Page 22 of Body Tox

There wasn’t even a sound when that woman fell, just a wordless puff of dust pluming around her body.

I realized that day that people were so intent on killing me for nothing, but I had the ability to take them out first. Protecting myself was possible, and living like an animal wasn’t necessary.

I started going from house to house in the upper regions of Alaska, killing the owners that were usually old nothings or hunters themselves, making my way lower and lower to where the winters wouldn’t fucking kill me so easily.

Finally, by the time I reached the age of twenty, I was living in Anchorage. I’d become a fisherman, saved myself some food anytime I could, and spent money on heat at the shack I had found and made my own.

“Bodyguard?” I jerked my head out of the past, the looming man in front of me as red as a tomato. “Where is my daughter?”

I looked back to the storm of wood and glass, and the old man followed my gaze.

“Oh dear, not again.”

Again?

Nice to know I was dealing with a bonafide psychopath then.

“I am pursuing her, Sir Svenson,” I amended, standing in an awkward bow formation the other fucks always did around this man.

“I swear, that girl. She is more trouble than she’s worth. Mark my words, and I will find a facility to take over her care. I am going to die of old age trying to keep her from…herself.”

This man was as bad as my foster ‘rents. He only wanted to use his daughter, and because she wasn’t his ideal perfect robot, she was to be disposed of, so it was out of sight, out of mind to him, him being the hero in the whole fucking thing.

“Sir, if I may, she just lost her friend…her erratic actions may be due to that?”

The man was sniffling, blowing his nose into one of those nasty-ass handkerchiefs they tucked back in their pristine clothes after.

“I can’t do this anymore with her. She doesn’t handle anything like the dignified person I have tirelessly taught her to be.”

I thought about her records, all the paid private tutors for schooling, the etiquette classes, and business lessons. This woman wasn’t raised by her father at all. He was a figurehead in her life, spending all this money to have strangers do his job.

Her mother had died when she was a teenager, and any information on Echo was obsolete when her mother was alive. It was after that death that the warrants, tickets for DUIs, misdemeanors, theft, and assault charges started popping up all over her files. It was weird to feel like this debutante wasn’t all that different than…myself.

Her ‘father’ coughed and straightened. “You go fetch her. I will double your salary. Do as you must, and when you finish take her to this address. I will call with the arrangements.”

Just like that. This man was writing her away from his conscience and heart.

I frowned, reading the unknown address on the note given. For some reason, I got a sense of deja vu, but then again, I knew most of the places in this town.

Was this the corrective housing address?

I could kill this mark too easily. Her father would think she lived a meaningless life in the facility to the bitter end. So much easier than the security that boarded up around her…so why did I feel so strange at the fact she became easy prey?

The man didn’t stick around. Instead, he snapped his fingers and barked for a hoard of cleaning personnel to start erasing any existence that was here. Her room was being emptied and cleared out before my eyes.

Leaning down, I picked up a chunk of her fluorescent pink door. The wood sat in my hand. The last piece of proof this woman ever existed was in my palm.

Pocketing the item, I walked through her room, snatching the laptop and some god-awful stuffed animal that at one time may have been a moose. It was missing both eyes, and its fur was matted so badly that patches of it were gone.

It made sense that the little nut case could love something this ugly.

Shoving the sorry excuse of a stuffed animal in my pants pocket, I walked out of the fake hallways with its fake-ass robots milling around for their fake-ass owner.

I gripped the piece of wood in my pocket, knowing it was time to find this girl and end her miserable life.

Making my way over to Echo’s father, I paused in front of him. The crisp, rich fucking man was barking orders at his slaves. Taking a deep breath, I cracked my knuckles.

Overthinking was the last thing I needed to do for my Little Wraith, and I put every ounce of power I had into punching that old fuck down onto the ground.

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