Page 21 of The Pretty Psycho

Jax was almost my height, just a few inches shorter than me, which was why I could see it.

Them.

I had seen more horrors in the twenty-five years of my life than most people in their sixties, but this… I had never seen anything like this.

The stench of blood in the air, the metallic taste on my lips as I looked at the bodies inside the office.

My eyes ran from one side of the room to the other, trying to comprehend the information they were getting. My mind couldn't understand what it was we were seeing.

Bodies, at least ten of them, lying on the floor, some with their throats sliced open and others with the gunshot wounds to the center of their foreheads, their eyes staring into the abyss, with the lingering fear they must have felt just before they met their untimely end.

Jessica.

Akshay.

Louisa.

Dennis.

They were four of the instructors who were helping us guide everyone around and into The Pit, so Andries wouldn't notice the movement of the students.

They were our friends, practically part of our family, and now they were gone.

"Oh God," Dante gasped at the sight in front of us, while Jax and I just stood there, unmoving, unable to utter a single word, because there was nothing left to say. Not really.

The innocent always paid the price of war, even when we tried to shield them. And I've tried. I tried to remove them from the equation, to protect them, to withdraw the target from their backs, but they wouldn't listen. They wanted to help because they understood that it wasn't all about power.

It wasn't about the need to be the best, but about the need to eliminate those that were a cancer for our society.

I was not a good man. I’d never claimed to be, but my father, Jax's father, Dante's, and many others, were the type of men that didn't deserve to live. They took what wasn't theirs to take. They destroyed everything that was good and pure, tainting it with their stench of evil wherever they went.

I was powerless to stop this. I was too far away when I should've been here, protecting them how they protected our secret.

I should've fucking been here.

My legs moved before my mind could even comprehend what I was doing, but I couldn't keep standing there, gaping at the scene in front of us, thinking about all the things I should've done. This was my fault. Their deaths were my burden and I refused to stand there like a damsel in distress, choking on my own emotions, when I didn't deserve to be the one feeling like this.

They gave their lives for me, for us.

They gave everything for our cause, and they would never be forgotten.

"How could this happen?" I asked no one in particular as I crouched down next to the bodies, unable to tear my eyes away from the terrified look on Jessica’s pale face. She was so full of life, so fucking ready to take all those men down, to show them they didn't own the world just because they had pockets deep enough to buy almost everything and everyone.

She wanted revenge against those who killed her sister, and she approached me the moment I came to the Academy, knowing I wasn't here to teach. Almost all of them knew, and they wanted this. They wanted us to succeed.

"Dante," I started, turning around slowly, taking in his shocked face and Jax's angry one. "I need you to check the other buildings." He nodded, taking a step back. "Jax," my best friend glared at the bodies around us, the tic in his cheek becoming more prominent with each passing second. "Go with him."

"Adria—"

"Go. With. Him," I pushed out. I needed to be left alone. I needed to think, to plan, to figure out the next course of action. I couldn't do any of those things with an angry-looking Jax andDante looking like he would rather spend the night with Gabriela than be here. "I don't want him to go alone, and I want us to scout the area and check if there are any survivors."

"But you'll be all alone then."

"I'll be fine."

"Adrian," Jax protested. "I don't like this. I don't think it's a smart thing to?—"

I stood up and walked slowly toward them. "Jax, I'll be fine."

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