The silence stretched thick with his terror. He was frozen, caught in the orbs of my eyes, a cornered animal exposed. A single, ragged sob escaped him, a sound that was both pitiful and profoundly satisfying. His blood trail, his lifeline to this world, now led only to the abyss. He had run; he had hidden, but he had not escaped. The hunt was over, and the true artistry of his end was about to unfold.
I took a step closer, the scraping of my boot on concrete the only sound besides his labored breathing. The moonlight glinted off the machete once more, a silent declaration of the inevitable. His eyes, fixed on the gleaming steel, held a universe of regret. This was not just an end; it was a testament, a brutal masterpiece painted with his fear and my precision.
“You killed my brother.”
“He killed my brother.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right. It’s a lesson you are about to learn the hard way.”
“You kill me, they will hunt you down and kill you.”
“Let them come.” I smirked as I took a step forward, raising my machete.
“WAIT!” he cried. “I have information I can give you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Black Odessa is working with the Death Dogs.”
I grinned. “Like I said. I don’t fucking care.”
He sputtered, coughing up more blood. “They are after a woman.”
His words, a desperate gambit, hung in the blood-scented air, fragile and pathetic.
Black Odessa. Death Dogs.
Names that whispered of shadows and brutal efficiency, of organizations that dealt in lives like currency. A flicker of something other than pure, unadulterated hatred stirred within me. Not compassion, never that. But perhaps... interest. The hunt had been intoxicating, the chase a symphony of dread and power. But the possibility of a larger narrative, a wider canvas of darkness, now beckoned.
I lowered my machete, the steel still slick with his spilled life.
His eyes, still wide with terror, tracked the movement, his ragged breaths hitching.
A woman. Of course, there was always a woman. A pawn, a prize, a catalyst. The details were irrelevant; the names, though potentially significant, were just pieces on a board I was still learning to play. My focus, though momentarily diverted, remained anchored to the stark truth: he had taken what was mine. And that debt, that raw, burning injustice, would always be settled.
“A woman,” I repeated, my words a low growl, a predator circling its wounded prey. “And why should I care about this woman? Or the rabid dogs you consort with?”
My gaze swept over him, taking in the pathetic spectacle of his fear. He had offered a distraction, a flicker of information in the face of oblivion. It wasn’t enough to save him, not even close. But it was enough to make me pause, to consider if his final, gasping words might open a new, more satisfying chapter to this gruesome tale.
Then the motherfucker smiled.
“You better care, because they are not the only ones after the woman.”
Grabbing the man by the scruff of his bloody shirt, I snarled. “Like I said. I don’t give a fuck.”
“Not even if the woman is Karlyn Ingalls?”
Her name hit me like a physical blow, a precious life I had buried deep beneath layers of blood and vengeance. Karlyn Ingalls. The sliver of interest that had begun to form in the pit of my stomach recoiled, replaced by a cold, sharp dread. My grip tightened on the man, his frail body trembling against mine. His smile vanished from his lips, replaced by a fresh wave of terror as he saw the storm brewing in my eyes. He had played his last card—a desperate, foolish gamble—and he had just dealt himself a losing hand.
My machete, still dripping, traced a slow, deliberate arc in the air before me as the details of the Death Dogs and Black Odessa faded into insignificance.
This wasn’t about shadowy organizations, retribution, or a looming war anymore; it was personal. He had invoked a name that tore through the carefully constructed walls around my heart, a name that represented everything I loved and held dear, everything I would fight, die to protect, even from myself. The hunt had just found a new, and far more lethal target.
The air curdled, thick with the stench of primal fear. He knew. The shift—that subtle tremor in the world’s breath—had snagged his attention. And then, the unraveling. His voice, once a low rumble, fractured into a desperate, meaningless static, a pathetic cascade of choked sobs and ragged, bloody gasps that painted the silence with despair. My machete, a hungry glint in the dim light, met flesh with a wet, tearing sound that echoed the scream ripped from my own soul.
This wasn’t just about him anymore. It was wildfire consuming me from the inside out, a molten core of rage that surged through my veins, dictating the brutal ballet of my actions. The fury, a living entity, guided my hands as I carved, as I tore, as I dismembered. Each severed limb was a testament to a pain I refused to let die, a visceral protest against the injustices etched into my very being.
His whimpers dwindled, a dying ember in the inferno I’d ignited. But hunger remained, a ravenous beast that demanded complete annihilation. I continued, driven by a force that transcended mere violence, until the very concept of ‘him’ was a ghost, a smeared memory beneath the scarlet rain. Not a strand of hair, not a whisper of his form, remained to bear witness to the man he once was. The silence that followed was a vast, empty cathedral, echoing with the monstrous song of my vengeance.
