The Mercenary and the Mortician (The Silent Hollow #1)

99. Cal Walker

M y consciousness came back in phases.

The first thing I became aware of was the fact that my hands were tied behind my back. I groaned as I shifted in what felt like a steel chair. I felt like my ankles were tied to the legs, limiting my mobility even further.

“Ah. You’re awake.”

I knew that voice. It was the voice that whispered to me every night in my nightmares. It was a voice I never thought I would hear again.

“Damian,” I croaked, rolling my head up from where it had been lolling against my chest.

I was in a concrete room again, though there was no bathtub in sight. Just me, Damian, and this fucking chair.

A single light hung from the ceiling, flickering slightly in the dank space, casting eerie shadows across the face of my captor.

A face that was barely recognizable anymore.

Damian was no longer the strikingly handsome man that I had known nearly my entire life. He was horrifically scarred.

His thick, chestnut hair was gone. Instead, his head was all puckered, burned skin, likely courtesy of my grenade.

His entire face looked like a barely healed burn, and if it weren’t for those scorching whiskey eyes, I would have never been able to pick him out in a crowd.

I snorted.

“You look like shit.” I grinned, and his eyes flashed with rage, but he didn’t retaliate. He simply remained where he was, staring at me with a look that promised pain.

“You have been very, very bad, Callum.” He finally said, his voice dripping with hatred.

I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t afraid of him. If I died here, so be it. I was done bowing to him; he no longer controlled me.

Looking at him now, he was just a shell of the man he had been before. I no longer felt that pull to obey.

“I’m not afraid of you, Damian, so you can cut the fucking act.”

“You’re not afraid of me, Callum?” he whispered, and I met his gaze head-on, feeling the darkness I’d worked so hard to suppress take me over.

“No, Damian. I’m not afraid of you. You’re nothing I haven’t seen before. You’re just another monster.”

He narrowed his eyes at me and licked his scarred lips.

“Shouldn’t you be afraid of monsters, Mr. Walker?” His voice was soft, dangerous.

Did he not realize that he was the one who had taught me how to hunt people like him?

I was the thing the monsters were afraid of.

I let out a dark laugh, holding his gaze.

“Have you forgotten, Damian?” I gave him a slow, murderous smile. “I’m a monster too.” I looked him up and down, clocking all the ways I could kill him. Most of them didn’t even require a weapon. “And I’m a much scarier monster than you.”

This time. I would watch him die. I wouldn’t leave his side until he took his last rattling breath and his heart stopped in his chest.

I would watch the fucking light leave his eyes.

A slow, deadly smile spread across Damian’s face.

“Hmm,” he said, walking slowly toward me. He rested his palms on his knees and brought his hideous face close enough to mine that I could feel his breath dance across my lips.

“I wonder if Naomi would agree?” he purred, and my vision went red.