Page 42 of Oathbreaker

Paid for it with money coated in Winter’s blood.

Max, our resident tech expert, found him in under thirty minutes and gave me all the information on his habits. I didn’t know Mr.Michael Uvalde before he participated in harming Winter, but I know him intimately now.

I move through his house, stopping in his bedroom. This is where it will happen. In the corner, I sit. I don’t turn on the lights. I want to absorb the silent darkness until it’s time.

It’s an hour before the low hum of the expensive engine echoes outside his bedroom window. The next sound is the mechanical whirring of his garage door opening and closing. It’s loud in the empty house.

He stumbles in, drunk. This will make it easier.

I don’t want easier. I want painful.

He’s in the room, stripping off his clothes as he walks through. The pressure of his piss stream hitting the porcelain toilet bowl makes me smile. Maybe I’ll cut that off too.

Don’t be so dramatic.

He climbs into bed, flat on his back. One minute. Two minutes. Ten. He’s asleep.

I move out of the shadows.

He opens his mouth to scream when I settle fully on top of him, his arms and legs pinned beneath my weight. He stops when my blade touches the tender flesh of his throat.

“You can scream if you want, but no one is coming, Commissioner Uvalde.” My smile feels a little deranged.

Have I finally snapped? If so, I’m ready to fucking revel in it.

His glassy eyes struggle to focus.

“Who the fuck are you?” he spits out.

It’s so curious what his body is doing. There’s a sickly pallor his skin takes on, like three-day-old milk. He sweats, his breaths shallow and rapid.

His body knows he’s going to die. His brain probably thinks he can still get out of this.

I breathe in. His terror smells ripe.

“Adam Collins,” I say.

He pales even more. “Y-You’re not him,” he stutters.

I shake my head slowly. “No, I’m not, commissioner.” I press the blade into his throat, and I feel comfort as the flesh begins to give away under the knife.

“I didn’t do anything!” He tries to press his body further into the mattress, moving away from my blade. He can’t move his arms or legs, even though he tries.

I’m glad he’s trying.

“That’s one way to put it, right? You should have never taken that bribe, Michael.”

“He made me do it! He said if I didn’t—what does it matter!”

I slap him across the face. It’s a move so disrespectful that I almost laugh as I see tears spring to his eyes and hear the resulting howl rip from his throat.

“You’ve hurt a lot of people, Michael. And actions have consequences.”

He cries now. “Please! Please, I’ll give the money back. I’ll give you double?—”

“You think I want money?”

“If not money, then what do you want?”

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