I bolted out the door, slamming it behind me, my heart shattered to ashes.
Chapter 2
Karson
Karson Worthington checked his watch as he stood on a rundown street in a rougher than usual part of Church Heights. It was 1:54 a.m.
He leaned against the hard trunk of a sprawling oak tree, hidden in the mottled shadows. His arms were folded over his chest. Feral, lethal desire curled in his veins.
Retribution had led him here.
The wind was gusty, and it lashed the tree leaves into a monotonous rattling chorus. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked incessantly. Normally the sound wouldn’t bother him, but tonight it was grating. The asphalt road cut through a clustered community of dilapidated buildings and tunneled into the thick tree-lined darkness. Karson shifted his gaze, scanning both directions. The houses, washed by a pallid streetlight glow, mirrored each other in a silent declaration of poverty and misery. Everyone had retired for the night, aside from one resident.
The flicker of a TV light bounced through the curtains, casting slithering shadows across a knee-high, blond-parched lawn. No doubt the thing which called itself a man was keptawake by the adrenaline still licking through his veins, lusting after an urge left unsatisfied.
The rapist didn’t know it yet, but he wouldn’t see another sunrise.
Ordinarily, Karson refused to involve himself in the affairs of others. But a woman’s scream had cut through the quiet hush of the night and he made an exception. That was one of the problems with a small, remote town without the hustle and bustle of city noises to drown out others—screams could be heard for miles around. Rapists, child molesters, and the like disgusted him. He took it upon himself to remove their stain from the world. But it would be a mistake to call him a god. If you listened to the brainwashed ramblings of the faithful and believed in God (which he did not), he was capable of mercy. Karson rarely bothered to inconvenience himself with such a weak emotion.
He’d killed the attacker. Left his lifeless body choked of air in a heap on the dirty darkness of the alley floor. Or so he’d thought. The woman had been in full-blown panic mode, so Karson had turned his attention to her instead. One look into his eyes, and a few soothing words later, was all it took to extinguish her fear. Like a wet finger over a candle’s flame. Karson made sure she was safe, then headed to the bar, indulging in a few well-earned drinks. When he’d returned for the body, it was gone.
Having thought he’d escaped death, the human stain had made the mistake of celebrating his sheer, dumb luck, and purchased a carton of beer and a packet of cigarettes from a nearby convenience store.
But luck was as fragile as a love-struck heart. Only the powerless relied on either one.
Karson only had to follow his putrid stench to the store and ask the clerk about him to find out where he lived. Thatwas another problem with small towns—almost everyone knew everyone else.
Karson’s annoyance with himself itched beneath his skin and stabbed at his thoughts. He never made mistakes. They were the traits of incompetent fools, and yet here he was. The steady thrum of anger simmered inside; his frustration needed purging. He’d always had a short fuse and struggled to contain his fiery temper. Anger for him was a primal, instinctive presence. It lay at the core of his being like lava, slowly and covertly churning away. But if events demanded, it would erupt and then not even God, real or not, could help those unfortunate enough to be caught in his crosshairs. It’d been this way for as long as he could remember, and he’d learned to live with it for the most part. He used its power to his advantage, and the brutal savagery which came from an unyielding rage had saved his life many times. It had also taken more lives than he cared to count.
When Karson took his first life, he was just fourteen years of age, forced to defend himself against those who hunted him like a worthless animal. Cornered, he’d reacted and turned his wrath back upon the hunter. He’d cried at the death, at the sight of the man soaked in his own blood. But he had since learned to switch off his emotions, and now he killed with an easy detachment. He was no longer prey. The hunted had become the hunter.
The wind had ramped up, pounding at the roof on the house he was about to enter, and a loose tin panel flapped wildly in the corner. The dog was still barking, and if it didn’t stop, he would find it and...
A man roared. The dog yelped and stopped barking.
Karson stepped out from the shadows. The night wrapped around him as if he were born from the darkness itself. He stalked down the fractured cement driveway, past a rusted gray shell some might consider a car. It was bound to havea multitude of defects. Any of the defects, given the right circumstances, could easily be a catalyst for a fatal crash.
Karson slipped into the house on silent feet.
The stain was seated on a tattered orange lounge chair watching baseball, his legs spread wide as if his balls had eyes and he was allowing them the best view in the house. It was a squalid room, no surprises there. Discarded clothes lay strewn across the filthy carpeted floor. The paint was cracked and grimy. A floor lamp shone dimly in the corner, casting deep shadows outside its reach.
A clock on the wall tick, tick, ticked.
The stench of smoke and stale food wrinkled Karson’s nose.
The stain held a can of beer in his left hand, cigarette smoke billowed from a glass ashtray on the coffee table beside him, and a half-eaten pizza sat beside it. He slurped down a mouthful of beer and let out a loud burp.
Karson made a sound of annoyance in the back of his throat.
The man looked up. His eyes bulged to the size of golf balls, and he opened his mouth to speak, or maybe scream. They usually screamed or begged; the weakest whimpered. His dirty stubble-covered face paled, and he broke into a damp sweat. In the face of his impending demise, there was no act of courage. No, this man was a coward who attacked only the weak.
“Please,” he whimpered, cowering against the back of his chair. “Don’t.”
Karson could taste the male’s fear kissing the back of his throat. He glared at him, his fingers vibrating with the urge to tear his windpipe out of his bruised neck.
“She asked for it. She wanted it. She did,” he pleaded, his eyes welling with tears. “She was the one who led me into the alley. This is all some terrible mistake! She set me up—she wanted it.”
Karson could feel his fury coiling like a rattlesnake ready to strike. He flexed his clawed fingers.
