Page 116 of Cruel Lies

The—

Fuck, why couldn’t I admit it to my damn self now that the adrenaline and worry had worn off?

Harper was laid up in the Guild, a bag of blood dripping into her veins as we stood there and argued semantics. I wanted tokill something.Wanted to avenge her. Needed it like I needed pain to feel pleasure.

If I didn’t do something to outsource this rage building inside me, I’d snap on someone else. And it wouldn’t be pretty.

I didn’t want it to be her.

My body spun on a dime as Bonnie started to laugh, a sick and twisted sound that set the hairs on the back of your neck on edge, that made you embody a cat hissing at a dog who’d just crossed its path uninvited.

"You assholes think killing us will help? This man obviously wanted her dead. He stole and copied a key to the building for us. He paid good—real good—and told us exactly what to do. And he even kept you guys busy so you couldn’t help her while we did our job." She cackled again, her head falling back like some sort of monster in a horror flick. "You’re stupid to think he’ll ever stop. He won’t. He wants her dead, and I dunno why, and I don’t care. But it won’t end with us. He’ll find someone elseto take our place, someone who will do the job this time."

"He’ll have a hard time getting to her while we’re alive."

Bonnie laughed as I swung the wood at her now, slamming the butt end of it into her side as she wheezed in pain. "You don’t get it. He alreadydidget to her."

"No, Bonnie, I don’t thinkyouunderstand. I will lay down my life for that woman, you hear me?" She took the tail end of my makeshift beat stick to the face, and I grinned as fresh blood trailed down her fucking face from that obviously broken nose. "She ismine,and nobody will take her from me. I willdiefor her, Bonnie."

I realized what I said a moment too late.

I couldn’t take it back now. I couldn’t change what I’d finally admitted. Of all the people to confess to, of all the fucking people to drive me to an epiphany, it was this bitch?

No. No, that wasn’t fair.

It’s not fair!

I tossed the board aside and pulled out a knife the assholes at the compound had missed in the side of my boot. It flashed under the fluorescent lights, a black matte blade with a wooden handle that I’d had custom-made for someone a long, long time ago. Etched in the blade, in a neat, continuous line, was a single nickname for a girl I thought I had a hand in killing seven years ago. A woman I never thought I’d ever see again.

A woman I loved more than the fucking depths of the ocean.

Harpie Girl.

I commissioned a knife in her honor the year we killed her.

And now, I’d use it in her honor. On the fuckers who dared to put a bullet in her body.

Slash!

I dragged the blade across her upper arm lightning fast. She didn’t even scream. She just stared down at the newly-welling blood and frowned. Only seconds later did she wince, as if the pain had been so fleeting she hadn’t realized it didn’t register.

She’d feelthis one,though.

I slammed that knife so deep into her thigh, I felt it push through to the other side and slam into the steel chair seat.

This time, she screamed.

Yeah, that’s right, bitch. Scream. Scream like Harper did when you put that first bullet in her as she ran away from you.

Scream, bitch!

"Easy, Nash, she’s already screaming, dude." Rowan’s lip curled in disgust as he watched the blood pump out of her leg, spurting more with each beat of her traitorous, cold, unfeeling junkie heart.

"She doesn’t deserve mercy, Ro. She deserves to die." I glanced over at Clyde, who was taking this brief reprieve to whimper wordlessly and stare into space beyond his girlfriend and partner in crime. He wouldn’t lookather. No, I had a feeling if he did, he’d piss himself again. Or hate himself for turning on her.

Maybe he’d blame himself, like I did.

Maybe heshouldblame himself. He should hate everything about himself for being such a weak, pathetic excuse of a man. For saving his own skin and condemning his girl to certain death at the hands of a psychopath like me.

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