Epilogue Alaya

EPILOGUE: ALAYA

Ever since I was a little girl, there's always been something about the sweet sickly smell of gun smoke that's made me feel alive, secure, exhilarated. As I got older, it turned into something else.

It got me hot.

Bothered.

It's always a sickening sort of feeling right before I fire.

Every time, an aura kinda takes over my brain, almost like deja vu, but all in a rush of images, smells, tastes. Like memories I've forgotten or something left over from a dream that I can't quite put my finger on.

It makes my breathing fast, like hyperventilating, and my eyes flutter.

Mama always told me it was seizures in my head. Nothing they could do about it.

So, I savor them, even though they make me feel sad, like I lost a precious memory. That's nothing new to me, though.

I've lost everything over and over again in my life.

Daddy.

Mama.

June and Carpenter.

Every time the feeling stops, my head clears. That's when I pull the trigger.

Usually, it's a mad dash right after, but when I can, I linger. Lie there. Inhale the smoke. Think long and hard on the life I took.

I've had a gun in my hand since I was five and Daddy took me out hunting. My first kill was a buck. Then a bear. When I was ten, he ordered me to shoot a trespasser.

I didn't flinch.

Killing has always been our way of life.

The shot rings out like music around me, even through the plugs, and I sigh, sucking in the bluish curl that rises up, twirling around the muzzle. I let the stock sit against my shoulder for a bit longer, feel the grit of the stone and dirt under me while I lie prone on the cliffside.

I check back through the sights one last time, watching the long-haired girl fall. The older one in the gold dress is down. Mission accomplished. Single shot. Saved a round.

Orders were specific on this one.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I break my own rules.

Two birds.

And after all these years, it sits pretty damn well with me to see it done. The last traces of Damon ‘Demon' Michaels are finally erased from the world. It was never enough to get the job of tracking him down, taking him out.

I needed to wipe the slate clean.

Full circle.

Because I deal in absolutes.

I always have. Whether in love or work. Everything or nothing.

This job marks the closing of that door.

It also happened to open another door, a blessed opportunity I never thought I'd have the chance to fulfill. After a decade of false leads and cold trails, I found him.

My final chapter, and my first, in a way.

I cannot wait to see him.

To see the look on Gavin Rorshak's face when I put a bullet in his head.

The story continues in Hell and High Water (Sanctum Harbour Sinners Book 3).