Page 106 of They Break Beauty

Fortunately, that was one of my many talents.

Using a prototype that I’d borrowed from my dad’s company just before I’d left for my fake internship, I’d managed to use its highly-advanced thermal imaging capabilities to determine the precise location of the ten frat boys within the farmhouse in the distance.

After Brianna’s infestation strike against three of the houses, a bunch of the residents had been staying with the other frats until the houses were sanitized, but Mason had put his soldiers up here in an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of Stonewell. Actually, I’d initially thought it had been abandoned, but as I’d tracked down where Mason had put some of his Hex members, I’d discovered that he’d actually bought this place while I’d been away. Why, I had no clue. It wasn’t as though he’d planned to revive Hex in this way before I’d come back and insisted upon it.

Or, had he?

The guy certainly played things close to the vest. I’d wanted him to restart Hex to keep him busy and off my back with what I had in the works, and also as a way to draw on more resources should I need them down the road. Instead, though, he’d gone a completely different way with it since he’d taken power.

As for the football players he’d taken on as his Hex soldiers, some were still in the hospital being treated for the burns they’d sustained from Brianna’s hit, and the others were in special on-campus housing—too difficult to get at when they were home. I had to wait for an opportunity there.

There were also another dozen on the list I’d copied from Mason of his recruits, but they were students scattered all over—some living in campus housing, some off-campus and in the town, and a few even commuting the fifty miles from here to the City of Tolhurst. Again, more complicated to get at. That would require some manipulation on my part to have them convene in a single area. If I’d known about that meeting Mason had called last night, that would’ve been the perfect time and circumstance to strike. As it was, I hadn’t, and now I had to wait, or create another opportunity.

If I absolutely had to.

I was hoping what I was about to do here would be enough of a blow to Mason to function as an unavoidable wakeup call. For him to see fucking sense.

I made my way through the brush, the blanket of night making it easy for me to blend into the shadows. Spinning my collapsible bo-staff around, I headed toward my first set of targets. The four frat boys I’d been able to see with my imaging device through the empty barn. They were twenty feet from it sitting around a fire pit in lawn chairs and drinking the cheap beer they were so fond of.

Two others were to the right in the main farmhouse building in the kitchen sitting around an island and having an apparent midnight snack. The remaining four were upstairs asleep, two to a room in bunk beds.

As I reached my first targets, the four of them were laughing and joking around and talking about how lucrative being members of Hex was, the cache it afforded them.

Not tonight, boys.

The fools were so relaxed, thinking they were untouchable now that they didn’t even notice me when I was right upon them.

I twisted my bo-staff and it extended to double its length.

And then I jabbed it into the lower back of one of the guys sitting around the fire.

The force of it had him crying out and hurtling off the chair, landing on the grass just inches from the flames.

As he scrambled to get back to his feet, stumbling from the mild damage I’d done to his back, the other three shot from their chairs and spun to face me.

“Knight, what the hell?” one of them cried, taking in me wielding a weapon and the dark, unforgiving look in my eyes.

“You came at what’s mine.”

“We had orders!”

“Stand down now and walk away then.”

“We can’t do that. Hex members don’t balk.”

Heading down here tonight to inflict damage had ramped up my bloodlust, so that sick and depraved part of me was really fucking happy to hear that they were gonna go the fight route.

I stepped forward and readied my staff. “Then it’s time for a reckoning, fuckers.”

As they hesitated, trying to process what was happening, the brutal reality cutting into their reverie, I took advantage of their slow reactions and processing abilities, and swept my staff at the back of the closest one’s legs, ripping him off his feet.

As he hit the ground on his ass, the other three launched themselves at me.

Adrenaline tore through me in the most glorious way, fueling everything and firing me up to deliver punishment and spill their goddamn blood.

I spun my staff, clocking one across the side of the head, and knocking him back as he struggled from the disorientation of the injury. Not breaking my spinning momentum, I jabbed another in the ribs, hearing a distinct crack and a corresponding wheeze from the fucker confirming I’d hit my target. With an upswing, I smashed the end of the staff into the underside of the other guy’s chin. His head snapped back and he stumbled back several feet.

I finished off one of the fallen guys with a blow to the side of the head, knocking him out cold. Then, I thrust my boot into the ribs of the guy I’d already done damage there to and he stayed down incapacitated, clutching himself and wheezing.

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