myself drift.
It’s okay, Sienna , Wolfe said.
Greatness is never appreciated by the weak and pathetic masses , Bjorn added.
Sadly, my greatest encouragement these days came from the murderers locked inside my head. If you don’t find that worrisome, I think you should get your own head examined, because hearing voices was totally normal to me and I was alarmed every time they stepped in to provide affirmation and moral support.
“I’m fine,” I lied. We all knew I was lying, but it was always 50/50 whether they’d call me out on it. They only did it when they felt like I was strong enough to handle the criticism.
Okay , Wolfe said, and silence followed.
Dammit. That said nothing good about what those closest to me thought of my present state of mind.
Saint Flora Romero. I wasn’t even really investigating her murder. I was investigating the murder of the pond scum who had killed her, in hopes of finding a link to another criminal who was killing people. That was convoluted. Still, it was Saint Flora and Sinner Sienna. Is there a demonic equivalent to saints? Devil Sienna, maybe, to hear the nice people at CNN—or my brother—tell it.
I slowed on the last curve, leading me to a row of houses with wildly differing lawns. The houses were brick with white accent on the gables and trim. One looked like it was completely overgrown with ivy, the next was beautifully manicured and well kept. The next house was no wider than a trailer, and the next after it was set back further than the others, the lot completely unkempt and spotty brown, with a massive shade tree covering a house that looked to be falling apart.
I surveyed the whole thing from the air, more than a little curious about the wide variety and the story it told, but I shrugged it off. I had somewhere to be, questions to ask, so I dipped toward the street and landed about three houses down. There were people out on the porches in rocking chairs, jaws dropping as I came in for my landing. It wasn’t anything dramatic, like an airplane; I just slowly inched back to the earth and set down, starting to walk again as I landed as though I’d just come down a staircase’s last step. I nodded at the folks who were gawking, and they nodded back politely through their incredulity. “Did you just see a little white girl step down out of the sky, or did the pharmacist mess up my medications again?” an older
At this point if I walked into a cancer ward, small children would scream and try to escape, probably getting tangled up in their IV lines in the process.
Flora Romero was a saint. And Joaquin Pollard had killed her. It was at that point that I wished someone would go ahead and make sure that Kat became a saint, too, because it required the person to die first.
Harsh, I know. I didn’t really mean it.
Probably.
What stung was the betrayal of it all. How she had—
Aw, hell. I slowed rapidly, almost missing my turn. I’d gotten so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself that I’d overflown the intersection by a hundred feet. I turned, sweeping around, remembered I didn’t really have to follow the streets, and drifted back toward the road I was looking for. I was high enough up that I could hear the calls and cries below as I passed overhead, but not close enough to hear what they were actually saying. Which was probably good, because if anyone had said something along the lines of “Hey, there goes the Goodyear blimp!” I would have pretended I was a meteor and crashed right to earth on top of them. Which would not have improved my image.
The sun was starting to get closer to the horizon but was still hours from setting, and I started looking for my next turn. I wasn’t far off, I knew, three streets and then a left. I slowed, letting myself drift.
It’s okay, Sienna , Wolfe said.
Greatness is never appreciated by the weak and pathetic masses , Bjorn added.
Sadly, my greatest encouragement these days came from the murderers locked inside my head. If you don’t find that worrisome, I think you should get your own head examined, because hearing voices was totally normal to me and I was alarmed every time they stepped in to provide affirmation and moral support.
“I’m fine,” I lied. We all knew I was lying, but it was always 50/50 whether they’d call me out on it. They only did it when they felt like I was strong enough to handle the criticism.
Okay , Wolfe said, and silence followed.
Dammit. That said nothing good about what those closest to me thought of my present state of mind.
Saint Flora Romero. I wasn’t even really investigating her murder. I was investigating the murder of the pond scum who had killed her, in hopes of finding a link to another criminal who was killing people. That was convoluted. Still, it was Saint Flora and Sinner Sienna. Is there a demonic equivalent to saints? Devil Sienna, maybe, to hear the nice people at CNN—or my brother—tell it.
I slowed on the last curve, leading me to a row of houses with wildly differing lawns. The houses were brick with white accent on the gables and trim. One looked like it was completely overgrown with ivy, the next was beautifully manicured and well kept. The next house was no wider than a trailer, and the next after it was set back further than the others, the lot completely unkempt and spotty brown, with a massive shade tree covering a house that looked to be falling apart.
I surveyed the whole thing from the air, more than a little curious about the wide variety and the story it told, but I shrugged it off. I had somewhere to be, questions to ask, so I dipped toward the street and landed about three houses down. There were people out on the porches in rocking chairs, jaws dropping as I came in for my landing. It wasn’t anything dramatic, like an airplane; I just slowly inched back to the earth and set down, starting to walk again as I landed as though I’d just come down a staircase’s last step. I nodded at the folks who were gawking, and they nodded back politely through their incredulity. “Did you just see a little white girl step down out of the sky, or did the pharmacist mess up my medications again?” an older
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