Страница 18 из 154
CHAPTER TWO
I’D MOTHERFUCKING KILL HIM.
Whoever the fuck he was, he was dead.
I let loose.
All the anger inside me.
All the worry.
The heartache.
The pain, the shame, the abuse—it all mushroom clouded inside. Black and riddled with rot. Twisted and disfigured, an entity I could no longer control.
It ballooned and smothered everything.
It overtook my soul, turning me empty and free.
Free.
Fuck, I was finally free.
Free to make them pay.
Free to embrace the never-ending violence inside me.
I’d run from this level of anger for eleven goddamn years. I’d hidden from it. Ignored it. Done my best to forget it, but it was always there.
A companion inside me. A whisper in my head. A scar that never healed, just waiting to pour forth and kill everyone who ever hurt me.
It wanted blood.
It wanted their blood.
It wanted apologies and pleas—it wanted to raze the world of every bastard and bitch who ever hurt my family.
It kept growing.
Swirling and hissing, blocking out the forest, the valley, the moon.
I forgot about Gemma and the way my entire being broke apart seeing her hurt by someone else. I forgot about any rules I’d fought to abide by. I gave up trying to be good.
This was me.
This thing.
This monster.
Free.
The black virus spilled out of me, shooting down my arms and into my fists.
It poured out of me like a disease.
A plague ready to wipe out everyone.
It granted sick, sick power after a lifetime of imprisonment and amnesia.
It was a fever and a cancer all in one.
And it cracked me wide open.
I howled as I splintered apart, becoming more than just a man.
I was invincible.
I was reckoning itself.
I didn’t turn my back on my memories this time.
I didn’t hide.
I didn’t fucking cower.
I welcomed them.
The doors in my mind flung wide, the chains snapped free, the locks broke open, and every thrust, slice, curse, kiss, and torture flooded me.
It all flooded me.
It suffocated and crippled. It butchered and slaughtered.
But it also granted a strength I’d been afraid of. Revenge that burned and left nothing but blackened ash. Retribution and vindication that brought so, so much fucking hate.
My fists struck something hard.
His jaw perhaps. His ribs.
I couldn’t see through my fury.
I just kept hitting.
Punching.
Clawing.
Killing.
Pain lashed up my arm, reminding me it wasn’t fully healed.
I didn’t care.
I used it to throw another punch.
And another.
We rolled together.
I was stronger.
When I shoved him onto his back, his arms swung as the undergrowth swallowed us whole. He grunted and fought for breath as I knocked the wind out of him, pi
I struck his head.
I kneed his stomach.
I stopped thinking and just attacked.
Time blurred as we fought.
Sweat rivered down my back as my enemy returned what I gave. A sucker-punch caught me in the rib cage. A well-placed knee got me in the gut.
But I paid him back again and again.
Blood smeared.
Agony flared.
Cries and howls shredded the night sky as we rolled in bracken and leaves.
I wanted him to die.
He represented every man who’d done wrong to me. He was every asshole I’d ever had to endure. He was my enemy, and I would slice him open, pull out his entrails, and let the valley beasts pick his bones clean.
His knee came up, jabbing into my side.
I buckled sideways.
He scrambled away.
I went after him.
Grabbing his ankles, I yanked him back, throwing strike after strike against his back, shoving him from his knees to his face.
He didn’t have time to talk, doing his best not to die.
I relished in that.
I made him afraid.
I hit wherever I could.
He wasn’t human.
I wasn’t human.
He was every evil I had to eradicate.
There was no room for him here.
No room for him, period.
He has to die.
I struck harder.
My knuckles split. My healing arm bellowed. I couldn’t catch a proper breath as my opponent stopped trying to get away and threw himself into meeting me in war.
I grunted as his own fists found new places to injure me.
We rolled and fought.
Two bears fighting over scraps.
I found hair and yanked so hard, a handful came away in my fist.
I punched his stomach and listened to the sweet sounds of him gasping for air.
I didn’t stop.
I kept hitting.
It was rhythmical.
Poetic almost.
Entirely justified after a lifetime of ru
This was what I was.
This...thing.
This hatred that’d been building and billowing for decades. These memories I’d never had the guts to face. These ghosts of a family who ringed us in the dark and watched me massacre one of the men who’d abused us.
I would protect them all.
I would do whatever it took to kill.
Another burst of fury flowed through me.
Speed made my fists blur and his grunts sound weaker.
Soon.
Soon it would be over, and he would be dead.
Something soft tugged on my shoulder. A voice I couldn’t place tried to wriggle its way through the carnage of memories and mayhem.
“Kas, stop. You have to stop.”
Quell?
No, this voice wasn’t as timid.
Sarez?
No, this one begged me to stop not to keep going.
“Kas, please!”
I threw another strike.
The man jerked as if his body couldn’t take much more.
Triumph blazed through me.
He was close.
Just a little more and he’d be dealt with.
“Kas, you’re killing him!”
I gri
I struck again and again.
I lost sensation and welcomed numbness instead.
“KAS!” Hands scratched at my neck, trying to pull me away. The scent of papaya and woodsmoke filled my head.
Gemma!
My soul recognized her.
My entire purpose was to protect and cherish her.
I loved her.
I would do whatever it took to keep her safe.
Fury struck a match on my hatred and anger, renewing my need to kill this trespasser. He’d had his hands on her. He’d. Hurt. Her. He’d made her cry out. He’d put bruises on her skin and fear in her heart.
No.
Never fucking again.
I drove my fist into his motherfucking jaw.
He yelled something.
Gemma screamed something.
I ignored it all.
I was done with this.
He would die.
Immediately.
Rocking onto my knees, I wrenched my arm back, ready to deliver the final blow. I blinked back ghosts and memories. I focused on the forest where we fought and not the dorm where we’d hidden as slaves.
I bared my teeth and swung.
Gemma threw herself on top of the crumpled, bloody man beneath me. “Don’t!” She curled up over his head, putting herself in harm’s way, forcing me to roll to the side so I didn’t hit her.
Shoving upright, I roared, “Get the fuck away, Gemma! Let me finish this.”
“You can’t.” She cradled his head, sending violent jealousy through me. “It’s Jareth!”
Jareth?
The kid who’d endured two weeks of punishment and returned to us soulless.
The brother who scared me even while I’d done my best to protect him.
The family I’d killed to set free.
Gemma sat up, revealing the man she’d protected.
One blue eye, one brown eye.
Awfully familiar and horribly real.
Drenched in blood from my fists.
Jareth.
I choked.
The world ceased existing.
My headache returned in full crippling force. My vision stuttered. Vertigo slammed into me. I wobbled on my knees as I gasped for breath.
How?
Where?
I don’t understand.
And then, whiteness.
Nothing but fucking whiteness as my mind folded in on itself.
All the memories I’d let loose.
All the hatred I’d set free.
The bittersweet freedom and sanity I’d felt all sucked back inside me.
A vortex of pain, history, and disease.
It ricocheted back on me.
It cracked my mind apart.
I blacked out.