Page 96 of Beyond Reason

When I didn’t say anything, he lifted his gun and pointed it at me. “He’s a little worse for wear, but I promise I didn’t break him. Yet. We were waiting for you to get here first.”

I didn’t break him.

“Were you the one who hurt him?” It came out soft. If the fucker had any idea who I actually was, he wouldn’t have smiled in response.

“You look like you’ll break easier than him, though. My orders were to bring you alive… Nate never said anything about being unharmed.”

I needed to be smart about this, but the fury that welled inside me was blinding and white hot. It wasn’t normal, and I didn’t have time to process that it was my own anger colliding with the sensation and ability to feel that Marshall had left behind.

It was a deadly mixture, and so all consuming that I was swallowed up by it without realizing. I pulled my gun, but he was fast. He didn’t shoot me—he surged forward and slammed the door I’d thrown open back into me. The heavy metal smashed against my extended hand and sent me crashing into the railing.

It took me a second to realize the metal clang, clang, clang sound was my gun falling from my fingers into the blackness below.

Well, shit.

Fine.

I liked doing things up close and personal, anyway.

“Fucking cowardly move. A big guy like you, you’d think you’d want a fair fight. But you really are just hired muscle, aren’t you?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he said through the half-open door. I took a second to steady myself and pull my knife back out. If I could goad him into losing his temper, I could gain the upper hand.

“Come on then, come in here and get me. Nate obviously doesn’t give a shit about you if he set you up against a killer who was armed. And I promise you, I’m going to carve you to fucking pieces for every time you touched Axel. Can you feel that?” I shifted slightly when he swung the door open and stared at me. “That’s death, creeping along your spine. Your boss left you here to die, dumbass.” I lifted my hand as I spoke, and swung—the light above me shattered, sending shards of glass raining down and throwing me into darkness.

That struck a nerve… maybe I’d been a little dramatic. I threw myself to the ground when I heard the first pop—shot after shot that made my ears scream in a high-pitched whine and left me almost dizzy. Maybe he was fast, but he really wasn’t that smart. It sounded like he emptied the whole damn gun, losing his temper and trying to incapacitate me because I’d… what, freaked him out? Threatened his ego?

For a second, there was just silence—either that, or I’d lost my hearing from the echo of gunshots. When the door flung wide open and let in the low light, I rose to my feet and lunged.

My knife thudded squarely into his side, and he reeled back with an angry shout. When he scrambled for the hilt and yanked it out, a hot spurt of blood washed across my shirt.

It wasn’t enough. Stabbing him once wasn’t enough.

He’d hurt Axel, and stabbing him once couldn't begin to make up for it. I threw myself forward and rammed into his center mass, using leverage and his shitty stance to send us both tumbling to the ground. My fingers slid upward, along his neck, his jawline, tangling into his hair, and I lifted his head.

The sound of it cracking against the ground once was satisfying, even though I felt him writhing beneath me. It took me a second to realize what the sudden pain in my shoulder was—my knife.

He still had my knife.

Well… Technically I had it again since he’d stabbed me with it, but I didn’t have time to care. I lifted his head and slammed it down again.

He spasmed beneath me.

“I wish I had more time,” I snarled, slamming his head harder. “I’d take you apart piece by piece for touching him. Maybe I’ll find their drug and bring you back just so I can kill you again.” I lifted his head and threw my entire weight into it.

He wasn’t moving anymore.

Fuck, it hadn’t been enough. He’d hurt Axel, and I’d barely had a chance to return the favor. My hands were shaking and slick with blood, and he was already dead. The only thing I could do was tell myself that he’d just been a messenger, that the real person who’d hurt Axel was holding him captive while I straddled a dead body.

When I pushed myself to my feet, I swayed. The knife hadn’t landed anywhere vital, but my entire arm was already aching with it. My entire body was aching.

If this was emotion, if this was feeling and caring so deeply… I wasn’t sure how people lived through it. Maybe this was why psychopaths weren’t capable of so much depth. It was dangerous.

My eyes flicked down to the body on the ground. Blood and something thicker was seeping out of the back of his head, and I didn’t feel satisfied from killing him. I would have been satisfied before.

I was just aching, and worried, and I wanted Axel.

At least I was smart enough not to pull the knife from my shoulder as I righted myself. For just a second, my eyes flicked back to the stairwell and my lost gun.

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