Chapter 7

W hy do I have the worst luck? The girl with the gun is the same girl from the parking lot. If I didn't have my mask on, she'd see the recognition all over my face.

Where was this spunk when her piece-of-shit boyfriend knocked her to the ground earlier? Maybe she ended up getting rid of him and doing a bit of reckless killing on her own. Regardless, I won't shoot this woman if I can avoid it. She's been through enough as it is, though she doesn't look nearly as helpless now as she did this morning. She looks terrifying. Like she should be dressed up and on our side.

I go for my pistol, but she moves the barrel from Adam to me. It's fucking hot. But it's also a little scary. Fire licks within her dark irises, as if killing us will solve some age-old curse upon her.

This is not how this night is supposed to go. They aren't supposed to have the upper hand. Ever. They're sheep for slaughter. But not this girl. She appears to be a wolf in sheepskin.

"Let's talk about this," I say, raising my hands.

"No." She lowers the pistol a bit as she speaks. "I don't want to talk about it. I've talked about it enough."

Maybe she'll speed up the process and kill me now. I fucked up at that house we just came from. I left the daughter alive, and that will get back to the elders. It was an unfinished job, unworthy of the bloody streak across their name, and I'll certainly have to pay for it.

Movement catches my attention, and I see that Adam decided to take a chance when he saw her lower the barrel a bit. He catches her beneath her arms, and they fight for the pistol as they drop to the ground. He rolls on top of her, pinning her body beneath his, then rips the pistol from her and flings it out of reach.

"No, let me go, asshole!" she yells.

A smirk creeps across my face, and I wish she could see it, but if she looked hard enough, she'd see just how hard she makes me. Watching her strain and writhe beneath him isn't helping. But then I hear a belt coming undone and the brush of denim as he tries to pull her jeans down her ass.

Well, fuck.

I didn't want to watch him assault that lady, and I don't want to watch him assault this one. Especially since my body seems to have laid a claim on her already. I look beyond them. It's a great time to escape them both.

But then my eyes find hers. She looks up at me with eyes that beg for me to do something. Anything. I run over to them, my actions fueled by her whimpers.

Again, I could run. I should run. This bitch will draw a gun on me the moment she's free. But I sigh, draw my arm back, and send the ice pick into Adam's spine. He's still squirming, so I pull it out and drive it in twice more. It's a quick way to end his assault, but I don't know who I'm doing this for. Is it so that I can escape or so that I can save the girl?

His legs go flaccid, and he falls forward onto her. He desperately tries to scoot away with his arms, dragging them along the rough cobblestones, but he only pulls himself further up her body. He raises his hand to rip off his mask, but it falls beside him.

Blood rises and flows in a cascade from his lower lip to her bare forearms. I must have nicked his lung when I drove the ice pick into his back the second or third time. She whines with an almost annoyed sound that makes me chuckle as Adam flails like a fish on top of her.

Sorry this is such an inconvenience, pretty girl.

"Get this fuck off me!" she squeals beneath him.

I pull the ice pick out of his back, spilling more blood as I kick him off her. The moment he's rolled over, I see that her panties and jeans are down to her upper thighs. I don't know if he actually got to her or not. Either way, it was too close.

I catch myself staring at the curve of her exposed ass as she rushes to pull up her pants. I step on her gun, then pick it up and put it beside mine before looking into Adam's widened eyes.

I've been in his shadow for a decade. He brought me to the party initially, and I became his made man. He owned me. And now I'm standing over his mortally wounded body. Again, this is not how this night was supposed to go.

"I know there will be an inside trial for me over this, but if I get sentenced to death, at least I took you with me," I say to him.

"Don't," he sputters.

I raise the ice pick, and as I arc for his head, the woman on the ground sits up on her knees, screaming for me to stay my hand.

"Let him suffer longer," she says, her eyes fixated on Adam. She's glowing over it.

I kill because I have to. Because it's my job. She's looking at it like it's a whole-ass hobby. Something enjoyable. Even so, it makes me stop mid-swing, and I lower the ice pick to my side.

I balance the pick between my fingers and hold it toward the girl. "Do you want the honors?"

This is stupid. I'm being stupid. But I have a gun. Two of them, actually. I reach over and take the pistol from Adam, and that makes three ballistic weapons against a measly ice pick.

Her eyes leap to mine before landing on the bloodied weapon in my hand. She's drooling over the prospect. There's such a desire in her eyes that I think she'd suck my dick for the chance to kill Adam.

I'm tempted to ask.

Instead, I toss the weapon toward her. She grabs it by the handle and looks at me as she stands up, as if she fears I'll rescind my offer at any moment. I won't. I like how she skulks over to him like some predator that's just learning she has the teeth and claws to kill. She's already killed, but that man was suffering. He was innocent. This is different.

"What's your name?" I ask before she can kill him. I should have asked her in the parking lot, but I didn't. Now I want to know what this beautiful beast is called.

"Why does it matter?"

"If I were him, I'd sure like to know the name of the woman about to end my life."

"He'll learn my name in hell. And so will you!" she says. "Call me your karma."

She raises the ice pick and stabs it into his left hand, then the right. Adam's screams rejuvenate the night. She stabs into his eye socket next, and the screams stop.

Now I need to figure out what I'll tell the others. Killing an elder is certain death.

Oh no, Adam and I were ambushed. He was killed.

The story works for me, but will it work for them? I'll find out soon enough.

I stare at the back of Miss Karma's head as I back away. When I've put some distance between us, I take off toward the car. I make it half a block before I'm speared to the ground, disoriented as fuck. There's no way the girl caught up to me, nor would she have the strength to take me out like this.

My side scrapes against the cobblestone pathway as we roll to the ground. I reach back for my pistol—any one of them—but a hand wraps around my wrist and presses my arm against my back, holding me in place. The hold reminds me of something. The police? They'd never. The Exodus has a wide berth of immunity and protection.

So who the fuck has me? And why?