34. X
34
X
SIX MONTHS LATER
I rapped my knuckles across the glossy, painted wood door and stared up at the McMansion Scythe apparently lived in. “So freaking fancy,” I murmured to myself, poking at the doorbell with a finger. And then a few more times because I liked the way it felt and the ding-dong it created somewhere deep in the house.
A woman opened the door and smiled at me, her long auburn hair pulled up in a messy ponytail with bits falling out of it. “Can I help you?”
“Can Scythe come out to play?”
The woman blinked. “Excuse me?”
Oops. Nearly gave away my entire hand too soon. “I meant is Scythe home?”
She squinted at me. “Does he know you?”
I grinned. “Of course! We’re BFFs. I’m X.”
Her face smoothed out in understanding. “Ah. The new friend from Grayson’s support group. He told us about you. Scythe! Door!”
A moment later, Scythe appeared. He kissed the woman on the cheek as she moved back inside the house, and he came out to stand on the doorstep, closing the door behind him. He held his hand out to me. “What are you doing here? Grayson need something?”
I slapped his palm with a grin. “Do you want to build a snowman?”
His eyebrows turned into one crinkly long caterpillar when he frowned at me. “A what? A snowman? It never snows here.”
“Come on, let’s go and play.”
He squinted at me. “You’re weirder than I am, you know?”
It was lucky I liked him. His lack of knowledge of Disney songs was truly upsetting. “Come on. Come out with me tonight. I know you want to. I’m only going to do a little killin’.” I pulled the knife from the holder on my hip and offered it to him.
He sighed. “Just a little, huh? I told you. I’m out of the game. I only come out of retirement for emergencies.”
Pfft. Details, details. “You say that but you’re looking at my knife like you want to marry it.”
Scythe’s gaze lingered on the shiny blade. “Just let me touch it. Just a bit.”
I dangled it just out of his reach and took a step back. “Come on. It’s not like we’re killing anyone who doesn’t deserve it. We’re cleaning the streets up. Making them a better place for all. This is a community service, Scythe!”
He sighed. “Don’t you have Whip or Torch or one of the other guys to go killing with? I’ve got kids who need bathing, floors that need vacuuming—”
“Entrails that need spilling…”
His gaze dipped to my knife again. He shook his head. “Vincent’s gonna kill me, but ah, fuck it. Okay, I’m in. I’m not killing anyone. I’ll just watch. Take the edge off. You have any idea how hard it is to just go cold turkey on this shit? Just let me make sure War and Nash are good for kid duty. We gonna be long? I might pick up dinner on the way home so no one has to cook.”
“I’ll have you home in two hours, tops. I won’t even make you do cleanup. You can just do all the stabby fun bits.”
Scythe clapped me on the shoulder. “Super generous of you. But like I said, I’m retired.”
“Mmm-hmm. If you say so.”
“Gimme five and I’ll meet you in the car.”
I hummed beneath my breath as I jogged back to my car and slid behind the steering wheel. While I waited, I pulled out the list of names Gray and Whip had authorized as targets.
Scythe got in beside me a second later, a glint of joy in his eyes. “That the list? Got anyone good in mind?”
I trailed my finger along the page. “Murderer, murderer, rapist, murderer…ooh! Serial murderer! Don’t get too many of those in Saint View.” I sniggered to myself. “Well, apart from me. And you. And Whip. Torch. Trigger. Ace. That guy I met in prison…shit, what was his name again?”
“Furlowe? You ever meet him?”
“Short with glasses?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“Good guy. I should tell him about Gray’s group when he gets out.”
“Pretty sure he’s doing five consecutive life sentences.”
“Oh. Right. Well, you snooze you lose.”
Scythe nodded and sat back in his seat. “So how do you like to work? It’s been a long time since I went out with anyone like this.”
“You normally work alone?”
He shrugged. “Used to work with my sister sometimes, before she shacked up with a guy.”
I crinkled my nose. “Got married and had kids?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I’m the one with all the ankle biters.”
“What’s that like?”
He grinned. “Pretty fucking sweet. You should try it.”
I winked at him. “More of a love ’em and leave ’em type.”
Even as I said the words, they didn’t quite sit right on my tongue. But I didn’t have much choice in the matter. I wasn’t like Scythe. I couldn’t just give this up. He might have gotten into this life because of some family thing he seemed to have going on.
I’d gotten into it because I had no other choice.
I couldn’t ignore the urges inside me. There was no negotiating with them. Only placating them with violence.
But Grayson’s group had shown me how to channel it in better ways. He hadn’t tried to make me stop. We all knew I couldn’t.
For that reason alone, I would never date a woman. Never let one sleep in my bed. I didn’t want to kill innocent people, especially women, but that meant keeping my distance from them.
Never being alone with one.
I could fuck one in the middle of Psychos. I wasn’t going to slit someone’s throat while they were riding my cock in a room full of people. But getting one alone? No. The temptation would be too great.
I thrust the list at Scythe, trying to keep a grip on the bloodlust that had crept up on me earlier in the day and hadn’t eased up. “I don’t care which one we go for. You’re the guest. Your choice. Just no women.”
He nodded slowly, his gaze wandering down the page. “Okay. Any other rules I need to know about?”
I shook my head, concentrating on the road. “Nope. Oh wait. No killing innocents. And no witnesses. It’s Gray’s one rule. If we get there, and there’s someone else in the house, then we leave and come back some other time.”
“Or we go hit up a different target on the list?”
I grinned at him. “It’s like we share one brain.”
Scythe screwed up his face. “I already share mine with someone, so I’d prefer if we didn’t.”
I chuckled as he directed me to the target’s house, and I parked the car right in the driveway, like I owned the place.
Scythe eyed me. “Bold.”
I reached between us into the back seat and pulled out an empty pizza box. “Less suspicious than parking on the street. This way the neighbors think I’m a friend.” I held up the pizza box. “Or the delivery driver. You coming?”
“Is there actually pizza in that? I’m starving.”
“Focus, Scythe.”
“Right. Sorry. You lead. I’ll follow.”
I nodded, and we both got out of the car. I sniggered at the glint of metal just barely poking out of Scythe’s sleeve. It was the same place I liked to keep my knife as well. I pressed my wrist against the edge of the pizza box, and the steel of my blade touched cold to my skin, reassuring me I hadn’t left it at home.
That had only happened one time, and Whip still gave me shit about it. He was such an asshole. It could have happened to anyone.
Scythe stayed back, sticking to the shadows and out of sight of the doors and windows. While I walked up to the door, channeling my inner pizza delivery guy. I hit the doorbell with the corner of the box.
The door opened, and I recognized the target instantly. Paul Jeddersen. Forty-two. Well known on the streets for abducting and raping women, even though the police could never get him for more than a misdemeanor. The guy was slick, clean, never leaving behind enough evidence to convict.
My skin crawled just at the sight of his clean-cut, suburban dad getup. It was the look that had fooled all his victims into trusting him.
I held the box toward him. “Someone call for a pizza?”
He shook his head. “No. Wrong address.”
I pretended to peer down at my phone. “Paul Jeddersen. 1258 Olympic Drive?”
“That’s me, but I didn’t order the pizza.”
He went to close the door, but I shoved the box at him again, preventing him from shutting me out.
“Is there anyone else here who might have ordered it?”
Irritation crept into the man’s expression. “No. There isn’t. That’s definitely not mine. I don’t even like pizza, I’m lactose intolerant.”
“Oh damn, you are? That sucks so much. Cheese is the best. Like, it’s actually my favorite thing in the world. But it gives you the farts, huh? Or the squirts?”
Behind me, Scythe chuckled softly.
Paul shook his head. “What?”
“Not eating dairy is a crime, Paul. One you just admitted you are guilty of.”
The man spluttered, clearly flustered. “Like I told you, that pizza isn’t mine. Leave now or I’m calling the police.”
I dropped the box, and the game, wedging my foot in the door. “Well, that’s rude.” I glanced over my shoulder at Scythe. “Isn’t that rude?”
“Very unhospitable.”
“Agreed. Aren’t you going to invite us in, Paul?”
Paul’s fear flickered in his eyes. “Who are you?”
The bloodlust inside me surged, pleased by the scent of fear in the air. I dropped my mouth open in mock outrage, playing with him. “First you don’t offer us any cheese. And now you don’t even know my name?” I tutted beneath my breath as I pushed my way into the room. “But I know yours. And it’s not because you ordered pizza, Pauly. Little secret? I already ate that whole thing. And it didn’t make me shit myself.”
“This is the weirdest killing I’ve ever been to,” Scythe murmured behind my back. “I don’t know if I’m hungry or ready to vomit.”
But my gaze was too set on Paul to pay Scythe any attention. The red haze the bloodlust stirred up spread through my body, rushing on my breath, priming each of my muscles for the fight and the release I so desperately needed.
But Paul caught his words. His gaze darted between the two of us, and he put his hands up. “I didn’t do anything! I swear! I’m innocent!”
I fucking hated when they lied. I dropped the knife down my sleeve and wrapped my fingers around the handle. “You’ve got one chance to tell us the truth. Admit what you did.”
He backed up, knocking over a lamp that went crashing to the floor. “Fine! I did it! I abducted those women. Killed them. I can’t help it. It’s not my fault!”
I knew all about urges that weren’t my fault.
Didn’t mean I felt sorry for this prick.
Paul kept babbling. “They were just so tempting. All pretty hair and tits and ass. So easy to manipulate and control.”
His hand drifted to his crotch and rubbed it.
“Oh, fuck off,” Scythe muttered. “Definitely not hungry anymore. Gag.”
Neither was I. There was a reason I never killed women, even though some of them on the list more than deserved it, like Gray’s wife and her sister had. The red haze swamped me, conjuring up images of Paul’s victims’ last moments, trapped and hurt, screaming for their lives, their fear palpable in the air. My heart pounded. In front of me, Paul’s image morphed into someone else.
Someone I’d spent a lifetime wanting to kill.
The knife was in his gut before I knew what was happening. Over and over, I plunged it deep into his stomach, his hot blood spurting everywhere, covering my clothes, but I didn’t care. It had been too long since I’d seen the flow of crimson coating my blade, pooling on the floor around my victim.
I couldn’t stop. My knife had a mind of its own, desperately needing to be used. Each slice of his skin was a rush. Each new wound retribution for every life he’d destroyed.
Blood coated my hands. My clothes. My face. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Not until the bloodlust had been satiated.
But it never would be. Not fully. I knew that. Killing quieted it for a little while. But it would come back. It always did.
“X!”
I froze with my knife in the air, mid-strike, and glanced over my shoulder at Scythe. My mouth dropped open. “I’m so sorry! Did you change your mind?”
Paul, full of stab wounds, was very much dead on the floor at my feet. I cringed but held the knife out to Scythe with a sheepish grin anyway. “Want to have a turn?”
But his gaze didn’t meet mine. He was focused on something just over my shoulder. “So…we have a problem…”
I spun around to follow his line of sight.
A set of eyes stared back at me. Big, blue, terrified eyes, rimmed with dark lashes. Matted blond hair stuck to her face, and ripped clothes exposed her curvy body.
As well as the damage Paul had done to it.
The red haze that demanded blood switched on a dime and demanded something a whole lot different. Lust surged through me at the sight of her full tits and pink lips.
She backed up until she was in the corner of the kitchen, a knife block just to her left.
Her gaze darted to it.
So did mine.
She’d seen everything we’d done. I couldn’t let her just walk away. But I couldn’t just kill an innocent either. Which category did she fall into? Was she a witness I needed to get rid of? Or an innocent I needed to spare?
Grayson’s rules were so confusing!
The woman grabbed a knife from the block and hurled it in our direction.
Scythe and I stared as the sharp blade sailed between us.
The woman screamed, plucking another knife and sending it our way.
Scythe and I scattered. Knives continued to fly.
“Oooh, I fucked up,” I shouted to Scythe. “Didn’t I? What the hell am I going to do now?”
Sharpened steel sailed past him, just an inch from his head. “Duck?”