Chapter 23 Reed
Reed
The howls are a drill to my skull, fucking my eardrums crazy. I don't know how many of them are chasing Cooper. Four? Six? A baker's dozen? It would take a miracle for him to survive that many of them.
I bring my gaze back to Louis and the poor excuse of a specimen next to him whose heart is still pounding—for now.
"Call them off," I snarl, rage burning in my words. I'm so close to fucking losing it. I can feel the primal fury building in my core, ready to explode my veins into bloody shrapnel.
Louis smirks, emboldened by a cry in the woods. "Or what, Quinn? You'll kill us? You're out of time. My boys are already peeling that pretty—"
I move my fist with the precision of a bullet, dropping the scalpel from my hand.
I don't need tools to be lethal.
My fingers, as strong as steel talons, slam into the hollow throat of the trembling brother beside him.
I feel the complex architecture of his larynx collapse under my assault, the thyroid cartilage splintering, the cricoid ring giving way with a sick, wet crunch that makes me smile inside like a murder suicide.
His eyes bulge, the whites gleaming with panic as he realizes his fate is sealed.
His mouth opens and closes, to no avail.
No gurgles, just dry rasps as he tries to breathe.
He drops to his knees, clawing at his neck as he slowly asphyxiates on the cold grass.
His airway has been reduced to a sack of shattered bone and torn tissue.
I let him wither away, as my eyes return to Louis whose smugness has melted into horror.
Louis's eyes dart from my face to his brother, who is now convulsing on the dirt as his body runs out of oxygen, gasping for the last breaths that won't perfuse in his lungs.
"You… you animal," Louis chokes out.
"An animal would have simply torn out his throat," I reply, my voice flat, stripped of all emotion.
Similar to how I deliver the grave news of a patient passing.
"I gave him time to appreciate the consequence of your arrogance.
Now, I am giving you a choice. You can either call back the rest of your rabid pack or you can end up like your brothers. "
He shakes his head, in a desperate plea. "They won't listen. They are too riled up. They won't stop until they have him."
"Then you are not an alpha," I state, as a verdict.
"You are a failed leader, and your only remaining purpose is to serve as my message.
" I take a step closer to him, his fingers trembling.
"I won't kill you quickly. I will perform a live dissection and you can be used to my sister's sick desires.
I will sever the nerves in your limbs so you cannot thrash, and I will remove your eyelids so you cannot look away.
You will watch as we induce simultaneous failure of your organs. "
The strength withers from his face, replaced with raw fear. "You're a doctor," he whispers as if that means anything to my mortal enemies.
"I am a Quinn," I correct him, offering him a sly smile. "Medicine is a hobby. We don't need the money. Butchery is our family's trade. You should know. We have been practicing on your family for the last couple of centuries."
He wobbles in his steps, his mouth unable to produce the words.
I step closer, kicking the daggers from his trembling hands, and closing my hands around his throat. I feel the rise of his pulse, puttering at the edge of free fall.
"Do you feel that?" I whisper into his rotten ear, my thumb resting on his carotid. "This is the rhythm of your life. I own it. I can stop it. Pause it. Bring you back to life as many times as your heart wants to be shocked, just to prove a point."
His eyes are wide, pupils dilated, as the reek of his body odor whiffs into my nostrils. His stench would normally be overwhelming, a stench I would scrub from my skin for hours.
But I would do anything for Cooper. I would bathe in this filth. Even ruin my sense of smell for eternity if it meant ensuring his safety.
"You are no longer a man, you are my instrument. If you don't call your dogs back, I'll castrate you myself and make you eat your own testicles. Do you understand?" I squeeze my hands tighter around his throat, as his lungs begin to panic.
A low, pathetic whimper escapes him. The sound of a man who never deserved to lead anything in his life.
"Now," I command. "Whistle for your dogs. Before your balls are stuffed down your throat."
His Adam's apple bobs against my hands, a desperate attempt to swallow his decapitated pride.
"Let go of my…. throat," he rasps, his hands fluttering.
I relieve an ounce of pressure, allowing him to fully breathe. "I don't care how you do it," I snarl, leaning in close enough to touch his nose. "Whistle, scream, beg. But make the sound that calls them back. Now."
He draws a ragged gasp and then the sound comes. It's not the confident call of a hunter. It's a broken warble, a sad sound that a baby chicken in distress calls out for its mother. It barely makes it to the trees.
He tries again, this time with more force, the notes cracking through the silence of the night—high, low, high. A dying bird singing its own funeral hymn.
For a lengthy moment, there is only silence. Then, from the East, a single, reluctant whisper answers. Then another. The recall of a hunt.
My grip tightens on his throat, a visceral reaction to the impending moment of truth. The true test begins now.
"If a single hair is touched on his body," I snarl, watching his eyes bulge, the capillaries in the white beginning to strain. "Every one of you is dead. We will hunt you to extinction. Like we should have done. Your nature is traitorous. Once a traitor, always a traitor."
I can feel the tremors running through his body, vibrations of pure fear. The forest is too quiet. Every second is one too many. I count them in my head, each second is a lifetime, each one a terrible, stretching distance away from Cooper.
One. A branch cracks. My neck snaps toward the sound, every muscle pulsing with tension.
Two. The wind rattles the canopy.
Three. Louis whimpers, his throat gagging for air.
Four. Five. Six.
I can feel the control slipping from my being. The thin veneer of my humanity, the one that has been carefully constructed suture by suture, is peeling back to reveal the primordial beast beneath. The Quinn. The Gutter. The killer that doesn't negotiate.
Seven.
A shadow emerges from the tree line. Then another. They appear like wraiths, their appearances slowly coming to fruition. Four of them. Their eyes, gleaming with a feral hunger, fixed on their master in between my hands.
They have returned but there is no blonde hair to be spotted.
My heart lurches in my chest and then plummets, a boulder dropped into the void of my gut. My head spins like the world is ending. My discipline shatters from his absence.
Where is he?
Louis feels the anger tremoring into his neck, allowing a momentary lapse in pressure. He dares a choked, gurgling laugh. "Told you… Quinn… too late."
The sound of his voice, the tiny glint of triumph in his strained pupils, ignites the fury of the killer.
A roar tears from throat, a raw, inhuman bellow that rips through the forest. It's the cry of a predator that has lost it's reason for existing. The Gutter is here.
I snap Louis's neck, ravaging the pitiful resistance that he manages.
My hands become instruments of pure annihilation.
Twisting with instinct. I allow the savage beast inside to guide me.
I feel the vertebrae crack, cartilage pulp under my thumbs, the trachea collapses with a rasp.
His body seizes once, a final, pathetic tremor, before I hurl the lifeless carcass away from me as if its nothing more than offal.
The four Baptistes freeze for a second, their feral glee wiped away by the sheer, unrestrained horror of what they've just witnessed.
"Who's next?" I seethe, the words like fire from my mouth.
They look at one another in panic.
I raise my fist in the air, signaling to the twins. Two darts swoosh past my shoulders, embedding in the necks of two of the Baptistes. Their eyes roll in their skull before they can process the sting, collapsing into unconscious heaps on the grass.
The remaining two spin, their last thread of confidence shattered.
My attention locks onto the giant, a mountain of a man probably over seven feet tall. I take a heavy step forward, my voice resuming its bedside manner.
"You," I say, my eyes scanning him like he's a freak of nature. "The brachiocephalic vein in your neck is about two inches wide. A spectacular target. If I sever it, you'll lose consciousness in under ten seconds. You'll drown in your own blood before you hit the ground."
I take another step forward, clinging to the scalpel in my pocket.
"Or, I could target the femoral artery in your groin. Less immediate. You'd have about ninety seconds. Plenty of time to watch your life pour out onto these thirsty blades of grass."
I stop, within inches of his neck, his eyes frozen.
"Where is he?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper. "Answer, and I'll grant you a ninety-second head start."
I allow a moment of silence, as his pants fill the air.
"Choose now. My scalpel is impatient."
The giant's eyes dart from my face to the solo comrade that is still conscious, then behind me where my sisters remain hidden. A wet patch blooms around his groin. The stench of fresh urine makes my nostrils twitch. The autonomic nervous system, overloading. The body betraying the mind.
His last ounce of defiant valor dissolves with a whimper. His massive shoulders slump.
"He… he's in the river," he blurts out, the words tripping over each other. "The crazy blonde bastard jumped. Off the bluff. I was this close…" He holds up a trembling hand, fingers curved like a claw. "…and he just… jumped. No hesitation. Just launched himself into the dark."