Page 44 of The Serpent's Bride
They all decided to abandon her with the monster who planned to rape her and then likelymurderher. When she stopped struggling, though, he let down his guard. And before he could defile her, she snatched the knife from his hand and drove it up into his skull from under his jaw.
She would never, ever forget that moment. The look of panic and pain in his eyes that slowly turned glossy and dim as the life fled his body. The way his blood poured from the wound and covered her hand, her arm, and her clothes.
The warmth of it felt almost like an embrace.
It… hadn’t bothered her.
Oh, she was upset that she’d been attacked.
But the death? The killing? The blood? She expected to feel something—to cry, to weep, to panic—anything. But it…wasnothing.If anything, she found it vaguely fascinating.
She felt far worse when she had to kill ajibbabeast on a hunting trip with her father. She still didn’t know what that said about her. But it had been an innocent animal, it had just been trying to live. The man had been a bastard.
But that had been her firstkilling.Not her firstmurder.That came several years later. Generally, one doesn’t decide to go into being an assassin outright. Generally, one starts by getting good at murder andthenmaking a career of it.
In her case, it was all Betty’s fault. Betty also ran a bar in the slums in the lower areas of the metropolis, which was a front for all of her…extracurricular work. And Nadi had taken a job waiting tables and pouring drinks. She was good at her job, and she got along with the regulars.
But, like all seedy places, there was competition. And Betty’s extracurricular work—like smuggling drugs, gambling, or the like—had drawn notice from rival gangs. When one of the boys from a rival gang had taken a shine to Nadi, Betty had paid her to quietly dispose of the lad in the canal.
Nadi couldn’t remember the young man’s name. But she remembered his face. His kind smile. Never mind the fact that he had also killed or murdered dozens of people in his life. She had taken her knife and stabbed him to death before rolling his corpse into the canal.
Betty had paid her handsomely. Nadi saw more money in one night of work than she had in ayeartending bar or waiting tables. So, when Betty wanted to hire her again? She said yes.
And again, became again, became again. The deaths blurred together. She couldn’t remember them all. Only the ones that went really smoothly, paid really well, or went absolutely to shit.
But, slowly, little by little, it became…normal.
Was it ever okay to murder someone?
Was it everrighteous?Was it everjustice?Sure, the people Nadi killed were usually murderers and monsters in their own right.
But how bad did a person have to be, to make themurderjust akilling?When did it become an execution of a convict, and not a black mark on the person delivering death?
Where was the line?
Was there one?
The thoughts and memories swirled as she started to come to. She was lying on her side, curled half into a ball. There was movement underneath her. Her hands were tied behind her back with something scratchy—probably cheap rope.
She couldn’t see anything. Her breath was hot and close, and she smelled something musty and a little like straw, maybe? She had a bag over her head. And she believed she was in the trunk of an automobile.
Great.
Just fucking great.
Whoever it was who had crashed the party had taken “Monica” hostage. Either to get Raziel todosomething, or to start carving pieces of her off and sending them to him in the post.
There was no point in trying to pay attention to which way the car was going. She had been out for long enough that she couldn’t track the movements of the vehicle if she tried. So, shelay there, and stayed calm. Besides, the metropolis was gigantic. Not only was it enormous in footprint, but it was layers of buildings stacked on top of each other, with roadways on top of roadways on top of roadways. There was no way in the void of knowing where they were.
The car drove for what seemed like an hour before it finally came to a stop. When the trunk opened, Nadi could hear that wherever they were, the walls were close by the way the sound of the click bounced off the walls. Interesting. She couldn’t smell anything through the hood she was wearing, so any other hints were useless.
Hands grabbed her under the armpits and hefted her out of the trunk, setting her onto her bare feet. Her shoes were gone—also interesting. The floor beneath her was smooth gravel. Her hands were still lashed behind her back, and if it weren’t for whoever it was standing next to her, she likely would have eaten said gravel.
“Can you walk?” a man next to her asked.
Testing her ankles with an experimental roll, she nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good.” The man wasn’t much for small talk, but neither was he particularly rough with her. He could be shoving her around or barking orders. Instead, he hadaskedher the question, and had waited for her to test her joints and give him an answer before urging her to walk forward.
