4. Scarlett

I watchthe Wolf saunter out of the apartment, that cocky swagger burning into my retinas. As soon as the door clicks shut behind her, and her footsteps fade, I head back into the bathroom, where my facade shatters.

“Stupid! Useless!” I slap my hands across my face, back and forth, punishing myself viciously for my pathetic weakness. Crimson blooms on the skin of my mirror self, a twisted parody of the aroused flush Lyssa had brought to my face just moments ago as she brought me to a mind-blowing orgasm.

Sex can be a weapon.

I thought I would be capable of wielding it against Lyssa. But she turned it against me.

Howcould I have faltered so disgracefully? I had the Wolf in my trap, naked and vulnerable. The scissors were there on the side of the sink where I could reach them from the shower, just waiting for me to drive them deep into her temple—into her neck—into her heart.

“Grandmother will punish you,” I hiss at my reflection, “and you deserve it.” I strike my cheek hard again. The bright sting dies too fast, though, and visions of Lyssa’s powerful, battle-scarred body rise up again.

She’s so beautiful and strong and terrifying. No wonder I fell to my knees for her…

I whirl around from the mirror, unable to even look at myself now. “You’re just a stupid, weak little girl playing at being a warrior.”

All that work down the drain. All that carefully gathered intel. All those Syndicate members killed in an effort to draw out the Wolf, and when I finally did…I fucked up.

Fucked her.

Sex can be a weapon.

Grandmother has told me that time and time again, urging me to use any and every tool I needed to in my hunt to kill the Wolf, but my body betrayed me.

My mind did, too. The second the Wolf kissed me, all the rage inside me just…

Died down.

And that’s fatal. If I don’t hold on to my anger, I won’t ever get justice for Adam.

This cannot happen again. I’ve remade myself since Adam’s murder, forged myself into a weapon in the hellfire of Grandmother’s house. And it was all with one purpose: to deliver justice.

To kill the Wolf.

But my mind drifts treacherously back to the shower. The scorching press of her body against mine. The hungry intensity blazing in those unreadable brown eyes as she ran her hands over me, making me arch into her touch. The way we seemed to fit like pieces of a cosmic puzzle snapping perfectly into place…

I snatch up that pair of scissors I should have cut her open with in the shower, the cold steel biting into my palm as a vision takes lurid shape behind my eyes. It would have been so easy to end Lyssa’s miserable existence for good. One neat stab and twist, one shocking gush of hot crimson…and the Wolf’s life would have drained away with the shower water.

I replay the twisted fantasy in vivid detail, stoking my rage, making each iteration more depraved than the last. At its macabre climax, I imagine standing over Lyssa’s lifeless husk as it gurgles its last ragged breath...

I gasp, jolted from the waking nightmare as a burning line blossoms across my palm. The metal scissors clatter to the floor as reality slaps me across the face this time, instead of my own hand.

What have I become?

The violence and the bloodshed…it’s rotting me from the inside out, stripping away all those ideals and convictions I once held so dear. I was going to be a surgeon, working to ease suffering.

Not this twisted monster I’ve been warped into.

I hurl the scissors across the room. They crash into the tiled wall with a clatter, then fall to the floor.

I’ve come too far now. I can’t go back, and I can’t lose myself completely. Not yet. Not while Adam’s death remains unanswered. I have to be stronger than my base urges and stronger than the darkness festering within me.

Because if I let it continue consuming me…I’ll be just like her. Like Lyssa. An unfeeling killer, devoid of humanity or mercy. And it’s not just me who thinks that; the Sokolovs were more than ready to assume Lyssa killed their buddy Yuri, even though he was Syndicate himself.

Killing Yuri turned out to be a useful move, even though it shook me up. His eager, smiling help when I asked him to walk me back to my car…

He didn’t even see the switchblade stiletto. Probably didn’t even feel it. It was in his heart before he would have had time, and he was dead before he hit the ground.

Just like Adam.

The next morning, I report for my shift at the cafe job I took for cover while I watched Lyssa from afar. She never comes in here. None of the Syndicate members do. But it’s close to the hotel where they’re staying, the Empire Grand, which Grandmother tells me is owned by the Bianchi Family of New York. I’m wearing a brittle, plastered-on smile as I try vainly to lose myself in simple routine. For a little while, it works—preparing drinks, chatting with regulars, and basking in the simple, low-stakes dramas of my coworkers.

It’s all so…normal. So far removed from the bloodstained shadows of last night. Of my real life, these days. A stark contrast that occasionally lets me pretend to be the happy, well-adjusted young woman I wish I could be.

But it’s a paper-thin front. It only takes one comment, one disrespectful insult, to tear my composure into confetti.

“Hey sweet thing, how about pouring me some of that special service with a smile?”

The words are crude but commonplace. Just another dirtbag who can’t keep his caveman urges in check. Normally I’d ignore it. Flip him the bird, even, or tell him to watch it.

But distorted rage rips through my vision. All I can see is the customer’s punchable face and imagine my fist in it.

The plastic pitcher handle creaks ominously in my white-knuckled grip as fury blots out all reason. I picture launching the scalding hot coffee into this pig’s yellow-toothed grin, blinding him with boiling liquid before silencing his anguished howls with a well-timed slice to the neck. His cries choking off; his hands clawing uselessly at his gushing throat…

A lurch of my gut wrenches me back to reality just in time. Bile surges up and I slam down the pitcher and mutter an excuse to my co-worker.

I barely make it to the bathroom in time, retching violently into the toilet. I heave until there’s nothing left but stomach acid, cold sweat drenching my clammy skin. And then I flush the mess away just like the vestiges of my former life, the sweet, hopeful persona I used to inhabit.

What’s happening to me?

These all-consuming violent impulses, this desperate thirst for destruction and cruelty…these must be what Lyssa feels all the time.

I never used to be this way. Grandmother’s merciless indoctrination has reworked my soul into something I don’t recognize. I’m becoming a beast governed by hate and the primitive urge to tear, to kill, to destroy.

Just like the Wolf.

And that’s what you wanted, I remind myself. That’s the point of all this.

I cut myself off from the rest of humanity so that I could focus on nothing but justice. I don’t see my parents anymore. A few years ago, I gave up visiting them when they said my rage scared them, tried to push me to therapy.

Therapy isn’t going to get justice for Adam.

Dragging myself to the chipped sink, I splash icy handfuls of water into my face. The wild-eyed woman staring back seems more unhinged stranger than familiar friend these days. I’m changing from the inside out in permanent, fundamental ways. The flimsy veneer of civilian life is fraying at the seams as Grandmother’s ruthless influence seeps into my existence.

I swallow hard against the sick resurgence of doubt and indecision. I can’t afford this weakness. Not after I already messed up last night with Lyssa. And not while the thirst for justice still burns in me.

Styx Syndicate blood is the only thing that can put out the fire.

Adam’s lifeless form flashes white-hot behind my eyes. It’s the only way I remember him these days. All the happy times are gone, lost to those final moments.

No.

Even if it costs me everything, I will bring justice to the woman they call the Wolf.

And it’s time to stop clinging on to any notions of normalcy. I took this job because I thought it might give me an advantage over my enemies, or at least give me a good reason to be hanging around the Empire Grand. But it’s become a security blanket, a place I can pretend to be normal. A place I can pretend to be the me I used to be.

It’s time to put such childish dreams aside. I return to the counter and give my immediate notice, ignoring the shocked looks of my co-workers as I pull off the apron around my waist.

On my way out of the cafe, I pause long enough to slap the jerk who insulted me across the face, and then smile when he threatens to sue.

“You don’t want to fuck with me,” I tell him, using the same intense tone Lyssa used when she walked into the bar last night and made a group of drunk lechers scatter away from me. He cringes away from me in a very satisfying way, and the fear in his face warms my heart.

I head out of the cafe and walk back to the dummy apartment I took Lyssa to last night, where I stack away all the textbooks I was using as props. Like the cafe job, holding onto my old studies, pretending I was still a medical student, was only holding me back.

No more. My only focus now is justice.

I pull out my latest burner phone, and a few taps later, a tracking app reveals a solitary arrowhead sitting pretty at the Empire Grand hotel.

There she is.

All I have to do now is wait and watch…

And follow.