Page 91 of Reaper Flame

“Can I?” I asked. “Everything I touch and everyone I care about gets ripped away. What if I lose control? What if I losemyself?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “And you’re not doing this alone. You have all of us, and I can help you. I can help you direct the pain and channel it into something bigger. Something powerful. Something you can control.”

“How?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m going to take you into the ring with me.”

“But you said you’d never go in the ring again…”

After what happened when he was in school, Vixen once told me he’d promised to never step into one again.

His blue eyes met mine. “We’ll face our fears together.”

“You’d really do that for me?” I asked.

“I’d do anything for you,” he promised. “But first, you need to sleep.”

I sighed. “Hand me the fucking pills.”

If West could face his fear for me, I would do this for him. Or, at least I thought I could…

TWENTY

I’m back on the yacht. Thick gray clouds roll in overhead. I look for something to pull around my bare shoulders.

“Looking for something?”

Hiram’s cold cackle rings out over the ocean waves, but I see nothing. He is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

A scuffle ensues behind me.

I spin around.

“What were you expecting, Kitty?” Hiram asks. “For me to let you go?”

Q dangles over the railings. He tries to resist, but Hiram’s grip on him is too strong. He screams for help, but I can’t move. Hiram holds his favorite machete in his other hand.

I want to run, but my legs don’t work. I’m rooted to the spot. I open my mouth to yell, but nothing comes out. I look down and realize blood has soaked through my dress. It’s everywhere: down my chin, arms, hair, between my toes...

I reach for my mouth. There is nothing there.

“What’s wrong, Kitty?” Hiram laughs like a maniac. He pulls a fleshy lump from his pocket and throws it overboard. “Cat got your tongue?”

Q’s terrified empty stare pierces my own. His eyes plead for help. He opens his mouth to speak, but Hiram slams the machete into his neck. Not once. Twice. Three times. It takes four strikes to sever his head from his body.

Hiram turns to me, holding Q’s head by his sandy hair, and throws it into the waves as Q’s body falls at his feet. A sea of red coats the yacht deck, which Q had once taken pride in.

Hiram advances and says, “I’m coming for you next, Kitten.”

* * *

“C?!” Rocky could be on another planet judging by how far away his voice sounded. “Can you hear me? Her eyelids just fluttered!”

“How many pills did you give her, West?” Zander scolded. “She’s been out for twenty hours.”

West mumbled a response, but it was too difficult to make out.

My eyes snapped open, and I sat up so quickly it made me dizzy. To an onlooker, I could have come out of a fucking exorcism. My heart pounded hard, like it wanted to escape my ribcage.

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