Poison Tongue Read Online Free PDF

coffeepot off the burner. “But you’ll have to take the other tables then.”
    “That’s fine.” I would work the next three of her shifts for free if it meant I didn’t have to go near that man.
    She swayed her hips as she walked over to him, coffeepot in hand. I watched as she leaned over across the table to talk to him. It was only then he seemed to remember where he was.
    I tore my gaze away from them as I forced myself to walk to the tables Saddie had been helping. The table of people who’d been sitting in the center booth, laughing and joking loudly, had quieted, all of them staring at the man in the corner booth.
    He’d sucked the air and life out of the diner when he walked in. The few tables Saddie had been helping began to clear out, their voices hushed, their gazes either on the man in the corner or on their shoes.
    I took the last few orders of a few customers lingering about and served them their food. Hud called out from the back room that the kitchen was closed, and soon after, the diner was vacated. The last table out of the door was a group of four men in their twenties and thirties. They were a noisy group who Saddie usually served because they tipped well when she wore a low-cut shirt.
    Saddie went into the back room and hollered that she was going to get a ride home with Hud. I told her I’d lock up the diner and set the alarms. When I heard the click of the back door shutting and locking, I relaxed.
    Until I saw the shadowed man still sitting in the corner booth.
    I froze, as if my bones had turned to ice and shattered in the silence.
    He looked up. Then he seemed to notice that no one else was there and the diner had fallen into an uneasy silence.
    When his gaze locked on me, I swallowed hard. I gripped the counter, squeezing it so tightly the metal edges dug into my skin. He rose from the booth. The lights flickered, or maybe I was blinking frantically. I didn’t dare drag my eyes off him for even a moment.
    Words my gran had told me long ago rang in my ears: Don’t turn your back on the devil, Levi. The moment you do, he’ll wrap his ugly soul around you.
    He stopped in front of me.
    “Are you afraid of me?” he asked quietly. His voice was deep and raw.
    “No.” I matched his cool stare with the frost in my voice.
    A moment passed before he said, “You shouldn’t be.”
    “I don’t trust you.” I watched the black snake slither around his throat, flicking its tail into his onyx hair.
    “I can’t blame you.” He leaned forward, towering over me, his massive frame blocking out the overhead lights. His gaze, as it raked up my body, was a taunt. He whispered, “I don’t think I’d trust myself around you either.”
    The snake hissed.
    My heart thudded in my chest. My flesh was on fire, my eyes useless and clouded in soot and ash. Currents of electricity surged and rushed, tingling in every vein as if I’d been asleep for a thousand years and only now, finally, I was beginning to wake.
    And then he was gone. He turned his back to me and walked out through the front door of the diner. The soft chime of the bell sounded like thunder in my ears.
    I was safe.
    He was gone and I could move, could breathe, could think. I was safe. Panting heavily, I loosened my grip on the countertop and hunched over. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed the revulsion in my stomach to subside.
    He was the deep, dark swamp on the edge of the bayou. Even then I felt him calling me. My body yearned for him, to go to him, to wrap myself in his dark waters and inhale deeply until I drowned.
    It took me a few moments to pull myself together. I focused on the silence of the diner, the easy lights from up above my head. I locked the front, checking twice to make sure it was bolted tight. I went to each booth and pulled down the blinds, covering the windows. When I pulled the apron off and hung it on the hook in the back room, the glimmering of the amulet around my neck caught my eye. It was cool in my palm,