Page 59 of Assassin's Game
I punched the down button at the elevator and waited for the door to open, struggling to breathe.In. Out. In. Out.Closing my eyes only made my lungs tighter. There was no hard-rock band in the corridor where I waited, and yet every second beat like a damn drum in my head.Boom. Boom. Boom.The hall closed in behind me, the darkness creeping closer.
Stealing my space, fucking with my mind.
Every thought became a struggle. Every throb of my heart punched gaping holes through my ribs.
A punishment. An accusation.
My fault. My fault. My fault.
The faintcrackof the doors opening before me could have been a shot going off. My body jerked hard with the shock, threatening to rip my tense muscles apart. I surged forward into the elevator, swung around, and nearly jammed my thumb, I hit the button for the bat cave so hard.
Get me out of here. Get me out now before I ruin anyone else.
Before I hurt Abby any worse than I already had.
Protecting her was my job, and yet, for the past two days, that gift had become a thousand-pound weight drowning me. My ability to keep her safe had dissolved into thin air. I’d sat by and watched, helpless, as the life in her eyes died with our baby.
Our baby.
I didn’t register that I’d thrown a punch until pain shot up my arm. A dent in the steel door of the elevator glared at me, proving I’d done it, but all I knew was the screaming in my knuckles and inside my head.
Nothing else. No fear, no grief, no guilt. Just the physical agony.
I needed more.
The basement was pitch-black. I didn’t turn on the lights, just crossed by memory and intuition through the computer area, past the couch my brothers and I had spent hours gaming on, and into the workout space taking up one corner at the far end. Straight to the shelves, where the sparring gloves waited, the ones I’d worn for so long they fit every bump in my hands like a second skin. I picked them up, brought them to my face, and smelled the scent of sweat and memories. Considered for a moment:do I or don’t I?
I replaced them on the shelf and turned to face the punching bag.
The first slam of my fist into the leather woke the pain in my knuckles, fingers, arm. A grim smile tugged at my lips even as I sucked back a gasp. The second punch wasn’t nearly as satisfying—no prior injury, not enough hurt. I grunted my displeasure even as I swung my leg out for a roundhouse kick. Power surged through every muscle, tendon, and bone, but it wasn’t what I wanted—I wanted more pain, and not finding it fueled a hunger for violence unlike anything I’d felt before.
Abby upstairs.
Abby in our bed, her fiery hair spread out on the pillow.
The shattered look in her eyes…
She’d have been better off if she never met me.
“You kill everything you touch.”That’s what I’d told my uncle, Amos, when I came back to this house and murdered him for killing my parents. But he wasn’t the only member of our family who destroyed everything he came in contact with. There’d only been two things I cared about in my adult life: my brothers and having Abby in my life. Owning my heart. And now…
You kill everything you touch.”
The bag swung wildly as I landed a savage side kick. It wasn’t enough. Not. Fucking. Enough!
With a quick twist I faced the shelves. Relief slammed into me when my fist struck the metal.
Finally.Finally.
Again.
A backfist got my left hand screaming almost as much as the right. A front punch and ridge hand added to the ugly chorus rising in my brain.
“It should have been me,” I whispered. Rasped. Another one-two combo dented the chest-high shelf as flames licked at my flesh.
“Give her what she needs. Not me. Her.”My Abby.Uppercuts—one, two, three, four—forced the dent to invert. Something snapped in one of my fingers.
“Bring back my child!” The words were yanked from my soul, each one punctuated by a hit. And then it wasn’t just my fingers breaking; it was something in my soul. Forget coordination. Forget the years of discipline I’d spent learning to fight against the best—a frenzy engulfed me. Black narrowed my already hampered sight as I attacked, the feel of bones smashing metal and skin slick with blood feeding the rage in every cell of my body. “Bring it back! I’ll go. Take me, but bring. It. Back!”
