Page 39 of Passion and Payback

“Why would you need that kind of information? And why would you need all that information on a front and back loaded program to ensure the searches aren’t traced back to you?”

“It does sound suspicious when you put it like that.”

Kai took a deep breath, leaning forward to put the can of Pringles on the table in front of the couch. “Are you…thinking of going after the other three?”

I stared at him, remembering when we were growing up and how people had treated him. They had seen this big kid who didn’t talk much, who only grew to be bigger and still didn’t talk all that much. They’d seen his muscles and strong features and didn’t hear his voice, so they automatically assumed he was stupid. And, like then, he was sitting near me and proving exactly how wrong those people were. This man wassmart.

I slid the computer onto the table as well and sighed. “I’m just looking.”

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. “Hunter?—”

“Don’t, okay?” I said with a huff, flinging myself back onto the couch and crossing my arms over my middle. “I know, alright? It’s an awful thing to consider. It’s taking the law into my own hands. It’s getting more blood on my hands and tainting my soul, and so on and so forth.”

I couldn’t say that trying to find those three and kill them would be something I was even capable of. It was one thing to be cornered in an alley by one of the four who proved to be a threat to my life. It was something else entirely to hunt down three people and end their lives.

And yet?—

Yet a part of me had woken up that night and hadn’t gone back to sleep. The part of me that could still feel their hands on me, feel theminside me. The part that wouldn’t let me forgethow they had raped me while my love had been dying only feet away. The part of me that had rumbled and stirred under every bit of misery, terror, and sorrow. Now, it had crawled from the pit it had been locked away in my whole life and was hungry.

It wanted me to continue what I had accidentally started last night. Those four men had grown into bigger-than-life monsters when, in reality, they were just the regular kind of monsters. And now I wanted to become a monster slayer.

He let out a soft little laugh. “Those are all the things I should be saying to you. I know that.”

“Should be?”

“Should be.”

“But you’re not.”

He sighed heavily. “I’m sure you haven’t forgotten the story I told you about the village and the informant.”

“What, is this where I should say you should point out that there’s a difference between you and me? Or that you were in the military in some foreign place, surrounded by enemies, and I’m not?”

“You could.”

“Would it make a difference?”

“I don’t know.”

Kai sighed deeply and leaned back on the couch as well. I couldn’t help but smile when his orange shadow appeared and jumped in his lap, and Kai absently placed his hand into the cat’s fur and rubbed gently. “It’s…I don’t know how to say this?—”

“So just say it and quit trying to find the right way.”

“It’s more that I just…there’s so many things going on in my head I’m finding it impossible to explain everything. It would just be a mish-mash of words and ideas, and none of it would make sense.”

“I know the feeling. I felt like that for two years. Every time I wanted to talk about it, I found myself stumbling in my head and falling flat on my face.”

“How’d you fix it?”

“Funnily enough, it was talking to you.”

“What’d I do?”

“Exist.”

He stilled for a moment, and a complicated flurry of emotions passed through his eyes. It wasn’t quite the intensity I’d seen on the dance floor at the weekend, but it was certainly burning. I’d never had him look at me like he was unbelievably touched by what I said and simultaneously wanted to press me into the couch.

“Are you…planning on doing anything anytime soon?” he asked me softly.

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