Page 142 of Stutter

Jonas nodded. “Initiates stalk someone, make them disappear without a trace, hold them hostage here for five days, no food, just a bag of IV fluids. And on the fifth day, they hunt them,” He nodded towards the thick trees we’re in, trees that go into the property and beyond. “While the Elders watch the hunt from the terrace. But like the Syndicate, they take back the body with ID so they can be identified. You still have to get away with murder.”

“That’s barbaric.” Maverick spits.

“I know.”

“Your mother came from that?” I ask.

Jonas nods. “Always said the Syndicate chapter was the best of all the chapters. Kill someone, and make sure the body is found. No extra.”

I couldn’t imagine it - didn’twantto imagine it. Not my little bird in someone else’s cage being prepared for slaughter. I swallowed down the bile that rose in my throat and pulled out my phone again only to stare down at a dot that hadn’t moved in days.

I wasn’t allowing myself to feel hopeless or for any negative thoughts to cross my mind. I couldn’t. We had gone through too much for it to end like this.

I wouldn’t allow it to end like this.

There is no end to us.

Not now, not in fifteen or even thirty years.

Not even in death will we ever part.

I only allowed myself to simmer in my anger, watching and waiting for our perfect moment.

It was Ivan who brought us silencers for our guns, and although Maverick explained they were still loud, they just suppressed the noise enough, that we still took them. And it was Ivan that went through the hole we finally created in the brick wall, stayed behind, and closed it up enough while we trekked through the wooded area. But it was Jonas who took down the first guard, grabbed him, pulled out a knife from his pocket, and sliced through his jugular.

I grabbed the second and followed in his execution. No remorse even when the blood poured down my forearm, hot and sticky.

We dragged the bodies back to the tree line and left them in heaps.

It was me that found vines that led up to the terrace strong enough for us to climb. It was dark when we landed with soft thuds and it was Maverick that was able to quickly pick the fucking lock as we entered what seemed to be the office, bloody and exhausted, but we were in.

As we traveled through the house which seemed like it had over fifty fucking rooms, we stacked bodies, each kill becoming easier, and more precise, knowing we only had a few rounds of ammunition in our pockets. The more we slayed upstairs, the less we would have to downstairs.

But then we were spotted and all hell broke fucking loose. I’d never been in even a range of gunfire and soon we were all too hyper-aware of everyone and everything. The blood, the ringing in my ears, the matter on the walls. Bullets grazed my arms, my ear, Maverick and Jonas, and even Ivan shouting “Shit!” every now and then told me I’d have more than my own wounds to stitch up.

It was the last man, and Ivan had the last bullet. He didn’t even hesitate to shoot him at close range between the eyes. Jonas and I dragged him by the feet away from the matter-splattered door he was guarding, then opened the door, running down the steps in quick succession, to find my little love, my life, my killer beauty, already straddling Prescott.

I saw her visibly relax when she felt our presence and let out a soft sob when she heard my voice.

But it was as though something else had overtaken her, possessed her. I’d never watched her kill before and it was such a swift thing. So fucking graceful in her execution even though I had pumped the man full of whatever was in those vials. When she put on that mask, I knew… I knew he had known for a while who she was and what she was doing – exacting her pound of flesh.

I have so many questions but now isn’t the time.

She stirs in my arms, just as Ivan’s van drives over a bump, her hand fists my shirt. Although she was wet and in a clean hospital gown, it doesn’t take away that she smells different. Her jasmine and berries scent is gone, the hospital gown smells sterilized, and I know she’s coming down from something.

I kept the vials.

I’m going to have them tested in a lab as soon as we get home. All I pray for is that she doesn’t regress.

That Jonas can bring her out of it, be her light in the dark again.

That she trusts Maverick’s form of torture.

That she lets me love her the way she deserves.

“Daddy,” she rasps, caramel eyes fluttering open.

Maverick and Jonas jump at the sound, facing her quickly. The back of my eyes burn at her voice. I scrub my hand down my face when the tear flows. “Yes, Amourette.”

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