CAMERON
My heart thundersin my chest as a squad of five ascends the hill from almost twenty feet away. How come I didn’t hear them in time? My eyes flick to Emery briefly as I reach to my side and swing my ACE 32 up.
Pop pop pop.
Damian’s plea for them to wait went dismissed. They shoot him damn near point-blank range three times in the chest and the force sends him flying back. I train the tip of my gun at the first shooter and mechanically shoot twice, sending his head flying clean off as his vertebrae are blown to pieces.
The squadmates freeze up, staring at me like I’m the harbinger of death. Dumbasses should’ve run while they had a spare second. I easily nail the two to the left in the bridge of their noses. Their heads jerk back violently, and their knees hit the ground simultaneously. The two remaining members gasp and turn to run.
The blood rampages through my veins, and a manic grin spreads over my lips.Oh fuck yes, this is what I’ve been needing.I unsheathe my knife and look to my own squad. “We can’t let them go,” I say mercilessly, licking my dry lips.
“Why not? You just fucking annihilated over half of them all by yourself in five seconds flat,” the nerdy one with glasses says.
Idiots. They’d all get the Fury Squad killed.My eyes shift to Emery, she’s staring at me with wide, blinking eyes. Like she’s never seen anything so lethal.
“How do you think I won this challenge in the first go-around?” I leave them with that and charge after the two cadets.
Emery curses before I hear her trailing me. The sound of her unsheathing her ivory knife draws a smile across my lips. I don’t know why I love watching her kill, but I do. The endorphins it gives me are unreal.
The two cadets don’t stand a chance at escaping us. They crash to the ground a few times from their nerves and the steep decline of the mountainside.That’s why you don’t attack when the opposing team has the advantage of height.I can’t help but find their stupidity exciting. I need this release more than I thought I did. Watching that guy’s head twirl off was like a fucking masterpiece. I need more.
More.
I leap off a boulder that gives me better aerial advantage before aiming and chucking my combat knife as hard as I can at the straggler. The knife goes straight through the back of their knee and sends them rolling viciously down the slope. A deep laugh bellows from my chest as I land hard and quickly close in on them.
It’s a female cadet. Her screams are horrendous, and she begs for her life like a shameless thing, clutching at her leg and blubbering words I’m too fucking high to comprehend. All I see is red.
Beautiful, magnificent red.
I kneel down on her chest and her eyes bug out, fear driving every breath she has.
Emery doesn’t stop to watch me work, she chases after the remaining cadet without pause.That’s my fucking girl.My eyes linger on her one second longer than I intended for them to, and the cadet beneath me takes the chance.
She screams as she pulls my knife from her leg and stabs it into my thigh. The metal scrapes against my femur but I feel nothing except the pressure of it in my leg and pinching between the muscles.
I blink down at her blankly.
Horror pales her face as she realizes what I am. A truly unfeeling, merciless monster.
Scream, I want to whisper to her as I bite down on my lower lip.Scream so loud that my darling Emery will hear what I’ve done.
25
EMERY
Screams hollowout every thought I have as I chase the last cadet. My throat bubbles with vomit at the shrill fear that permeates the air. He’s killing her so easily. Terror consumes me as I move as if I’m on autopilot. The same words repeating over and over in my head.
“You think you’re special, don’t you? That I won’t tear out your heart?”That’s what he told me when we first met. I thought he was bluffing, but after hearing the death of whoever that girl was, I’m drowned in my fear of him.
That could be me, dying, screaming and pleading for an inch of my life.
I shake the thoughts as I tackle the cadet. He grunts as we crash to the ground and roll a few times. We sit up simultaneously, staring at one another with fervent eyes, breathing heavily and gripping our knives as we size the other up.
A dying gurgle slashes through the air, and both our heads turn to it. My stomach churns.Did he have to draw it out for so long?
“Let me go, I’m a goner anyway… J-just please don’t let me die the way she is. I swear your squad won’t see me again.Please!” the man begs, already staggering to his feet, holding my gaze with distrust. I wouldn’t trust me either. I’m wearing a mask that matches Mori’s.
I prefer not to kill unless I absolutely have to. Before Bree and Damian, and even Cameron, I probably would’ve just killed him. But being around them is making me soft, desiring to shed my old skin that Reed and my father forced me into. Now that I’m away from my old life, I’m finding more of who I really am. I’ve never tried mercy before. I don’t see how it could backfire on me, so I’m willing to try.
