Page 183 of Hunting Pretty

I knew this. I’d struggled against my own morals after I’d killed my first bad man.

But Ava didn’t.

She hadn’t wrestled with her own morality and come out the other side. Not yet.

I frowned at her.Are you okay?

She nodded, just slightly, just for me.

We were in this together.

No matter how dark I became, no matter how much of the monster took over, she’d be there to pull me back.

She was my light.

I’d be her darkness. Her devil. Her shadow.

I turned back to the good doctor. “So?”

Dr. Vale didn’t look like he’d even heard me, muttering prayers under his breath.

I’m afraid even God can’t help you now.

No answer?

I shrugged. Well, okay then.

“I guess you don’t want your finger.” I pushed the saw the other way, the jagged edge grating against bone.

Dr. Vale let out an earsplitting scream. “Okay. Okay. I’ll tell you.”

I stopped the saw again.

“This better be good,” I muttered.

“I didn’t want to do it, I swear,” he cried out, spit and blood spluttering from his mouth. “I’m a doctor for God’s sake! I’m supposed to help people. But they threatened my family.”

Dr. Vale shuddered and then broke down in tears, snot dribbling out of his nostrils and mixing with blood.

“Who did?” Ava demanded from her throne.

When he cried and moaned instead of responding, I applied a little more pressure to the saw, making him cry out.

“Ava, please,” Dr. Vale begged.

“I asked you a question, Dr. Vale.” Ava’s voice was much darker than it was before. It made me want to bow before her and kiss her feet.

My dark queen.

“P-p-please,” Dr. Vale said, his arm trembling under my grip. “They’ll kill my family.”

“But I’ll killyou,” I whispered. “And I’ll do it more slowly and painfully than theyevercould.”

Dr. Vale shook his head. “I s-swear I don’t know who they are. They send men in masks. They make threats. Threaten my family. You have to understand, I had no choice.”

“And when Liath started to remember,” Ava said, her voice trembling. “You warned them, didn’t you?”

“Y-yes.”

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