Chapter 35 Jonah - Past
thirty-five
Jonah - Past
HOUND AND RABBIT.
The light that streamed in on the other side of the door was unexpected and almost startling.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust again, and when they did, I saw what used to be an office of some kind with an old desk in the center.
The walls were covered in graffiti, broken furniture and books were thrown about, but my attention snapped to the three men waiting for us—Bates in the middle, leaning against the desk, and two others I didn’t recognize.
Bates looked unimpressed, and unsurprised, to see us here. His eyes landed on me only for a moment before they flicked to Henrik.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“Mmm… Ghost,” Henrik answered, and the two men I didn’t know stood up straighter, their eyes wide with the surprise I would have expected when they first saw us come in. Bates looked at me again, closer this time, my hand clenched tighter around the switchblade in my pocket.
“No. I remember you. You’re that fucker who tripped me.” He looked back at Henrik, brow furrowed in anger. “What the fuck is this?”
Henrik laughed. “You tripped him?”
“I’m here to get back what you took,” I said, heat building in my chest. Anger that always seemed to show whenever this fuckface was around, only hotter this time, because now I was here to do something about it.
Provided Henrik hadn’t brought me into a trap for his own amusement, which I still hadn’t ruled out.
“What did I take?” Mason stood to his full height, and I fucking hated that he was taller than me.
“You know what you took from him. I want it back. All of it.”
A smile pulled at Mason’s lips as he looked up at Henrik—up, because even if the bastard was a giant, Henrik was bigger.
“You heard the man. He wants back what you took,” Henrik answered, and I could hear the smile in his words.
“You told me to come here for this shit? To what? Hand over some fucking junk for some fucking cunt?”
I pulled the knife from my pocket, flicking it open. “Don’t fucking call him that.”
“What? Cunt? He is. Fucking cock-sucking bitch.”
The fire built, burning, blazing, too big to contain.
Mason’s eyes flicked to the knife and stayed there. “We had a deal, Kovats.”
“Mmm yes. But I made a better one.” Henrik’s hand landed on my shoulder as he pushed me forward. “Go on, little rabbit, show them your teeth. I’m right behind you.”
I stood taller. “Where the fuck is it?”
“Up your fucking ass.” Mason gestured toward us with his head and the two others stepped forward, fists raised and ready to fight.
The only person I’d ever fought was the man I was in love with, and even when I fought him, my fire burned for him in ways other than violence.
I’d longed for him even before I understood it.
This was different. Adrenaline pumped through my system, steadying my hand, because this was it.
The moment to prove myself or go down with nothing to show for it.
One of them, the smaller one, came for me, and the other went for Henrik. I raised my fists, one clenched around the knife. I swung at him the moment he was within reach, but he blocked the hit and followed it with his own to my gut, knocking the air out of me.
Pain to fuel the fire. I swung the other arm and nicked him with the knife.
A superficial cut that made him angrier rather than slowing him down.
He hit me again, and I raised my arm too slowly to block the force of the impact as he knocked my arm into my face and the inside of my cheek sliced open on my teeth. More pain. More fuel. More red.
He stepped forward to come for me again, but a muscled arm shot out, catching him around the neck and swiping him with inhuman force down to the concrete floor.
He gasped, the move stealing his ability to draw in a full breath.
Henrik stood in front of me, blocking my view.
I turned to see the man he’d been fighting, only to find his body crumpled on the floor as well.
Henrik didn’t even hesitate when he stepped forward and his boot slammed into the side of the guy’s head. Just like that, he was out. In seconds.
Mason pulled a knife, taking a fighting stance as he eyed up the demon in human skin between us. Then he rushed forward, blade first, aiming for Henrik’s gut. I jumped back as bodies collided, out of reach as limbs moved and struggled against each other. Mason grunted. Henrik smiled.
Red dripped onto the concrete. Fresh blood. Henrik’s.
His hand was holding the knife by the blade, fingers wrapped tightly around silver even as it cut into him. Using the hold on it, he wrenched the weapon from Mason’s hand and flung it across the room. It clattered against a wall, leaving a bloody splatter on impact.
“What the fuck are you?” Mason asked through gritted teeth.
Henrik replied, but his words weren’t in English, just a simple short phrase, then he was punching, blow after blow to Mason’s stomach, his face, until the man was stumbling backward, losing ground rapidly.
He fell into the desk behind him and Henrik kept hitting.
Fists a mix of both their blood. Wet smacks echoed through the cold, dilapidated room until Mason stopped moving.
Henrik wasn’t even sweating, not even an increase in his breathing. With the same amused smile on his lips, he stepped back from Mason’s bloodied form on the desk. I watched him until I saw the slight rise and fall of his chest. He was still breathing. Still alive. I was… disappointed by that.
“Knife.” Henrik spoke to me, and after a dazed moment, I handed it to him. He went back over to Mason and gestured for me to follow. I did. I didn’t know if my heart was beating too rapidly for me to feel it or if it had stopped entirely.
“There’s a tradition in my family,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to me or the barely conscious man on the desk. “When someone is a thief, they take something that doesn’t belong to them, so in return, we take something that does.”
Henrik reached for Mason’s bloody hand, laying it flat on the desk surface, and with no hesitation he ran the blade over Mason’s pinky finger.
A wet crunch and then Mason was conscious again, conscious and screaming, clutching his hand to his chest as his blood wept over his shirt.
His finger was still on the desk next to the knife until Henrik flicked it to the ground and kicked it away.
“Now I think maybe you will answer the question.” Henrik looked at me expectantly, but my mouth was dry, my words evaporated as I watched red continue to seep into Mason’s clothing.
“Remember what you came here for, Rabbit.” My eyes broke away from all the red and found Henrik.
He smiled and nodded toward Mason. “Why are we here?”
For Dex. This was all for Dex.
“Where’s the lighter?” I asked, my voice sounding far calmer than I expected it to be.
Mason only screamed.
“Where is the lighter?” Henrik repeated, speaking loudly into Mason’s ear as he gripped him by the hair. “Or I’ll take another finger.”
“Bag!” Mason sobbed. “In my bag!”
I looked around, spotting three bags against the wall.
I walked over to them, unzipping the closest one and spilling its contents over the ground.
There were a shocking number of weapons, but no lighter.
I emptied the second one, and among all the other things that scattered over the floor, silver glinted like a beacon.
The lighter. I looked through the other things, finding Dex’s phone, his keys, his wallet, quickly stashing them all into the safety of my pocket.
I’d done it. I got them back.
I couldn’t fight the smile as I looked at Henrik, who smiled back at me. “That’s it, smile. Show them your bloodied teeth. Maybe you aren’t a rabbit after all, hmm?”
There was a man holding his mutilated hand as he sobbed, and I was smiling. The realization sobered me, and the smile fell away as I walked back over to Henrik, to Mason. “What do we do now?”
Henrik held the knife out to me. “That’s up to you.”
I took it, staring down at the now bloodied blade. What do I do now?
I’d gotten what I came here for. It was done. Over. Except it wasn’t. Because Mason knew who I was, and I knew he’d want revenge on me after this… on Dex.
He glared at us, still clutching his hand to his chest protectively. “You’ll fucking pay for this,” he said, as if reading my thoughts. “You and your piece of shit fucking boyfriend. I’ll fucking make you pay. I’ll slit his fucking throat while you watch, you piece of shit fucking fa—”
I didn’t plan to do it, but he was threatening Dex, and I was holding the knife, and without conscious thought I moved, and it was so easy. The blade sank into flesh, a bit of resistance at first but then it just plunged in with barely any effort at all.
Mason stared down at the knife in his stomach, his uninjured hand slowly reaching for it. I let it go, taking a step backward.
Henrik rolled his eyes, slapping Mason’s hand away as he gripped the knife and yanked it free, plunged it in again, over and over until Mason slumped forward, his body falling gracelessly to the floor.
Then he walked over to the body of the man on the floor closest to him, repeating the action. More red. Red. Red. Red.
Then to the next.
“Y-you promised me vengeance,” the final man said, glaring up at Henrik through an eye almost swollen shut. “For my brother. You promised me Reaper.”
Henrik gave his face an affectionate pat. “Don’t worry, Mikhail, I’ll send him to you in hell, hmm? You get your vengeance there.” He plunged the knife into Mikhail’s gut, watching with what could only be described as fascination as the light left the man’s eyes and he slumped to the ground.
Bile rose in my throat. I hunched over, heaving, but before I could get out the acid that burned up my throat, a bloodied hand was clamped over my mouth. I struggled against Henrik’s hold but he wouldn’t budge, the vomit trapped in my mouth until I swallowed it back down.
“Can’t leave any traces of you at a crime scene, Bunny.”
I yanked away from him, frantically wiping at the blood that was now smeared over my face. “Your blood is fucking everywhere!” I told him, and he smiled.
“Allegedly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means don’t worry about me.”
“You… you just killed three people…”
“Allegedly.”
“I just fucking saw you do it!”
Henrik fucking laughed. “What did you think? We could just walk out, and they wouldn’t come for us afterward? Now they can’t. You got what you wanted, and now…” He gestured to the bodies. “Now they can’t take anything else. No? It’s a good thing.”
A good thing. I looked at Mason’s body, face down on the concrete. Endless red seeped out of him.
“Do… do we need to… hide the bodies?” I asked, my mind trying and failing to just fucking think.
“No,” Henrik said simply. “I’ll handle it.”
“What if people find them?”
“I said I’ll handle it.”
It was too much. Too much to process. Because of a decision I had made, three people were now dead.
But it wasn’t my fault, was it? Not really. I might have stabbed Mason, but I wasn’t the one to kill him. And he had been threatening Dex. If he hadn’t been stopped, he would have hurt him again or worse. There was no other way. Henrik killed him. He had to. This… this was a good thing.