Epilogue One #2
Turning away, I walked down the steps to join the rest of my team, the majority of them standing a safe distance from the house as it quickly became engulfed in flames.
The cries of the men reached new octaves as their flesh caught fire, floorboards from the second floor already collapsing overtop of them.
Some might have found the entire scene deeply disturbing, but it was music to my soul.
“I guess this makes us even now.”
I smirked as I approached one of my newest resources, reaching my hand out to grip hers. “Yes, now we’re even.”
“I didn’t realize you were still this bloodthirsty,” she commented as she shook my hand in kind.
“Oh, I’m always parched,” I replied with a wink. “Thanks for your help on this one. You’re one hell of a bounty hunter.”
Alexa, or better known as the “Alexacutioner”, smirked back at me from behind a short curtain of spiky black hair.
“Any time,” she affirmed. “Just call me whenever you’re feeling inadequate.”
“Ha-ha, will do. Take care of yourself, Alexa.”
“You too. See you around,” she said, then turned to climb onto the back of her dirt bike and sped off down the road.
Finding each other almost a year ago was a total coincidence, just crossing paths between stoplights in Vancouver. It was awkward at first, but then she recognized Jason when he helped her escape from that underground fight prison she was trapped in. And from there, the plotting began again.
Turning away from Alexa’s cloud of dust, I rejoined my team as they watched the house burn to the ground.
“We should have brought s’mores,” Derick snarked, causing a few team members to snort and chuckle.
“I don’t think the kerosene would make a very tasty flavor,” Romero commented.
Ignoring the jokes, I looked away from the fading screams toward the sounds of van doors sliding shut.
The last of the women and children we had rescued had been provided immediate medical care and were now on their way to a safe house.
There, they would begin the long rehabilitation journey as the recovery team would attempt to reconnect them with their families and provide any additional resources or services they might need.
As much as I hated myself for it, I refrained from interacting with them once they were secure.
I saw too much of myself in their defeated eyes, and it was difficult to reconcile the truth of our similarities.
Plus, I didn’t think it was a good idea to further traumatize them when I was happily covered in blood and looking deranged as shit.
No. It was best I stayed away from them. For now.
I watched the three vans drive away down the dirt road, kicking up a cloud of dust that would hopefully block out the horrific scene they were forever leaving behind.
A sense of relief overtook me, the feeling overwhelming in its significance of what had been done today.
Another mission completed—another piece of me laid to rest.
But it would never be enough. None of it would ever be enough.
When the job was finally done and everything was secure on our end, we left the sight behind for the local authorities to clean up.
Sitting next to Jason in the back seat of our designated van with Romero content behind the wheel, I leaned my head on his shoulder, the exhaustion from the day taking over. Camaro sat at my feet, her tongue hanging from her mouth as she yawned into a more comfortable position.
“You did good, Jaden,” Jason said as he touched his temple against mine.
I sighed, not in disagreement but in disappointment.
No matter how many human trafficking rings we burned down, another one always popped back up.
It was never-ending. The suffering was never-ending.
But as long as the blood lust ran through my veins, I would continue my reign of fire until nothing but piles of ash remained in my wake.
It was therapeutic in a way. It gave me the outlet I needed to exact my rage on those who deserved it. If I didn’t leave with literal blood on my hands then it was considered a slow day for me.
Glancing down, I looked over the dark crimson still drying on my forearm.
The stickiness of it clung to my skin, tightening across the rough scar from the wolf bite I sustained so many years ago in Alaska.
The rivulets streaked down to crust over my wrist where bold ink once tarnished my skin before I had it lasered away.
The pain of it helped break some of the chains that bound my body to the past, but not my mind.
Those chains were much more resilient than tattoo ink.
A larger hand, just as dirty as mine, gently laced warm fingers through my trembling ones, clutching tightly in a comforting embrace and grounding me back to the present.
Jason’s scarred knuckles fiddled with the blood-coated silver wedding band circling my left ring finger, reminding me of better times.
Five years had passed since I changed my status from victim to survivor to hunter.
A half decade of therapy couldn’t undo the mental damage Darren fucking Davis had inflicted on me, and I still struggled to this day with all my various diagnoses.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, amnesia, paranoia, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, the list went on.
But the most surprising was getting diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, formally known as multiple personality disorder.
At first, I had originally thought to panic about it, but DID wasn’t what most people believed it to be.
I wasn’t splitting into multiple different personalities like the movies often portrayed.
The severity of that was incredibly rare.
Only 5 percent of diagnosed people exhibited obvious switching between personalities.
And a lot of them didn’t even know they were switching.
After much thought and deliberation, it started to make a lot of sense to me once I finally accepted it. I had been through so much trauma that my brain had to do something to protect me. And this was its only solution.
When I switched, it was only into a stronger version of myself, an alter that could handle all the daily abuse and trauma, then compartmentalize it away for my own protection.
My therapist told me it was my only form of self-defense back then, a way for me to endure the life I had been forced to live for nearly four fucking years.
It was how I had survived for so long without going completely catatonic.
I never realized when it happened. I just felt myself harden inside like a brick wall so I could endure all the punches coming my way. And when it was over, I’d file it away like I did all the other moments I wanted to forget.
It started when Darren had kept me in the basement for all those weeks until I was a different person—broken beyond repair. But then I finally got a taste of the violence I didn’t know I needed, and suddenly, my shield was born.
I’d since learned to manage it better, but it had been a long and difficult road to merge myself somewhat back together with all the other disorders I was afflicted with.
There was no cure for DID, but I had learned to co-exist with both versions of myself in reasonable harmony under some very intense psychotherapy and proper medication.
Sometimes the switch came in handy, mostly on days like this where I would be faced with the horrid reminders of my past in the eyes of others. The only saving grace came from brutally murdering the tormentors of this trade and breaking the chains of their victims.
It took years to get to this point, though.
For a long time, I had been a danger to myself and to others. I’d almost killed Jason at least ten times from the never-ending night terrors I still dealt with. I ended up spending time in a psychiatric ward for a few weeks after a psychotic breakdown within the first six months of my freedom.
I tried to leave Jason so many times, worried I would actually kill him one day, convincing myself that he deserved so much better than my psycho ass. But he always dragged me back, refusing to abandon me and reinforcing the love and devotion I felt I didn’t deserve.
I had hated myself for so long.
I hated that I had dragged him into this disgusting world I still felt trapped in from time to time, turning him into some vengeful guardian angel I couldn’t shake.
I hated that he suffered from his own trauma, becoming a monster himself in order to save me from one.
It was why things had eventually worked out so well.
He was almost as fucked in the head as I was with everything he had to do to get me out, so tag-teaming the traffickers had been a practical solution that soothed both of our ragged beasts.
It was actually my therapist who finally suggested I join the tactical team Jason had to temporarily retire from to take care of me.
I had no practical use for all these tactical combat skills, so it gave me the chance to exercise them for some good for once.
Hunting down the traffickers gave me a new purpose and the ability to exact vengeance on several occasions.
Most of the time, we avoided partnering with the local police in the countries controlled by corruption. Those rescue missions allowed me to be as bloody as I needed to be. And I obviously left no survivors.
The past two years with the team had made a hell of a difference, but my therapist didn’t need to know the extent of my savagery. I had a feeling she suspected, though.
Vigilance was necessary in our trade. Since leaving the US, we’d been monitoring the aftereffects of an empire laid to waste.
With so many of the big players out of the game, thanks to my last-minute massacre, only small gangs had emerged from their ashes.
No one was sophisticated enough to take up the mantle like Darren had, and if anyone tried, we made sure they didn’t last very long.