Chapter 17 #4
“You don’t understand what you’re messing with,” he rasps, blood leaking onto the table. “They are everywhere.”
Cassidy steps closer until the blade rests lightly beneath his chin.
I watch her cautiously from across the poker table.
The blood on her skin doesn’t make me cringe.
The bloodlust in her eyes doesn’t scare me, I know none of this was born from cruelty.
It was born from survival, from grief, and from everything that was stolen from her long before tonight.
And maybe that’s the most frightening part.
She looks at the trafficker the same way the storm looks at this house as though destruction is inevitable.
“You should’ve stayed afraid you psychotic bastard,” Cassidy sneers.
The trafficker breaks the facade then, since he knows he isn’t leaving this room alive.
He lets out a maniacal laugh glaring at her, “You think you’re different? You’re just like me.”
Cassidy tilts her head, eyes steady. “No.”
He scoffs. “You enjoy it. I can see it.”
“I enjoy ending men like you.”
He huffs out a jab, “You’re still a monster.”
Cassidy closes the distance, voice low. “Monsters hurt the innocent,” then she bends inches from his face and smiles widely, still holding the knife under his chin, “I hunt them.”
She takes the back handle of her knife and with all her strength she strikes him across the jaw.
She studies him for a long moment, unreadable.
He’s sobbing and begging now, totally deranged, probably from the blood loss.
I stand up and take my place beside Cassidy, resting a hand lightly against her wrist.
Not stopping her but keeping her tethered to me for one final second.
Her breathing stabilizes.
Then she turns her head in my direction, eyes hollowed out by rage and heartbreak.
“Don’t leave my side,” she pants.
The words hit me with a quiet kind of ruin I wasn’t prepared for.
My fingers clench around her wrist.
“Never.”
Then Cassidy faces the trafficker head on.
And somewhere beyond the storm, something inside this world begins bleeding back.
Ugly, broken sobs rip through him while the poker table creaks beneath his weight.
“Please,” he pleads for his pathetic life.
Cassidy doesn’t waver.
She propels the knife through his chin with a sickening noise; he dies immediately and blood spews down her hand.
Then she extracts the knife, and his head lands on the table with a dull thud.
I observe her attentively as she stands over the table breathing hard, peering at him.
Outside, the storm continues tearing through Keytown.
Bodies surround us.
The smell of blood and rain cling to the air.
Cassidy’s eyes meet mine and she really looks at me. Pressure clamps behind my ribs at the expression on her face.
She looks exhausted from carrying this kind of rage.
I reach for her and when my hand touches her jaw, her eyes flutter closed.
Clawing her way back to where I am.
I know the nightmares she wakes up from.
And I know she would’ve burned the entire world down tonight if it meant saving even one girl from becoming what they tried to turn her into.
“Are you still with me?” I ask her.
Her eyes open slowly.
“Partly.”
I brush my thumb under her eye, wiping away rainwater mixed with someone else’s blood.
“We’re leaving,” I tell her tactfully. “Before this place turns into a crime scene.”
She lets out a humorless laugh
“I’m pretty sure it already is.”
Despite everything, my mouth almost twitches.
The actualization that tonight uncovered something far bigger than one livestream and house hidden in Keytown.
Cassidy glances toward the dead trafficker one final time.
“Do you think he was telling the truth?”
“About being afraid?” I ask.
She inclines her head.
I stare off through the broken window and exhale.
“Yeah. I do.”
Thunder rolls through the house again.
Cassidy takes another breath before securing the knife back into place under her jacket and then removes the other two from his calves.
Then she reaches for my hand, not because she needs saving but because after everything tonight, she still chooses me to stand beside her in the dark.
I lace my fingers through hers.
Together we step over shattered glass and bodies as we head to the front door.
Rain drenches us and the property looks even more haunted now.
I peer back once at the glowing windows before leading Cassidy to our SUV.
After we pile in, before I turn it on, I sit back.
Somewhere deep inside me, I already know this ends with blood and the kind of damage you never come back from. But I asked her anyway.
“Are you ready to go back to Florida?”
Cassidy is quiet and then she shakes her head, “No. I’m not done here yet.”
Florida means going back to the men who destroyed her life. Back to graves that were never filled and names that keep her awake at night.
And worse than all of that is, Marie and Sofie are still missing.
Somewhere out there, her friends are still trapped in the dark and Cassidy isn’t walking away from that. Not until she finds them. Not until every person responsible for taking them is bleeding at her feet.
I press the ignition button and pull away from the overhang of the trees back onto the road and head to the designated drop spot for the cleanup crew.