Page 81 of Bird on a Blade

I brace his wrist against the railing and jerk his hand backward, snapping the bone. When I release his arm, it flops down into his bloody lap. He screams and stares down at his shattered wrist, confusion clear on his face.

“Edie!” he screams.

I stiffen. Tighten my grip around my Bowie knife. Hearing her name on his tongue fills me with an unexpected rage.

Howdarehe call out to her? After all the hurt he did to her? Afterrapingher?

“You can stop this!” he howls, looking past me, his eyes wild with panic. “I know you hired this monster. Call him off, Edie!”

Hired? He thinks shehiredme, that I’m doing this for money?

I don’t know why, but that just enrages me even more. I lunge forward and swipe my blade across his face, forging a path from his left temple through his eye and over his nose, clipping the side of his mouth. He screams and thrashes, trying to pull out his pinned hand. The flesh tears, a soft ripping noise that almost sounds like the snow.

I want to do the either side, marking his face with an X, but before I can do anything, Edie steps onto the porch. I feel myperfect prey beside me, shivering in her jeans and sweater, her hair falling into her eyes. She puts a hand on my arm.

“Yes, that’s it,” her ex cries, the words slurred from pain and shock. “You can stop this, Edie. Please. Just call him off. We can talk about this, okay?” He’s begging for his life. I don’t usually let it get this far, but I’ve certainly seen it before.

He ain’t begging me, though. He’s begging her.

I look over at her, then. Edie’s face is cold and hard. She’s not the prey right now. Not at all.

“Please,” her ex whimpers through the blood slicking his features. “Please, Edie. Tell him to stop.”

I look at her through my mask, waiting for her to tell me what to do. It doesn’t matter what it is. I’ll do it. For her.

She lifts her gaze to meet mine. My entire skin burns, waiting.

“Make him suffer,” she says.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

EDIE

It’s shocking how easy it is to watch Sawyer torture Scott, especially with my mouth still sour from his assault. When Sawyer offered me Scott’s severed dick, I almost took it. I almost picked it up as delicately as I had picked up the bird skull he brought me. The only reason I didn’t, I think, was the blood. I didn’t want to feel any more of Scott’s fluids on my skin.

But now, on the porch, the blood doesn’t bother me. It’s dark and glossy in the porch light, and it steams in the cold, reminding me of the mountain’s pale curling mist.

It’s pretty, almost.

Scott’s nearly unrecognizable, especially with the cut across his face. He keeps babbling at me, begging me to tell Sawyer to stop. But it’s the first time in our entire relationship that I’ve ever felt like I had any kind of power. Because when Sawyer glances over at me, eyes gleaming behind his mask, I know he’ll do whatever I ask of him. I could tell him to throw down his knife and walk away, and he would. I could tell him to kill Scott quickly, and he would.

And I know it’s fucked up. I know it’s wrong. But I decide to embrace that power instead.

“Make him suffer,” I say, three words that feel enormous. Sawyer gives me one firm nod, then turns back to Scott and, without warning, slides the knife between Scott’s ribs. Scott’s pleas become screams, the sound dampened by the snow and the howling winds. I wrap my arms around my chest, but I’m really not that cold.

There’s a quiver of excited heat working from between my legs.

Sawyer wrenches the knife sideways and steps back, admiring his handiwork. I’ll be honest; all I see is blood, shiny and bright as red leather. Scott trembles, his knife-pinned hand shaking. The snow has melted into his hair, and it hangs wet into his eyes.

“Edie,” he whispers hoarsely. “Please.”

I step closer, my shoes smearing the blood pooling across the porch. Sawyer cuts Scott again, slicing the knife across his stomach so that something pink and shiny sticks out. Scott thrashes against the knife holding him in place, which just seems to open the cut more, to push more of his insides out. I watch it with a strange, delirious detachment. I wouldn’t say I like it.

But what I do like is the knowledge that Sawyer is doing this for me. I felt his rage when he burst in earlier, interrupting Scott’s assault. It was a heat that flooded through the room. The same heat that keeps me warm now,

The same heat that throbs between my legs.

“Edie,” Scott gurgles, but it’s weak. I know he’s dying. And yet his taste is still in my mouth. I feel like I could scrape my tongue with Sawyer’s knife and I would still taste him, sour and sordid. When Scott dies, I want every trace of him gone.

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