Page 144 of The Sea Witch's Son

Reduced to nothing but a used piece of trash.

Weak and so fucking worthless.

Chapter 52

MARLIN

I'm going to have to throw out this shirt.

The thought barely registers as I cut another strip of tissue from the man’s chest. He is down to one thumb and three fingers with about sixty-five percent of his body mass remaining.

The man is on the verge of shattering my eardrums with his screams for mercy, but it is not enough. His screams are not enough, his flesh is not enough, his fucking innards are not enough.

Nothing will be enough. Because he tried to take what is mine.

“I told you to fucking stop!”

“Did you stop when my little saint asked you to?”

Another surge of anger hits me as I dig the knife deep into his torso. He screams, but his anguished cries are not enough to keep me from spilling his large intestines across the pavement.

My rational state of mind is long gone as I attack him like a wild animal. The more skin I remove, the louder he screams. And the louder he screams, the more skin I remove.

He tried to take what’s mine.

He tried tobreakwhat’s mine.

The loop pounds through my head like a fucking drum, driving Calista’s knife deeper into his body. Ligaments and muscle tissue cover the surrounding surface of the parking lot, but I am nowhere near finished.

“Shebeggedyou to stop.” I’m snarling, stabbing the piece of meat in front of me, “She does not beg to anyone exceptme.”

Skirting the knife under his kneecap, I start slashing the tendons holding everything together. The screams finally come to a stop when the man falls unconscious, the loss of blood finally surpassing his bodily functions.

His body is nothing more than a dismembered carcass when I finally come up for air. My concept of time has long since evaporated from my mind, as has my need for rational thought.

It should be concerning, the blood dripping from my hair onto my face, and yet I find myself relishing in the sensation.

Absorbing the man’s blood until it bleeds into the red haze pulled over my eyes.

The knife is slick with bodily fluids, so I wipe it clean on my dress pants. They have not fared much better than my shirt, equally soaked and partially torn from the fight the man tried and failed to put up against me.

For the first time in my life, I did not approach a situation with my mind. It was downright animalistic, the way I grabbed him by the throat and threw him to the ground. Not a single thought drifted through my mind before I started cutting off layers of his skin, removing every piece that had the audacity to touch my little saint.

I felt completely, irrationallyalive. And yet, I was unable to enjoy the flood of sensations given the excruciating pain that detonated inside my chest.

My self-preservation kicks back in when I finally stagger to my feet. Tucking the knife back inside my pocket, I find my hands shaking uncontrollably as the rush of adrenalin drains from my body.

It takes three tries to get my fingers to grip the car handle properly. I keep waiting for the numbness to sink back in, for logic to take over my body once more, but it refuses to cooperate.

Letting out a growl, I wrap both hands around the door handle and rip it open. A small figure lays curled up in the backseat, matted red hair covering the soft edges of her face.

Dark stains bloom across the leather seats, covering the area where her legs rest. I am covered in another man’s blood, yet it is the sight of her ripped skirt and bloodied legs that stops me in my tracks.

He made her fuckingbleed.

Melody shifts, peering up at me through a curtain of hair. Her bloodshot eyes make a terrible accessory to her ensemble, and I find myself wanting to kill the man all over again.

Except start by removing all his vital organs.

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