“Grab the lighter fluid from under the sink, would you?” I asked, remembering we were out of gasoline as I made my way to the shed, skin itching. The pain in my abdomen, a symptom of the withdrawal, stronger now than it had been this morning. I grimaced through the pain, a muscle in my right arm spasming as the reaching hands of my darkness raked at the back of my skull, demanding to be fed.
Tonight, it would dine on the dirty soul of a pedophile.
But… it whispered. Dan the Man was only a phone call away. I could fix it. I could almost feel the chemical burn of cocaine on the back of my throat. Could almost fucking taste it.
I could skin Ghost’s mother alive for doing this to me, but that wasn’t a call I could make. My girl had promised me vengeance once our lives in Thorn Valley returned to a semblance of normal, and that was good enough for me. For now.
I unlocked the shed and stepped inside, the lingering scent of bonfire filling my nose. I breathed it in deeply, clutching the edge of my work table and shutting my eyes to get a hold on myself. I dug in my back pocket, drawing out a cigarette with shaking fingers to put it to my lips.
The flame danced on the top of my Zippo, an inch from the end of my cigarette as I froze in place, staring down at the surface of the table in front of me.
There, atop a torn slip of paper was a small black bag. Round and bulging. Knotted at the top.
The words were an afterthought, and I had to force my eyes to leave the familiar baggy to read them.
You’re welcome.
That was it.
No.
Fuck.
I blinked hard, hoping that when I opened my eyes again, it wouldn’t be there.
But it was.
“Rook,” Grey called from outside and in a knee-jerk reaction I snatched the eight-ball of coke from the table and shoved it deep into my pocket, flicking the paper away.
“Hey, you good? We need to get back,” Grey said, appearing in the door. “Got the lighter fluid.”
I grabbed my busted up red toolbox and lifted my blowtorch from its nook with a pinkie. “Yeah. I’m good.”
We got back to his house before he returned home, parking the Rover in the trees a little farther down the road.
The afternoon sun, so warm and so fucking bright, was at odds with the dark rising within, making me froth at the mouth as I waited, crouched low behind a boulder near the end of his driveway. The black ball in my pocket feeling like it might burn a hole straight through.
My knuckles rubbed over its outline through my jeans, and I gritted my teeth.
I heard the car coming and nodded at Grey through the living room window, tensing the thin length of rope between my fists. It was going to be hard not to end him right away, but filth like Mr. Williams deserved to suffer first.
The rope bit into my fingers as I stretched it to its limits, a shudder rolling down my spine as the images from his computer screen replayed behind my shut eyelids. I’d only had the pleasure of slaughtering one other monster like him.
The one I really wanted dead, the counselor from Barrett’s Home for Boys, bit a bullet before I could get to him. Though I had a feeling I knew who’d done the job for me, and I was glad it was one of us. At least I had the satisfaction of knowing that he would have seen Grey’s face and known the reason he was there. Who he was getting justice for.
Didn’t change the fact that I wished I’d done it myself, felt robbed of the chance to get my revenge, but now. Here. Tonight. I would get my revenge for others who never could. Never would. Not in the way that they should.
My teeth clenched, baring in a snarl as tires turned from the choppy road to the smooth pavement of the drive, slowing.
A car door opened, and I rose from behind the boulder in one swift movement, grinning as I stalked around the back of his car on silent feet, my shadow lying over him as I approached.
He started, seeing it a second too late. I wrapped the cord around his throat twice, pulling it tight until my biceps strained. Williams choked and spluttered, clawing at the thin cord around his throat as I sent him to his knees, not letting up until his clawing hands turned to useless deflated lumps of flesh and began to sag.
I squeezed one last time before shoving him forward onto his face, releasing the cord. I kicked him hard in the side, and he replied with a coughing breath, going back to a limp stillness as he passed out. Couldn’t have him suffocating before we’d had our fun, now could we?
Another car was coming, and I cursed, bending to lift the dead weight of his body onto my shoulder, the bullet-wound in my leg protesting the extra weight. I groaned, carrying him around the other side of his car until the other vehicle passed by.
I pushed a hip into his car door to close it before hauling him inside, through the house to the kitchen, where I dropped him down the hatch and watched as black-painted fingernails grabbed him by his ankles and dragged him into the dark.
I bit my lip ring, fingers fumbling for a cigarette before I changed my mind, climbing down into the hole, closing the hatch behind me.
Grey helped my Ghost lift Williams’ limp body onto the bed.
I dropped my toolbox to the cement floor and crouched, digging into it for the zip ties. I grabbed a handful and tossed them onto the bed. “Tie him down.”
Ghost didn’t waste any time, grabbing a couple strips of plastic before tugging Williams’ arm high above his head, securing it to the dated metal headboard while Grey did the same on his opposite side, securing his wrists and ankles in place until he was stretched into a long X on the dirty mattress.
Corvus watched from the edge of the room, arms crossed over his chest as he oversaw our progress, like he always did.
Once Ava Jade was finished, she drew out her blade and carved a long slit into his arm with a flick of her wrist, making him rouse. Crimson spilled over the sheets as the math teacher found his voice, letting out a low, pitiful sound, little gasping cries as he tugged on his extremities, only a little at first, then thrashing, moving the whole bed as he flung his body back and forth, tearing the skin of his wrists in the process.
Ghost’s upper lip curled back, and she lifted her blade again.
“Patience,” I said, and her manic gaze found mine in the dim space, her knife-hand stilling.
“We don’t want it to be over too quickly.”
A muscle in her jaw ticked, but she nodded. She understood.
My darkness fluttered.
“Wh-whats going on here,” Williams shouted, his voice breaking, pitched all wrong. It was the best sort of music. “Hey! Miss Mason, just what is it that you think you’re doing?” he continued, staring up at Ava Jade with a crease in his brow before his eyes finally found me and he stilled.
I inhaled long and slow, taking in his fear.
He reeked of it.
I licked my lips.
“N-no,” he uttered through quivering lips before those lips pulled back over his yellowing teeth. “I’ll press charges,” he threatened, and I grinned in response.
“I will!” he promised. “You won’t get away with this.”
“And you think we’re going to let you get away with what you’ve done?” Ava Jade asked, her voice strangely calm, but with a note of mania that only I could recognize. She was only speaking calmly because she’d already decided exactly what she wanted to do to him and knew nothing would stop her from doing it.
Williams had the decency to shut his mouth at that, pressing his teeth together as he began tugging anew at his binds. He didn’t deny it.
It was as much of an admission of guilt as we would get, not that we needed one after the evidence we found.
“You’ll pay for this,” he said.
Ava Jade only shook her head. “No,” she said. “But you will.”
She lifted her head, eyes landing on Grey, then Corvus, then me. A slow smile pulled at one corner of her sharp mouth. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Take his fingers first?” Grey asked, eyeing his filthy hands where they flexed and squeezed, tried to get free.
Ghost shook her head.
“His cock?” Corvus put in, readjusting his stance against the wall to get a better view.
She shook her head again and I saw in her a version of myself when her eyes flashed with malice in the light.
“Fuck him in the ass with one of your blades?” I asked.
Her grin widened. I hit it right on the money.
Not a bad idea.
“Help!” Williams screamed, his voice frantic now. “Help! Someone, please!”
Ava Jade leaned over him. “Hold him,” she told Grey, and to my surprise, Grey knelt on the edge of the mattress and held Williams’ face steady as Ava Jade got hold of his tongue and sheared it from his mouth.
Blood spurted upward, spraying over Grey and my Ghost, coloring them with the most beautiful shade of red.
They fell back as Williams gurgled, craning his neck to keep from choking on his own blood as Ava Jade held his tongue up to the light, examining it before tossing it over her shoulder with a look of disgust.
If I’d ever had even a shadow of doubt about where she belonged, it was gone now.
Grey was right. She was our fucking queen, and I’d go to war for her no matter the cost or consequence. She was one of us.
As my gaze fell back to Williams, I was… almost jealous.
It was my turn to have some fun.
“I like your idea,” I told Ava Jade, tapping the pads of my first two fingers to my chin as I rounded to her side of the bed, looking down at our soon to be masterpiece. “But the guys are right. We should take his fingers first. Then his junk. I’ll cauterize the wounds, of course, so he doesn’t bleed out…”
“And then I can fuck him with my blades?”
“We’ll save that for the finale.”
Too bad Williams was almost fully gone by the time I even got to use my torch, but still, it was a balm to my soul to watch his skin turn red, then black, then flake off to float beneath the light all around us like gray snow.
I coughed beneath the shirt I’d tied around my face, Williams’ ashes tickling my throat.
My Ghost’s hand pushed down into mine, our fingers twining as she drew nearer into my side, unbothered that my naked torso was covered in sweat, blood, and smears of ash.
Grey and Corvus stepped out, leaving the hatch open behind them to give some airflow as we finished up here. The plan was to set fire to the whole joint before we left, ensuring that everything here was turned to ash with Mr. Williams. His victims didn’t need to relive the things he’d done to them if any of those videos should come to light. Their peers wouldn’t ever look at them the same way.
They would be questioned. Their parents would want to know why they never said anything. No one could possibly understand.
It was better this way. Justice had been served and he couldn’t hurt anyone ever again.
“It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it?” Ghost said, indicating the still smoking remains on the concrete floor at our feet. Williams’ charred shape was curled in on itself, in the fetal position, hands over his head, the white of his bones showing through the burnt remnants of his skin.
I’d thought Frank had been my best work, but Williams took the cake. I squeezed Ghost’s hand in mine, lifting it to my lips. I pressed a kiss on the back of her palm. “It is.”
She shivered at the touch of my lips, and I tipped my head to one side, peering down at her. Her lips parted at something she found in my stare.
“You’re not the monster people think you are,” she said, and the black thing in my chest tightened.
Her face pinched. She moved to stand in front of me, lifting a hand to brush the pad of her thumb over the top of my cheekbone. It came away stained black and red with blood and ash. Her breathing deepened.
I mirrored her movements, brushing my knuckle down her cheek, streaking a path through Williams’ debris.
“I am,” I assured her.
Her chin tipped up, defiant. “Then I guess I am too.”
My brows lowered.
She pressed a hand to my stomach, dragging her nails low until they met the top of my jeans. Her eyes never left mine as she undid the button there, making me groan and my already thick cock turn to iron against the press of her hands.
I dropped my forehead to hers, a tremor rolling up my spine as she took my length into her hand, stroking it from tip to base.
“Fuck,” I cursed into her hair.
Here? We were going to do this here? Now?
This was an entirely new level I didn’t even know existed.
My fingers twisted into her hair, jerking her head to look up at me.
Some unspoken thing passed between us. A connection forged in blood and blades and fire. It was a joining of souls. Mine twisting with hers, hers with mine, creating something gnarled and twisted. Stronger. New.
“Fuck me, Rook,” she pleaded on a breath, and I could see it in her eyes, she felt it, too. Her thighs pressing together, a pained expression crossing her sharp features. “Please, Rook. I need you.”
I wouldn’t make her ask me twice, but I wasn’t about to take her on the defiler’s bed or on his dirty corpse.
I lifted her onto me, and she gasped when I forced my tongue into her mouth, carrying her to the wall until her back was pressed into its rough, uneven surface, pinned there by my hips.
My cock pushed hard into her heat through her clothes, and she moaned as I moved against her. It didn’t take long for me to feel her wetness seeping through and I inhaled her next moan as I stepped back, letting her fall back to her feet as I grabbed the waist of her jeans and pulled.
The button popped free and she had them halfway down her legs in the blink of an eye, clawing me back to her, her nails biting down into my chest and shoulder until I felt the well of blood. The caressing trails of it as it flowed down my warm flesh.
She had my cock in her hand again, and I groaned, convulsing as she pumped it, backing up against the wall again, guiding my hand back to her waist.
I did as she wanted, lifting her off her feet as she spread her legs wide for me, using a tight fist around my base to guide me inside.
My head pushed against her opening, and I sucked a breath in through my teeth as she thrust her hips forward, impaling herself on me with a cry, her hips rocking in ecstasy as she arched her back and let her head hang.
I cupped her perfect ass, holding her up as she moved against me, little panting gasps driving me to the brink of an entirely different kind of insanity.
Her tight cunt squeezed me gloriously as I began to move too, slamming into her hips with the taste of Williams’ ashes still on my tongue. My lips curled back over my teeth, and I growled against the side of her neck, making her shake in my arms.
Pain exploded across my left shoulder, and I jerked as the sensation awoke something that had long been sleeping deep inside, adding to the intensity of my pleasure.
The glint of my Ghost’s blade caught the light, and I smiled. “Do it again.”
She stabbed the sharp tip of it into the thick meat of my shoulder muscle, pushing it in slow as I fucked her.
“Harder,” she urged me.
I leveled my dark gaze on her, aching to taste her lips again. To feel their softness under the hard bite of my teeth.
“Harder,” I urged her, the challenge clear.
She pushed hard, and I did the same, her body bucking between me and the wall until I felt her beginning to come undone. Her dripping cunt erratically tightening, tightening, tightening around my girth until my balls tightened and the fire of my orgasm shredded up my spine.
Reflexively, I lowered my head, biting into her shoulder, marking her in the same place she’d marked me. She gasped, releasing the blade in my shoulder to allow it to clatter to the floor as she coiled around me like a snake, coming on my cock just as my own climax hit like a fucking Mack truck, erasing all thought. Leaving us a tangle of trembling limbs against the wall, the heat of Williams’ still smoldering corpse making it even harder to breathe.
