Page 110 of Sinner's Sacrifice

He pointed his gun at Yvgeny’s head and pulled the trigger.

Chapter Fifteen

Two more shots exploded through the car, but Sam couldn’t focus. Her face was covered in something warm and wet, and her ears rang as if she’d been punched in the head.

It was Yvgeny’s blood cooling on her skin.

Yvgeny that bastard Benson had shot. And their driver. And Mason.

He was insane.

“Watch,” he said to her, his gaze a little fuzzy, his pupils dilated, as if he were high on some drug. “It’ll take a minute, but he’ll start to heal.”

“Heal?” she repeated, her voice sounding so far away to herself. The back of Yvgeny’s head was...gone.

Nika said they couldn’t survive every injury. If it was catastrophic enough, it could kill them.

She watched Yvgeny’s face and body for any hint of the wound healing, but there was nothing. It was too much damage.

Yvgeny was dead.

She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Yvgeny was dead.

Pain ricocheted through her like a tuning fork. Only with every bounce, it gained momentum, vibrating until she was certain she was going to fall apart.

Yvgeny was dead.

Benson needed to join him.

She licked dry lips and forced her voice out of a throat so dry and desiccated she was surprised it worked at all. “You thought you could control him if you had control of me, didn’t you?”

The glazed look faded from Benson’s face, and he seemed to truly see what he’d done for the first time. All the color drained out of his face. “Shit,” he breathed.

“You thought you could use me as leverage.” She wiped her right hand on her pants as if trying to get the blood off, as if she couldn’t stand it, then moved it to her back pocket.

“That is exactly what’s going to happen, as soon as he heals,” Benson barked at her. He lowered his gun, so it pointed at the ground, and sneered at her. “You’re not one of them. You’ve got bruises all over your neck and face. If I shoot you, you’ll stay dead.”

“You moron,” she said. “They can’t survive everything, and you blew the back of his head off.”

Sam pulled the knife she’d shoved into her pocket after Yvgeny had given it to her only minutes ago.

Protect yourself if you have to, he’d said. She wasn’t sure she cared what happened to her anymore. Not with him...dead. But, killing Benson...that had vaulted to the top of her list of things to do.

Keeping her hand out of sight, she opened the knife blade of the tool.

She’d been alone for so long, but Yvgeny was in her blood, part of her bones, and completely owned her heart. She would avenge him. She had nothing else to live for.

Benson opened his mouth. To say something stupid, she was sure. She didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. His actions had spoken for him.

Sam stabbed Benson in the chest, an inch to the left of his sternum. “I think you’ll stay dead, too,” she said, with a hiss. And stabbed him again.

Benson’s eyes bulged out and his mouth opened, but no sound came out. He pitched over and collapsed on the floor of the car.

She turned to Yvgeny, but found it difficult to raise her gaze further than his chin. She’d seen death before. So many times and in so many ways, but this was one death she never wanted to see.

Finally, she looked at his face. His eyes were open and sightless. There was a hole in the middle of his head with a bit of blood and black sooty stuff around it. That wasn’t unusual in entry wounds. It was the damage done on the inside and on exit that usually showed the true extent of the injury. Most of the back of his head was gone.

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