Burn (33 page)

             
“Look at her,” said the blonde man in astonishment. “Slut isn’t even fighting back.”

             
Bald man’s face crashed into mine. His lips pressed roughly into my mouth as his hand clenched my chin and pulled my mouth down so he could swirl his tongue inside of me. The taste of smoke and mint would forever ruin me. I watched him with his eyes closed and his hand tightly wound around me – watched how distracted he was trying to bring himself into me. Watched with unbelievable focus because I knew what needed to be done and I knew I only had one chance.

             
This was it.
Do it already!

             
I wrapped my free arm around his neck and pulled him deeper into my mouth, kissing him back with every bit of me until he groaned and pushed into me.

             
My heart hardened, my shaking subsided, and for an instant I felt like the world had stopped still and watched me morph from victim… to killer.

             
I plunged the blade into the side of his neck and right below the ear, grunting as I expelled every grain of strength in me. His body erupted like an earthquake, trying hard to pull away as I continued to tighten my hold around his neck with everything in me, sinking the blade in and in. Blood splattered everywhere and flowed freely out of the hole in him, covering my face, neck and torso in puddles. The more he fought me, the more the blade cut across his neck.

             
Loud noises erupted. I heard a body slam against a wall, the shouts of the blonde man and Jaxon roaring like an enraged animal. I remembered immediately the blond man had a gun. I let go of the bald man who staggered off of me with a hand to his neck; his eyes wide, his mouth open, his face the look of terror as the blood poured and poured right out of him. I’d caught him in the jugular vein. He’d bleed out in a matter of –

             
He made it three steps before he collapsed in a heap on the hardwood floors.

             
Jaxon was against the wall, fighting to get the gun out of the second man’s hand. They struggled and then I watched in horror as the blonde man’s fingers tightened around the trigger. A shot rang out, hitting the ceiling above us. And then another… And another…

             
Completely naked and dripping in another man’s blood, I staggered out of the bed and grabbed the gun off the night table. I aimed it at the killer’s back, every instinct telling me to pull the trigger, but I couldn’t. Would the bullet go through him and hit Jaxon? Would I miss? They were moving around unsteadily. What if I shot Jaxon?

             
Before I could think of anything else, I aimed the gun somewhere safer and away from Jaxon. And then I pulled the trigger.

             
The gun jumped from the force of the shot and knocked me back a step. I heard him scream in pain and watched his body fall to the ground, letting go of his gun as he grabbed at his foot with both hands.

             
Jaxon quickly kicked the gun away and clutched the man’s hair. He dragged him to the bed in one smooth stride.

             
“Keep the gun at him,” he demanded me.

             
I nodded, aiming it with less ease than before. I didn’t trust myself. I mean… I hadn’t even been aiming at his foot!

             
Jaxon looked down at the dead bald man sprawled on the floor, staining the hardwood with his blood. He bent down and unfastened the belt that he’d worn. When it was off, he turned to the quivering, pained blonde man and wrapped it around his neck. He tied the belt against the bar of the bed, tightening it until the man wheezed for air.

             
“Wh-Wh-What are you doing?” It was coming back to me fast. What the hell had I just done? Did I just… Did I just kill a man?

             
No.

             
No.

             
I let him violate me first.
Let him
being the operative word so that I could
kill
him.

             
Jaxon watched as my sanity declined. “Don’t think right now, Sara. Think later. Right now we act. Okay?”

             
I nodded, but I was thinking still.

             
He pulled a sheet off the bed and wrapped it around me as best he could without letting the blood at the end of it touch me. As the man behind us writhed, Jaxon took the gun off of me.

             
“I need you out of this room,” he told me. His face had changed. The darkness in him peeked out at me; a cold mask that chilled me to the bone and yet… comforted me too.

             
“Wh-What are you g-going to d-do?”

             
“I’m going to get some answers. Now get out, and wait for me.”

             
I moved my legs, astounded I could even move at all! I stared at the blonde: one hand wrapped around the belt tugging at his neck and the other around his foot. His eyes flickered to mine; he was no longer the coolheaded killer bent on waiting for his turn to fuck me. Fear had absorbed into his every feature and his lips quivered.

             
I knew… I knew this was the last time I would see him alive.

*****

I jumped at the first scream. I wrapped the covers tighter around me, but my body wound up like a string, waiting with restrained breath for the next.

             
He tortured him for hours… and hours. I thought the screams were bad at first, but then I
really
heard them – the terrified shrill that could scare away a grizzly bear. He’d scream “I don’t know” over and over again, until his voice became raspy and hoarse from overuse.

             
Never during those hours did I hear Jaxon’s voice. He must have been speaking quietly, and I didn’t know if that disturbed me more than if he’d screamed back demanding whatever it was he was wanting answers to.

             
I hated myself for feeling my chest ache at the sobs that now emitted from the closed bedroom door. He sounded desperate and helpless. I didn’t know if I wanted him to die. Did he really deserve it?
Yes,
my mind screamed. It was still too difficult to listen to. I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes. This man would have raped and killed me otherwise. He would have enjoyed it, too. That’s not human.

             
But what is human? What defined right and wrong if not for the social morals implemented in every one of us since birth? Are monsters born or are they made? And if they are made, is that really their fault or is it the product of their upbringing?

             
I hurt Jaxon. I learned young what hatred and anger was. I was at its receiving end. And it crept on me when I least expected it because although I knew that it was wrong to hurt and hate, I’d always thought that was the last thing that would ever happen to me. Yet it did. Those who least expect the worst are those at most risk. I became a poison to my surroundings and hadn’t even realized it until it was too late.

             
This man would have killed you. If it was his upbringing that made him, that is no excuse. Just as it was no excuse for you to treat the one you loved like shit.

             
I dropped my hands from my ears and listened. I listened painfully hard at every little thing. No longer uncertain, I was now… reassured by it.

             
“Just kill me!” he begged. “Just kill me.” And then he screamed long and hard as if something was being done to him. I heard the faint sounds of an object falling to the floor, and then the man was vomiting.

             
“Please… please just kill me.”

Jaxon

“Kill you?” Jaxon’s brows shot up as he stared at the mess of a man before him. He kneeled down until he was face to face with the piece of shit and said, “Why would I do you a favour and kill you
so early in our game? I’m having so much fun. Aren’t you?”

             
The bloodied men, black and blue already from their playtime, watched Jaxon lean over and grab the switch blade off the floor. He casually wiped the bloody blade against his jeans as he waited for the man to respond.

             
“Not going to answer me?” Jaxon pierced him with a deadly look. “Should I pull out your fingernails on your other hand now? Was five not enough?”

             
The man trembled and wept. “I don’t know who sent us. I told you already. Please don’t…”

             
“Please what? Please don’t kill you?” Jaxon shot him a sweet smile. “You were going to kill my woman. No, wait, you were going to fucking rape her first and then kill her. In front of me, too. Right?”

             
The man shook his head vehemently. “No! No, that was
him
! Not me. I wouldn’t-wouldn’t have done-done anything, I fucking swear!”

             
Jaxon nodded. “Right. So you telling him that you wanted your go with my woman –”

             
“I didn’t mean it!”

             
“Right, right. Wow, how fucking stupid of me to think you meant it!” Jaxon shook his head with a look of false shock on his face. “So what would you have done then? You’d have…?”

             
“I would have-have stopped him!”

             
“Really?”

             
“Yes, I fucking swear! I’d never-never have touched her. Never!”

             
Jaxon nodded in mock understanding again. “Hmm. Yeah, and you pointing the gun at me–”

             
“I was going to drop it! I was never going to actually fucking use-use it, I swear, man! I swear!” Yeah, he swears – Jaxon got that already.

             
He continued to watch the man flounder in his bullshit. Really, the shit they fucking said when they were desperate! It was outrageous. They played the part of a victim to perfection.

             
“Enough of the fucking lying, man. Cut the bullshit. You’re a dead man regardless. So just tell me the fucking truth, alright? Die with some fucking dignity.” Jaxon ignored the hysteric panting that ensued from the fucker’s mouth. “You were hired to kill us. How did you find us?”

             
“He-he kn-knew where you were.”

             
“How?”

             
“I-I don’t know!”

“Don’
t fucking lie to me.”

“I’m not, I’m not!
I swear, I’m not!”

Fucking liar.
He’d get that out of him eventually. “What gang are you from and where’s the marking?” Jaxon knew the fucking drill. Knew he was a hired killer, which meant his emblem was covered up, and he wanted to see it.

             
When the man didn’t answer, Jaxon pulled his hair roughly and inched closer to his face. “Listen to me, you piece of maggot shit, I’m going to ask you one more fucking time where your marking is, and if you don’t fucking answer, I’m going to make this experience as slow and painful as I can. And I’m a really imaginative fucker, so you wouldn’t like what I have planned. Where’s your fucking marking?”

             
The man still didn’t respond. Persistent bastard. It was actually admirable.

             
Jaxon sighed. He was so sick of getting his hands dirty, but what did it matter anyway? The cabin was a total write off now and the piece of shit deserved to die.

             
“Fine,” he said with a casual shrug. “You want to play it that way, dead man? We’ll play it that way
nice
and
slow
.”

             
And he did.