54. FAREWELL

54

FAREWELL

YARA

H e’s smiling, Kat shouted in my head. He’s mocking you, mocking us.

He’s hiding something. I need to know how he knew me…

Just kill him already. He doesn’t deserve another moment on this earth, another breath of air.

She was right. “You’re making a mistake,” Logan spat, his eyes gleaming with a smug smile that made me want to gouge out his eyes.

I plunged my knife into his right eye, careful not to push it too far. Just enough, until he could feel the pain but not die. He couldn’t die yet. My demons leered in satisfaction as blood came pouring out of the wound.

His blood seeped in through the cracks in my soul, filling me up like nothing ever would.

I smiled, tears streaming down my cheeks as his broken screams filled the quiet morning air.

Everything was turning golden, and soon the place would come to life. He had to die before that.

“Don’t look at me with those eyes. It makes me very, very angry.”

“Fuck you, you pathetic—”

This was healing. This was meditation. Killing him would cage my demons for a while. Perhaps even longer than before.

“Ah, ah, hush now.” I yanked the knife from inside his eye socket, making sure not to be gentle. His right eye now looked like minced meat. “See. You’re not that strong now, are you?” I traced the knife down the track of tears with a giddy grin. “You’ll feel everything I’m going to do to you, Logan. Kat was my one good thing, and you took her from me.”

There was nothing in this world, in this place, except Logan and the screams in my head. Screams of hunger and hatred. Screams for more.

“You were too weak when she was with you. She… controlled you. She tried to make you into something you’re not,” Logan whispered, his voice coated with pain and anger. “She made you into a fake angel. You aren’t an angel, Yara Kent. You’re the devil, and you should thank—”

“Fuck you,” I screamed, cutting him off. His voice was like a rusty nail against my skin, and I wanted to stop it, to stop him, forever.

“She didn’t love you, not really. She wanted to change you. If she had loved you, she’d have let you be your truest self.”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up, you piece of shit.”

“You know it. Irene finally recognized you for who you are, and that’s why she left you.” His lips tilted up, a smile so twisted that it made serpents come alive inside my bones. “He’ll leave you, too.” Logan lifted a finger, pointing at Ryden.

I slammed the hilt of the knife into his throat, again and again, until he was wheezing and coughing. I smiled.

“I told you to shut up,” I sang, thrusting my knife into the side of his shoulder. The scream he let out broke and became a whimper when I plunged the knife into his stomach.

The crimson dot slowly bloomed, a flower field of liberation. Our liberation.

My skin prickled as my demons came alive at the scent of metal mixed with the stench of impending death. So much blood, but I wasn’t done yet.

“You’ll soon meet the angel of death, and plead with him to make it quick, but it won’t be quick.” He had a debt to pay, and he would. With his flesh and blood.

He leered, and before I could blink, he grabbed my hair with a growl, pulling me closer to his shredded eye socket.

I jumped back when the gun went off again. The bullet lodged into Logan’s shoulder. I looked up to see Ryden glaring at Logan, his eyes narrowed in satisfaction. “I told you not to touch her, you bastard.” Ryden gave me a grin when Logan wailed. “Go on, show me what you can do, my darling,” he said, his voice singing with excitement. “I want to do this with you.”

“Look me in the eye, Logan. I beat you. Now you’re going to drown in your own blood and die.” I thrust the knife into his right lung and then the left one. He gasped, his breath broken, his scream paused in a crescendo. He would never get to finish it.

A gurgle, a spurt, and then a torrent of blood came out, each drop mingling with dirt until the ground was scarlet, until the boulder in my heart shattered.

My demons breathed collective sighs of relief, licking their fangs.

Free. I was finally free. Knowing that this man lived while Kat was gone had kept me awake most nights.

You did it. Kat said, her voice filled with relief. You finally did it.

I did. But you’re still dead, Kat.

There were so many unanswered questions, but the relief in me outweighed all of that. He was fucking dead, and that was enough for now. I felt the urge to call Irene, to let her in on this happiness. To tell her that I had finally done what we’d sought for four years, ever since that horrible night we stepped into the mortuary to identify Kat’s body.

The morgue was cold, and it was a shade of white that had gone green over the years.

Irene’s hands were shaking as the coroner pulled down the white sheet covering Kat’s face. Kat looked like she was sleeping. I waited for her to open her eyes and give me the smile that had the power to comfort my demons.

Re-Re looked so young, so broken, and I swore to myself that I’d protect her at all costs. I tried.

Will she ever forgive me, Kat?

Kat’s silence made me sad, but that was for another day.

“Are we burning him in Enzo’s crematorium?” I said with a chuckle as Ryden studied Logan, eyes gleaming. “I’ve got some bags in my sedan.”

Ryden nodded. “I’ll tell Enzo to get the oven ready.”

“How did you convince him to let you use that? You two must be close,” I said, staring at him, wanting to know more.

It felt strange to talk like this with someone, to not see that look of hesitation reflecting from their eyes. Ryden looked at me like how he had always looked at me. With hunger, and a hint of anger—for Victor—but he also accepted this part of me, this darkness.

For so long, I had been running to find a place where I could truly belong—a place to be myself, stripped of masks and deception. Perhaps it was time I stopped running and tried to accept what he was offering me?!

The very thought of it frightened me more than the knowledge of dying ever could.

“Jacob Levey. Enzo Morelli is…”

“Oh. Hanna Morelli’s brother.”

He nodded. I traced his clenched jaw, and he let out a long sigh.

“You did a good thing, Ryden,” I said. “I’ll bring my sedan around. It’ll be easier to transport him in that.” I turned around and jogged through the trees. Soon I was where I parked the sedan. Starting the engine, I drove deeper into the woods along the small trail until I was closer to the marsh. I parked the car and got out. Grabbing a roll of tarp and two pairs of gloves, I walked to where Ryden was standing. Handing him the gloves, I pulled mine on.

“I wish I could bring him to life and then kill him all over again for you, Red.”

“You helped… by just being there,” I said as we quickly worked together to wrap Logan’s body in perfect sync. It was as if we had been killing together for forever. When Logan was wrapped fully, looking like a bloody pork sausage, Ryden turned to me with a smirk.

“What are you looking at, Turtle Mocha?”

“I hate that nickname, Red,” he said as I leaned against the tree with a shrug.

“No, you don’t.”

Ryden walked closer to me, and despite the blood, despite the gravity of what just happened, my pulse quickened at his proximity. My brain warned me not to lean closer, not to take more. I was already so close to breaking my own rules, but my body was a fucking French woman who didn’t understand a word of English. It wanted what it wanted.

“What?” I moaned when his body came against mine.

“Blood,” he murmured, swiping his thumb across my cheek. “I’ve never stood around chattering with a killer just a few feet away from a dead body before,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “Everything feels different with you. Intense, and… breathtaking. Kiss me now… touch me.”

“You want me to kiss you? Now?”

The man is madder than you.

“Yes.”

I leaned closer and pressed my lips against him. The kiss was soft, comforting at first but soon turned demanding when my hand went to his cock.

“Fuck, Red. I want you. I always want you.” He pressed me against the tree and his hand went to my pants. “I want to fuck you here. I want to fuck you when you’re looking like a monster and a goddess, covered in dirt and blood.” His fingers went to my right breast as his other hand roamed down.

“We can’t. What if—” He cut me off by kissing me as I tightened my fingers around his cock. The rumble he let out was so loud it swallowed my moan. “I want to fuck you like…” His eyes shone. The dangerous gleam in his eyes thrilled me, and excited me. “Like an animal. Take you… break you. Make you my whore.”

Before I could even blink, he grabbed me by my hips, lifted me, and slammed me against the tree, his lips coming down hard on mine. I was so lost in his lips that it took me a moment to hear it, but when I did, I jerked away from him.

“Do you hear that? Fuck.”

“What?” he asked, protesting my distance.

It was too early for people, but I knew I heard it loud and clear.

“I heard something. We need to get out right now. Voices. Shit. You fucking distracted me, Ryden,” I said with a frown. “Quick. Throw him in the marsh.” I glared at Logan’s mutilated body—he was gone, but the void in my heart where Kat once belonged was still so breathtakingly empty. We both stilled when we heard the familiar sound following the voices. “Is that a fucking siren?”

That wasn’t just any car. It was a cop car.

Ryden hurled Logan into the marsh, and soon, the muddy sand swallowed him whole without any protest. “Get in. We have to move now.”

“I drove your car here,” Ryden said, grimacing. “If someone finds it and the dead body…”

“Throw the gun in,” I said, pulling the car door open, my voice urgent. “We can’t worry about the car now. I can’t stay. Nobody would believe what I did to Logan was self-defense.”

If I were the one to autopsy Logan’s body, I’d carefully dissect the dead bastard, and I’d tell the detectives that this was more than self-defense. This wasn’t survival. This was something savage, fueled by a darker compulsion. An urge to hurt, to destroy. I could see my insatiable hunger in his wounds, and anyone else would see it, too.

I turned to Ryden with a nod. “I always knew my life would be over the moment I killed The Strangler. I can’t… let you destroy your life for me. If something happens, you need to walk away.”

“Shut the fuck up, Red. I’m not going anywhere without you.” His voice was fierce as he gripped my waist and slammed his lips to mine before pulling away. “Get this inside your pretty fucked up head. I’m here to stay.”

Fuck this man. He made everything so much harder.

All my life, I’d known that someday my time would run out. I didn’t fear it, but now… as I was looking into Ryden’s determined glare, something else pierced the mask of indifference I had held all my life.

“I want to go home, Ryden.”

“Then we will go home, Yara.” Ryden got into the driver’s seat and drove in the opposite direction from where we had come.

“I have never been scared in my life. Angry, sad, furious, murderous. Never scared.” But I was now. It felt strange, the feeling, like someone else’s skin on mine.

The sedan rushed through rocky trails, moving further and further away from the sound of the siren until it was a background noise. Unwanted.

“If the shit hits the fan, I’ll take it all for you.”

“No, you won’t. He’s my kill. I’ll find a way. They wouldn’t trace the bullets to us. It’s all about stories. I just have to find a good one.”

I’d find a way once I could think clearer without the haze surrounding me. This wasn’t my first stint.

“You’re good at that.” His eyes turned dark for a second as he swerved around a tree, hitting hard on the brake. I knew what he was thinking right now. Victor. “Making up stories.”

“That’s what I do.” I shrugged.

It was strange, the cold look in his eyes, even when he had just promised to take the fall for me. “The ones I killed… they deserved it just as much as the ones you killed, Ryden.”

“I know,” he replied grudgingly. “I know, Red. But if Irene did something…”

“I’d hate anyone who hurt her,” I said with a sigh. “What are we going to do about it?”

“We’ll find a way.”

“If you say so, Ryden.”

“I fucking said so. You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Yara.”