Page 30 of Drowning Her

But I stayed stoic, never letting it show.

“I’ll complete my list,” I said, my voice even. “We’ll go along with the Feldman Trial as planned. But you can take the farm.”

“Forrest would never let that happen,” Sawyer laughed, turning back toward the main house. “We’re Feldmans. We destroy everything in our path.”

He proclaimed at every chance that he was a Feldman, like it was something to be proud of, but there was no point. We lived. We died. And the Feldmans? We lived. We killed. And we died too. That was our purpose. It was another sequence in the pattern of life.

I took the side-by-side UTV across the pastures, heading to the Dairy Barn. One of the livestock orders was in a pen, naked, his Achilles tendons slashed, the wounds open, puffy, red, with greenish-gray pus. The cameras were rolling, the red light beaming, recording his every labored move. Some of our buyers were snuff-loving perverts who picked out their chosen jerk-off materials. And some of our buyers wanted revenge. But unless they ordered otherwise, every murder was recorded for their viewing pleasure.

I pulled on my black clothes, clutching the mask in my hand. ‘Livestock orders’ was an amusing term. In the end, we were animals. Meat to be butchered. Shipped off. Onto the next.

The livestock order pulled himself forward on his hands. Kyle had hunted him and started the ranching process, but it was mine to take over. And it was honestly a pity; I didn’t like it when they were so weak they could barely function. Iwanted to engage their power, to endure their struggle, to experience the life leaving their bodies.

He tossed his head back, finally seeing me.

“You’ve got to help me, man. They?—”

But when I pulled the mask over my face, he instantly fell silent, crawling forward, trying to get to the edge of the gate. Perhaps he thought he could climb over the pen and escape, but the poor bastard was getting nowhere. I grabbed the cleaver off of the table. The man was young, my age or younger. But he was here. And it honestly didn’t matter what he had done.

We didn’t ask questions. We fulfilled orders. It was how we worked. A business so competitive and controlled, we were sometimes called ‘The Death Farm.’

“Please. I’ve got money. I can?—”

I slammed the cleaver into his leg, amputating him at the thigh, all of my force in one clean cut. The knock of bone. The metal scraping the concrete. The loose red flesh. Limp arteries. He screamed in agony. Blood rushed to my head, but I still couldn’t think straight. Violence was supposed to be my cure. It replenished me. Wiped my slate clean. But I rammed the blade into his arm. His other leg. Blood splattered across me, drenching me in warm red liquid. Even so, the fury erupted inside of me. All I could see was Maisie sitting on the couch, Sawyer’s eyes on her. Maisie with her back against the wall, Green’s hands on her, threatening to take her life.

Suddenly, it wasn’t the livestock order that I saw. It was the pimp. His green tie. His gangly arms. His blond hair. I smacked the blade into his neck. Into his chest. At the top of his head. Splitting him open, bit by bit, until finally, the rush of peace flowed through me. I imagined hanging Green by his throat, dangling on his ownpersonal scaffold for the world to see. The stupid bastard thought he could hurt Maisie. But she was a Feldman now.

A brush of cold air flickered over my shoulders, chilling me against the blood. The cleaver clattered to the floor. Then I sensed her—that sweet, pungent odor.

Maisie.

She was following me again, despite knowing what I was capable of.

She should have been running.

She might have been off with Green.

But I would never let that happen.

I turned off the video cameras. Then I slowly faced her, taking a deep breath. The two of us stared at each other. I cracked my neck from side to side. Even the mask on my face was clinging to my skin, soaked with sweat and blood.

There was a door. She could go now if she wanted.

But she didn’t move.

My boots pounded against the floor. Her faint scent filled my nose. My dick throbbed awake.

She had chosen to follow me.

She knew what would happen.

And still, I warned her again.

“If you know what’s best for you,” I said in a low voice, keeping my tone even, “you will leave and never look back.”

Each crash of my boot on the cement floor sent another gasp through her. She scooted back on the floor, hiding between two crates as if she could somehow evade me. But there was no escape. I grabbed her stringy copper hair, twisting it in my fingers, dragging her across the floor, her bare arms scraping against the cement. Dust sprinkled the floor, collecting on her shirt. I shoved her into one of the empty pens.

“Wilder,” she whimpered. “I was just watching. I was just?—”

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