Adrien #2
“There you are,” I murmur, checking his hands first. No weapon. I still search him quickly and remove the handgun tucked under his jacket, sliding it into my waistband.
I grab him under his arms and drag him out of the wreckage, just to have some more space to do this properly. He’s heavier than I expected, not strong-heavy, just dead weight, fat, and soaked in blood. I pull him clear of the vehicle and let him drop onto the dirt.
He groans, barely conscious. For a moment I just stand there, breathing hard above him, feeling the adrenaline settle into something colder.
Was it really this simple?
All that myth. All that fear orbiting his name. The illusion of untouchable power built on money, influence, and the quiet violence of other people doing his dirty work. The abstract greatness surrounding him.
Strip away the entourage, the politics, the network, and he’s just flesh that bruises the same and bleeds the same as the rest of us.
Suddenly, standing above his limp body, I realize he only seemed untouchable because no one ever dared to try. He’s really not that hard to kill.
So here we are. I tried.
My vision turns tinted, as if someone poured diluted blood over the world. Everything goes crimson red. The edges of things darken. Sound recedes into something distant and underwater.
And then I’m gone.
I don’t feel the transition. I haven’t decided to let it happen. I just drop into that familiar trench where thought gets replaced by instinct and instinct turns to action.
I find myself drowning in violence once again.
All the ways this vileness under me ruined my life, Kasien’s life, and Natalya’s life flash in front of my eyes, driving the urge to tear his flesh apart.
The memories all detonate at once. The ruined years. The manipulation. The slow corrosion of everything we were. Kasien forced to survive it. Natalya forced to endure it. The suffocating reach of this man’s shadow stretching over all of us like rot.
I don’t think much. I grab a fistful of his white hair and yank his head back. His eyes flutter open for half a second, confused and disbelieving—
“Wait,” he wheezes.
For a millisecond, I stop mid-movement, the thought of letting him try and stop me flashes through me. But I don’t let it change anything. I want this to end and I don’t care what he has for me.
I slam his face forward into the shattered window frame of the Rover.
The first impact is dull and heavy. The second one is sharper, leaving blood and pieces of skin hanging on the glass.
By the third, there’s no resistance left in his neck, just slack weight and a wet sound as skin splits against broken edges.
Shards drag through his face with each strike, carving, opening, rearranging him, tearing his face away with every hit.
Yet it doesn’t feel enough.
When he’s unrecognizable, I let him drop to the gravel only to follow him down.
I drop to my knees and my hands close around his throat—not squeezing yet, just holding, feeling the fragile pulse beneath my thumbs.
Then I lift his head and smash his skull against the ground.
Gravel embeds into torn flesh. Blood sprays outward in dark arcs that stain my sleeves and my hands.
The sound becomes a rhythm, bone against stone.
Breath leaves him in guttural bursts that grow weaker each time.
But I still see it. Every ruined moment and every consequence.
It still isn’t enough. I finally have him in my hands and there’s too much revenge to take for all of us.
My muscles burn and my forearms tremble from the force of it. Somewhere in the back of my mind there’s a voice trying to form words, trying to calculate something—time, risk, or reality around me—but it can’t reach me. I’m too far under.
Then, faintly, as if my ears are switching back on after being submerged, a distant wail pierces through the fog—sirens.
At first they blend into the ringing in my skull. Then they sharpen, multiply, grow louder, until I realize they are far closer than I think.
The world snaps back all at once.
I’m kneeling in the dirt, my hands are soaked and old Lucien’s head is nothing but ruined bone and pulp against the gravel.
The sirens are right behind me, not wailing somewhere far.
I realize I’m not alone anymore. I freeze.
Then I hear it—a high, tearing scream that slices through everything.
No. Fuck no. That’s my banshee.
What is she doing here?
I lift my head and see her for only a few seconds in the distance, her body straining forward, her face twisted in horror, not at him, but at me.
Kas grabs her around the waist and forces her back toward the car. She fights him, screaming my name, the sound breaking into something feral before the door slams and muffles her. The car pulls away and is gone in seconds.
Cold metal presses into the back of my neck, a couple of boots orbiting around me, together with loud screams commanding me to put my hands up over and over again until I do so.
How long was I down there? How deep did I go? Did I really not hear them until now?
How much did she see?
Oh God.
I lift my hands slowly, almost curiously, watching thick drops of blood fall from my fingers onto the dirt below. As soon as I lift them behind my head, metal clamps around one wrist with a violent snap.
I’m yanked backward so hard my balance disappears. Someone drags me up and before I can stabilize, my legs are kicked out from under me and I’m driven forward, my face smashing into the ground with enough force to knock the air from my lungs.
Another cuff locks around my second wrist, leaving me completely locked, done, and arrested.
As I’m being dragged into a police car, I steal one more glance far ahead to see that they are gone, both my banshee and her brother. Then I look once more at the smashed body of old Devereaux and everything just settles in me with a final wave of relief.
He’s dead.
We’re done and they’re free.
Someone forces my head down and pushes me into the police car. Yet I can’t help but smile.
Because I did it.