Page 22 of Rage

“Thank god you came when you did, this bitch is?—”

Without warning or fanfare, Kingston slams a fist into the guy’s face. The man’s head whips around. He’s out cold before the rest of the body hits the ground.

“We should—” Daisy starts, but I cut her off.

“Not this time, Daisy,” I tell her. With a step back and a gentle tug of her wrist, I try to pull her away. “We have to go now. There are people who need us, remember? We don’t have time to clean up a body.”

Kingston turns to face us, his eyes latching in on her face.

“Wy is right,” he signs grimly. “Come on, Daze.”

A tremor rushes through my girl's body. I feel it as it rushes down her arm and into the wrist I hold.

“We should at least cut his dick off,” she mutters.

I trade a look with Kingston over her head. Our mental debate is swift and ends with me saying, “Fine, but make Kingston do it. I don’t like the idea of you touching a cock that doesn’t belong to one of the four of us.”

Chapter 3

Kingston

My knuckles rap against the bedroom door.

“Come in,” Daisy’s soft voice calls out.

I push the door open and slip into the room. As I step in, I shut the door behind me to give us a semblance of privacy. I find Daisy sitting up on the bed, her torso twisted so she can rest her forearms on the headboard. Her chin rests on top of them with her attention directed out the back window. The headlights of the car behind us are those bright LED types that blind the driver ahead of them. She’s staring into the light as if it doesn’t bother her.

It probably doesn’t.

Not because she’s impervious to pain. Compared to the things Daisy’s done to hurt herself in the past, staring into headlights is probably the least painful thing she could do. It’s not intentional, the pain she seeks. It’s a subconscious thing to seek these punishments. Letting that guy back at the gas station live makes her feel like a failure. I know how much she loathes letting evil slip between her fingers. Part of that stems from hating herself. Her attempts to vanquish the evil in the world is driven, in part, by a hope that it will exorcise the wicked within her.

But it doesn’t work like that. It hasn’t in all the years we’ve been doing this, and it won’t change in the future. Daisy knows this, too. Which is why she struggles daily with the loathing she has for herself.

Luckily for her, she has the four of us to love her irrevocably, unconditionally, and passionately. That insidious voice in the back of her head is muffled, as long as we’re around.

I climb onto the bed and crawl over to sit beside Daisy. As she starts to twist around to face me, my arm snakes around the back of her waist and I drag her between my splayed legs.

“King? Are we nearly there?” Daisy leans against me, her small frame so slight against me.

The thick scar that stretches from one side of my neck to the other, a gift from my father in his attempt to silence me nearly twenty years ago, renders me mute. But I don’t need my voice to assure her of this. My answer comes as the brush of my lips on the top of her head.

“Good,” she replies. “I hate this, the waiting part.”

I do too. I hate seeing Daisy sink deep into the dark recesses of her mind, preparing for the worst. As if we can ever truly prepare for the fucked-up things the people in this world are capable of. Part of me hates that we do this. Saving people should be left up to the cops. We should be living life in the sun, where blood doesn’t stain our clothes and the screams from our pasts can’t reach us. If Daisy would let us, we’d avoid death until it was our time to meet the reaper.

The thing with our girl, though, is that she’s become the Reaper.

She’s Death; as beautiful and terrible as it comes. I couldn’t stop her, just like I can’t stop my own demise that sits on the horizon, creeping closer every day.

I don’t fear death any more than I fear Daisy. Since they’re one and the same, I welcome both with open arms.

“Did you get any sleep?” I sign in front of both of us.

Daisy shakes her head. “No. I can’t, not when we’re so close.”

“We don’t know what we’re facing, Daisy. You don’t want to walk into the situation exhausted. We have a few hours. Think you can rest your eyes?”

I wince. I sound more like Owen or Wyatt. They nag her about these things—taking care of herself and what not. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just I know how this conversation always goes.

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