37. The Shadow

THE SHADOW

I t gave me way too much pleasure to tie Dr. Vale up to the chair he’d tied Ava in.

Call me King of Karma.

The Devil of Retribution.

Or maybe I just liked the way he cried out in pain as I pulled the knots too tight, cutting off the circulation from his hands.

“P-please,” he whimpered as I circled him, his face bloody, one eye swollen shut, the other pupil following me.

Ava sat in Dr. Vale’s armchair, one leg crossed over the other, arms relaxed on the armrests, like she was a queen on a throne.

My dark queen.

And I would build her a throne of the bones of her enemies.

Starting with this evil fucker.

I planted my feet to face Dr. Vale and brandished the rusty bone saw taken from his bookshelf of antique medical instruments. “Such an ancient tool. It’d tear rather than cut, don’t you think? A painful way to die.”

I licked the flat of the rusty blade, the metallic tang sharp on my tongue.

Oh, the sweet irony of cutting him with his own pretentious display instruments.

Dr. Vale’s single eye opened so wide I saw the whites all around it, the pleasure his fear gave me rushing through my veins like cocaine.

“We’re going to ask you some questions, Dr. Vale,” I said, tracing the jagged edge with my finger like it were Ava’s skin. “And you’re going to answer them.”

“Ava!” Dr. Vale cried out, his attention turning to her. “Please, let me go.”

Ava flinched almost imperceptibly at the doctor’s desperate pleas.

But I saw it. I noticed everything about her.

For a moment I thought she might give in, might beg me to stop even before I’d started.

For a moment I didn’t think she had the stomach to let me torture him for the information she so sorely wanted.

But then Ava’s throat bobbed and steel slammed down in front of whatever emotion was left in her eyes.

“Answer his questions,” Ava said, her chin lifting, her voice steady and heavy. “Or I won’t be responsible for what sick, painful things he will do to you.”

Ava pinned her stare on me. She nodded, giving me her approval, letting me off my leash.

A dark grin pulled at the ends of my lips, I smiled so wide it almost hurt.

Good girl .

I would reward her for that later. But for now…

I turned back to the doctor and smiled at him, running the flat of the saw over his neck, trimming a few hairs of his beard and dislodging flecks of blood onto his shirt.

“Let me explain how this is going to work, good doctor.”

He let out a whimper and strained against his ropes.

It was useless, of course.

I knew how to tie a person up with no way of them escaping, even with such a flimsy rope as this.

It was all in the technique.

I kept tracing the rough edge of his bone saw down his shoulder, then down his arm, the jagged edge catching on his forearm hairs, making him wince. “For every second you hesitate to answer, there is a cut. For every question you don’t answer…”

I paused, letting the silence swell to make a point.

Then I traced the edge of the bone saw to his fingers, lining them up with his first knuckles closest to the tip of his fingers. “…I cut off a part of you, starting with your fingers. You’re right-handed, aren’t you, Doc?”

He curled his hands as best he could, trying to protect them.

If it were up to me, he’d already be missing half a hand. One of his ears and his cock.

But that would displease Ava.

Dr. Vale dared to look past me to Ava.

The piece of shite should have been kissing her feet.

Which, of course, I would have cut out his tongue for even trying to do.

“Ava, this is madness!” he pleaded, his features contorting as if he were an innocent. “Please, make him— ”

I grabbed him by the chin and wrenched his face away from her direction.

He yelped like I’d crushed his jaw. His jaw was already like a bruised melon; it’d be so easy to break it if I hadn’t already.

“You speak only to me,” I growled into his face. “You look only at me . Or I pull out your tongue with your antique pincers. Understand?”

He nodded as best he could with his lower jaw smushed into my hand.

“Good.”

I let go of his chin.

Dr. Vale slumped back, visible relief in the way his shoulders sagged.

Oh, good doctor. We’ve barely started.

I grabbed his right hand with my left, pressing it to the armrest, and positioned the saw’s edge at his pointer finger knuckle.

He began to struggle again, begging me not to.

“Hold still,” I said, holding his hand down. “I might accidentally cut them all off if you keep moving.”

Dr. Vale froze.

Smart man. He could read the threat behind my words.

Ava watched me from across the office. She straightened in her seat, her pupils blown wide-open, her eyes on me, her chest heaving.

She was afraid, yes.

But my little rabbit was excited, too.

I could see the way the way her nipples poked through her shirt and how she pressed her thighs together and squirmed in her seat .

My little rabbit could never hide from me.

This turned her on.

I turned back to the doctor and put the slightest bit of pressure on the saw against his finger, just enough for him to feel the threat of its edge, but not enough to draw blood.

“First question, Doctor, and remember the rules… Why did you switch the girls’ prescriptions to memory suppressors?”

Dr. Vale shook his head. “P-please, I can’t tell you.”

I dropped my head dramatically to my chest before letting out a loud tsk . “So disappointing, Doctor.”

I sliced across his finger, the saw tearing rather than cutting his flesh.

He screamed, a bloodcurdling noise. “No, stop!”

Blood ran from the cut in his finger, soaking into the armrest and dribbling over the sides.

I cut the saw down to the bone to make a point. “Only answers—and good answers—will make me stop.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, his head thrashing around as if he were trying to throw his consciousness out of his body.

I paused the saw, waiting for his response. I could hear Ava’s quickened breathing and small gasps over Dr. Vale’s sobs.

I glanced back to make sure she was okay.

She had leaned forward, her hands gripping the armrests so hard that her knuckles went white, his chest shuddering with her uneven breaths.

We locked gazes and her eyes widened, a kaleidoscope of emotions flashing across her eyes.

I understood.

There was a darkness in her and me—in all of us—that took pleasure in the suffering of those who had made others suffer.

A secret crevice in our souls that lived the most vicious of vigilantes.

It took a sick, demented individual to hurt innocents and take pleasure from it.

But hurting those who hurt others? Oh… that was a dusky potion filled with illicit pleasure.

It was a part we kept buried beneath the surface, pretending it didn’t exist.

But I knew better. I’d felt it, tasted it, that raw, primal need to hurt those who deserved it.

It wasn’t the same as being evil.

It wasn’t about chaos or cruelty for the sake of it.

It was about justice.

A justice that didn’t wait for the law to catch up, that didn’t care about moral lines drawn up by lawyers and politicians in suits. It was a savage primal justice.

There was a dark satisfaction in making someone who’d caused harm feel that same pain. A visceral thrill in being their judge, jury, and punisher.

But there was a difference between this and those who hurt the innocent for pleasure.

Men like Dr. Vale. Who used and abused and covered up their vile crimes.

He craved power over those weaker than him. He hurt because he enjoyed it.

I knew this. I’d struggled against my own morals after I’d killed my first bad man.

But Ava didn’t .

She hadn’t wrestled with her own morality and come out the other side. Not yet.

I frowned at her. Are you okay?

She nodded, just slightly, just for me.

We were in this together.

No matter how dark I became, no matter how much of the monster took over, she’d be there to pull me back.

She was my light.

I’d be her darkness. Her devil. Her shadow.

I turned back to the good doctor. “So?”

Dr. Vale didn’t look like he’d even heard me, muttering prayers under his breath.

I’m afraid even God can’t help you now.

No answer?

I shrugged. Well, okay then.

“I guess you don’t want your finger.” I pushed the saw the other way, the jagged edge grating against bone.

Dr. Vale let out an earsplitting scream. “Okay. Okay. I’ll tell you.”

I stopped the saw again.

“This better be good,” I muttered.

“I didn’t want to do it, I swear,” he cried out, spit and blood spluttering from his mouth. “I’m a doctor for God’s sake! I’m supposed to help people. But they threatened my family.”

Dr. Vale shuddered and then broke down in tears, snot dribbling out of his nostrils and mixing with blood.

“Who did?” Ava demanded from her throne.

When he cried and moaned instead of responding, I applied a little more pressure to the saw, making him cry out .

“Ava, please,” Dr. Vale begged.

“I asked you a question, Dr. Vale.” Ava’s voice was much darker than it was before. It made me want to bow before her and kiss her feet.

My dark queen.

“P-p-please,” Dr. Vale said, his arm trembling under my grip. “They’ll kill my family.”

“But I’ll kill you ,” I whispered. “And I’ll do it more slowly and painfully than they ever could.”

Dr. Vale shook his head. “I s-swear I don’t know who they are. They send men in masks. They make threats. Threaten my family. You have to understand, I had no choice.”

“And when Liath started to remember,” Ava said, her voice trembling. “You warned them, didn’t you?”

“Y-yes.”

“They took her because of you.”

He let out a long wail. “I’m s-sorry. I had no choice.”

“What did they do with her?” Ava asked, her voice hollow. “With Liath?”

Dr. Vale’s head dropped to his chest and he shook it.

He didn’t have to say it out loud.

Liath was dead.

I glanced over to Ava as she sank back into her chair, her face gone white and tears shining in her eyes.

Everything inside me twisted. The truth hit hard, like a punch to the gut, but what wrecked me wasn’t the loss itself—it was watching the light drain from her eyes as she realized her friend was gone.

Forever.

She’d already been too late when she found out Liath was missing.

I saw the exact second it shattered her, the way her body seemed to fold in on itself, like she was trying to disappear from the pain.

My chest ached, a sharp, unbearable tightness, as if I could feel her grief pouring into me, and all I wanted to do was take it from her.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t fix this.

There was nothing I could say that could ease the raw agony tearing through her. The helplessness cut deep, a knot in my gut that wouldn’t loosen, knowing that I couldn’t make it better.

All I could do was stand there, feeling her grief like it was my own.

All that was left was retribution. An eye for an eye. All that was left was justice.

I turned back to Dr. Vale. “It doesn’t matter if you were forced into it, you are the reason Liath is dead .”

He searched my eyes, his voice pleading. “W-what could I have done?”

“You could have lied to them. You could have warned Liath. You could have done something rather than led her to her death like a lamb to slaughter.” Anger spat from my lips, my chest feeling like it might explode, the fury too big for my body to contain.

I yanked the bone saw from his finger, catching it against the bone. I held the blood-dripping edge to his neck.

Dr. Vale was the reason Ava was grieving.

He had to pay .

The touch of Ava’s hand at my elbow was feather soft .

It was the only thing in the world that could have stopped me in that moment.

I turned to find Ava right beside me.

“That’s enough, Scáth,” she said softly.

Hearing this, Dr. Vale let out a sob, his entire body seeming to sag, “Thank you, Ava. Thank—”

“Shut up,” Ava scowled viciously at him. “I don’t care that you say you had no choice. Liath is dead because of you.”

The doctor let out a pitiful whimper but he had the sense to remain silent.

I dropped the bone saw at my feet so I could pull her into my arms.

“What do you want to do with him?” I asked her, ready to obey. “We can’t leave him alive. He’ll go to the police.”

Ava turned back to me. “But we can’t kill him.”

I smirked at her. “You can’t, but I can.”

Ava shook her head and pulled out her phone which had been recording all this time. “We’ll leave him alive with all the evidence we have for the police.”

I began to protest.

But Ava cut me off with a calm, steady voice. “But we won’t tell them where he is until we’re out of the country.”

I froze.

Did she just say what I thought she just said?

Licking my lips, I didn’t dare turn away from Ava’s fixed gaze, not even to blink, as I asked, “Did you say… when we were out of the country?”

She nodded.

“Leave him alive for the police…” she repeated, “…and I’ll leave with you. Right now.”

A small spark flickered inside me, warm and fragile, but enough to make me believe that maybe, just maybe, there was a place out of the shadows for me.

Ava was leaving with me. We’d run far away, so far that the darkness couldn’t reach us. We’d be happy .

I kissed her long and deep, running my hands over her, feeling the need to be inside her coursing through my veins again.

But this was not the time.

We had so much to do before I could make love to her over and over until she passed out from pleasure.

My body ached as I pulled away from her.

“Go home and pack,” I said to her. “But quickly. I’ll sort this out.”

Ava glanced up at me, her eyes darting between mine and the terrified doctor still in the chair.

“What are you going to do with him?” she asked.

I rolled my jaw as I looked at the man at my feet. Oh, how good it would be to kill him. To sate my bloodlust with his life force.

“Scáth?” Ava’s fingers brushed mine.

I blinked and met her imploring gaze.

But I made her a promise. And I would keep it.

I brushed a wayward strand of her dark hair from her face. “I’m going to stash Dr. Vale somewhere he won’t be able to escape. Then I’ll meet you at your place. One hour.”

Ava nodded as she relaxed against me.

“Alright,” Ava said. “One hour.”

I held back my exhale of relief. The tension in my shoulders burned like hot iron pokers.

I kissed her quickly once more. “Go. Stay out of sight. ”

Ava slipped past me toward the door, but I caught her wrist before she could leave.

She glanced back at me over her shoulder, her dark hair curtaining half her face. I could feel her quickened heartbeat against the soft, paper-thin skin of her inner wrist.

I squeezed her hand. “Promise me you won’t say goodbye to anyone. Not Ebony. Not even Lisa. No one can know we’re leaving. No one.”

“I promise,” Ava said quietly.

But she’d said it too quickly. Too submissively.

I suspected she was lying. I consider whether to push her.

She had to know how precarious our position was, balanced on a knife’s edge.

But Ava raised herself onto her toes and with her wrist still clutched in my grip, she kissed me.

The sweetness of her lips reminded me of my betrayal.

“Be careful,” I said as she left.

She smiled, and then the door clicked shut behind her.

I felt dirty. And I could no longer blame it on the doctor’s blood.

I knew who Dr. Vale was covering for. I knew Liath’s true abuser… had heard Liath say his name on the “insurance” tape.

I had meant to tell her.

But that was before she’d agreed to leave with me.

If I told her what I knew, she’d want to take him down. She’d stay.

The rotten tangle of roots that was Darkmoor would encircle her ankles once more.

This time I wasn’t sure I could prevent her from being pulled under the unsacred ground. If I told Ava the truth, if I gave her his name, I would lose her forever.

I knew if I told her, then she would want to stay, to make sure Liath’s abuser got justice.

I had to let Dr. Vale take the fall.

I could only hope that Ava never found out.

Because she’d never forgive me.