Page 69 of Altered

She couldn’t.

I was void.

Without a word, I popped my earphones attached to my laptop back in and pressed play, drowning myself in the lyrics of Damien Rice'sRootless Tree.

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Chapter Twenty-Five

Lucky

Four counties.

Six kills.

One week.

Moving like a ghost.

No tracks.

No fallback.

Getting shitdone.

That's what my life revolved around now.

Fuck me.

I never wanted to become the man staring back at me in the mirror.

The man with more blood on his hands with every passing day.

I didn’t set out with the intention of becoming soulless and cold, but life happened and I evolved.

Shit like that happened more frequently than people realized, and I wasnota good man.

But if someone wanted to hurt her, I was going to fight.

I was going to kill.

I wasn’t eighteen years old anymore.

I could keepheralive.

All I wanted to do was protect her.

That was my purpose now.

I promised her that I would keep her safe and I planned on honoring that promise, regardless of all the consequences and sacrifices I would have to make to keep it – and hell, I'd made plenty so far.

I was constantly bending my morals for this woman.

I didn’t want her to know this about me; this ugly fucking creature that lived just beneath the surface.

She saw it that night though.

She saw me revel in taking his life – in removing the threat.

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