Read Online Even Villains Go To The Movies by Liana Brooks - Free Book Online Page A

The one near the overlook?”
    Taking a shallow breath, he nodded.
    “I like to drive up there at nights, watch the waves without the city all around me. I’ll be there Friday. Maybe we can bump into each other, if you’re out of the hospital.”
    “De nada. It’s all good. I’m healing. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll only be sore.” He reached out a hand. “Give me the earring.”
    “Not happening.”
    He coughed and winced again.
    She raised an eyebrow. “That’s a convincing impression of a pierced lung you’re doing.”
    He smiled up at her. “For someone who missed her beauty sleep, you look great.”
    “And a concussion? Are there any other injuries I should tell the EMTs about when I call the ambulance?”
    “Give me fifteen minutes.” Arktos forced himself to sit upright, his muscles burning. “It’ll hurt like hell, but I’ve had worse.”
    “When?”
    “I was twelve...” He gasped and pressed his side. “I was twelve and my mom decided that taking a baseball bat to my head was a good way of reminding me how much she hated parenting me.” Any other time he might have shrugged it off, but right now he couldn’t work up the energy to move. “After lying on the floor overnight I woke up with a headache and the munchies. I blamed it on a bad dream until I saw the blood. This is better. I’ll be hungry and sore, but that’s it.”
    “Well, if I’d known this was just a midnight munchie run I would have brought cupcakes.”
    “I hate cupcakes. Your choices are either vanilla or chocolate and I hate both.”
    Rage leaned over him, crimson lips drawing his attention. “Blackberry-lime cupcakes.”
    Arktos chuckled, and regretted it instantly as bone fragments sawed at the muscles on his side. Definitely broken. “Why does ‘blackberry-lime’ sound like a pick-up line?”
    “Because you’re a male under age eighty. I could probably say ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ and make you think about sex.” She took his hand. “How about I stay here for a bit, just to make sure you recover enough to get yourself home.”
    “This isn’t a death watch,” he said through gritted teeth. Super healing. What a bad idea! Instead of letting a doctor pick out the organic shrapnel while he slept, his body pushed it out like an infection as new bone grew on the rib. His world narrowed to a point of shining light on the roofline where the first rays of dawn hit the metal trim. Pain swallowed him down into the darkness.
    And then he felt suddenly light, like floating on a warm, lazy river, drifting away from the world.
    “I’d worry less if you were talking,” Rage prompted.
    Arktos focused on the woman beside him. She was lovely, in a violent kind of way. The black leather trench coat had to be hot in sweltering L.A., but the humidity made her red silk cami cling in all the right places. Deep summer-sky eyes studied him intently. His hand shook. She’d come out here, alone, to save him. The pyro could have killed her—she had to have known it was a risk—but she’d still come to his rescue. The irony was enough to kill him.
    He laced his fingers with hers. “What’s your name?”
    “What’s yours?”
    “You first.”
    Her smile turned seductive. “Statement. One-love.”
    He blinked.
    “It’s from Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead . The Question Game?” She waved her free hand airily. “At the university we made a game of reciting it to see who knew it best, but don’t worry, most people don’t know it.”
    “I know the play,” he said. “I just don’t expect beautiful women to start quoting Tom Stoppard at me instead of giving me their names.”
    “Ah. Well then.” Her smile was wry, flirting but mischievous at the same time. He could get used to a smile like that.
    “And I don’t know the next line.”
    Rage grimaced. “I’m not sure I remember it either. Let me think.” She muttered a few lines under breath, casually rubbing at her ribcage.
    He tried to