Page 110 of Scars Run Deep

Fuck.

“Hey.”

I swung my head to see Aurora approaching, walking up the hill a few feet from the house and all the activity taking place below.

I took her in.

She’d stuffed her balaclava into her tactical vest and her white-blonde hair was swinging back and forth in a high ponytail as she walked toward me. Her tactical gear was stained with dirt and blood. And her hands… her hands were completely stained with the blood of our enemies.

That blackness in her eyes had faded, but the blue pools were a little glazed, like she was coming down from a high.

Shit.

“You know, Ash, you fucking well know that there’s no going back once you succumb to it, once you give yourself over to that darkness all the way.”

Fucking Killian and his warning words slammed into me, refusing to leave until they were certain I’d taken heed.

It wasn’t just that either. It was what Lance had said that had stuck with me ever since and kept rising to the surface no matter how much I tried to shove its proverbial head back under water and drown the fucking thing.

All those accusations of us supposedly corrupting her.

We hadn’t, I knew that rationally.

We had brought out something in her, yes. A harsher and darker edge. But it hadn’t come from nowhere. We hadn’t created it, it had already been within her, a part of her. Being in our orbit, being with us, had just nurtured it.

“How are you feeling?” I asked as she stopped in front of me.

“All good,” she said, brightly.

Too brightly.

“You almost murdered someone. I really don’t think all good applies at all.”

She flinched and snapped back, defensively, “An enemy target, Asher. That’s what he was. It wasn’t like I strolled up to a random innocent on the street and went there.”

She was really reaching with that one.

I’d intended to approach this gently. Well, as close to gently as I could really get.

But her reaction was making it clear that wouldn’t do.

She needed a jolt, a little harshness.

“You lost control.”

She scoffed. “Seriously? I saw a guard in there stone-cold dead with a fucking poker through his eye, courtesy of your handiwork.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Why? Because it’s you?”

“No. Because I was in control. That was a tactical move to put the hostile down swiftly and efficiently. You were drawing it out and taking your sweet time, relishing the pain and suffering and indignity you were perpetrating on that trainer.”

“He deserved it!” she yelled, catching the attention of the group gathered down by the house.

She sucked in a breath and shifted her weight and told me more calmly, “When I walked into that bedroom, that piece of shit was humiliating and degrading two of those hostages, while trying to condition them to be grateful for it and like it. That’s how sick and twisted it was. He got what he deserved.”

I grasped her arm, tugging her to me. “It’s not about him. It’s not about any of them, any of this. It’s about you.”

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