Page 110 of Destined By Dragonblood
I strode forward, put my beast’s fire to good use, and stepped into the small room beyond.
A single light bulb dangled from the ceiling.
I flipped the switch on the outside wall.
Brilliant white coated the walls, but the room gave off a non-innocent air of staleness. Pristine sheets stretched tight over the mattress laying atop a metal frame bolted to the cement floor in the corner, and images of a young Ashley tied down and held against her will flooded my vision.
I bit my tongue, hands fisted at my sides as a flare of heat burst through my guts.
A worn box sat against the wall to my right.
My inner beast growled, suspicion raising the hairs on my arms.
Did the fucker keep trinkets? Memories to fill his filthy mind for when he needed to get off hours after preaching to a congregation who believed he walked on water?
I couldn’t bear the thought of touching such filth. Refused to allow my skin contact with anything of his.
But if I wanted proof to ease my conscience for what I was about to do…
I elongated a single claw, preferring bone rather than flesh to rip into the box the pedophile’s hands had touched.
Pictures spilled out across the floor.
Old grainy snapshots of a young girl bound on the bed behind me sat atop a stack of magazines.
Evil.
Simmering in agreement, I shifted the pile of photos, sliding them along the floor to reach those beneath. Dozens of images of the female lay before me, a few of a second even younger girl at the bottom. I didn’t doubt the man upstairs was Ashley’s abuser, but a few more flicks of my claw through the box’s content didn’t offer the pictures I’d expected to see.
Standing, I strode from the room and made for the stairs.
The man’s heavy breaths sounded back through the hallway once I reached the main floor, the keyboard clicking having gone quiet.
I crept through the kitchen toward his office and stopped in the doorway. Slouched with his back toward me, the man huddled over an old PC. My insides burned, the need to send the supposed man of God up in flames raging through me. While my ancestors killed humans without reason, I’d yet to take a life.
Tonight would be my first.
I lusted to hear his screams, watch his skin sizzle and blacken, his mouth gaping open until the flesh melted from his bones for what he’d done to those girls.
Swallowing back a snarl, I moved closer to the unaware man.
He sighed and sank into his chair, allowing me to clearly see over his shoulder.
An image of Ashley filled the computer’s monitor and not from when she’d been a child.
She huddled in her winter coat, exiting the door of Tolzman Industries.
The fucker had been following her.
Cold eyes.
My roar caused her stalker to shoot upright and spin, knocking over his chair. Hands clasped over his ears, eyes wide, he scanned the room behind him.
Voice lowering to a growl, I shimmered into existence.
He screamed like one of the little girls he’d abused.
And I made sure he lived long enough to shriek again as I burned the house of sin down around him.
