“Clear?” he asks.
“Jessica’s gone,” I say. “Nathaniel’s coming. Talon’s taking care of the electronics.”
Cassian nods once. He picks up Mark, and we ease the side door open.
Nathaniel slides in through the mudroom a breath later. He takes Mark’s ankles without a word. Talon appears last, late on purpose, wiping his thumb on his jeans.
“He does love a passcode like a birthday,” Talon croons. “I know a guy who will crack it in a minute.”
The four of us glide into the side yard. The crows fold in thick over the fence line, creating a moving curtain that shields us from most eyes.
We reach the car, and Cassian and Nathaniel lower Mark into the trunk. He thuds once like trash. Then we get in, and drive off.
Did I mention I feel like a goddess of crows?
I think I feel even better than that.
I feel like a goddess of revenge.
I close my eyes for a single breath, let it all rush through me.
Power. Grief. Relief. Hunger. The thick velvet satisfaction of justice.
And I think, wildly, honestly:
This might actually be the best surprise of my life.
Turns out the hospital’s basement, aside from housing the power generator, makes a surprisingly good torture room. Talon’s and Cassian’s sentiments, not necessarily mine.
I did consider Nathaniel’s suggestion to strap Mark to a table in the morgue for the irony, but Cassian argued that disorientation and powerlessness in a dark, underground room inspire a sharper kind of fear.
Nathaniel rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. He was too busy prepping his instruments. Scalpels, knives, surgical scissors, syringes filled with questionable substances…
Each tool was arranged in neat, obsessive rows inside a leather binder before he snapped on his latex gloves.
Talon watched. He leaned against the wall with a crowbar balanced across his shoulders, whistling through his teeth like he’s abducted people a thousand times before. His grin widened every time Mark groaned against the tape, still half-conscious from Cassian’s perfectly measured knockout.
And Cassian… Cassian handled everything else. He dragged Mark down the stairs himself, and when he dropped him into thebolted chair, he didn’t leave room for loose ties. Mark’s wrists were bound to the armrests, ankles cinched with belts stolen from the psych ward upstairs. Even his neck was secured with a leather strap, tight enough that if he tried to thrash, he’d only choke himself.
So here we are.
Mark’s head is slumped sideways like a broken marionette, a thin, pathetic groan leaking past his teeth.
It’s the best or the worst sight of my entire life.
I can’t decide which, because revenge is a dredge. It drags every old hurt back to the surface, dumps it in your lap, and forces you to face it.
Still… if someone pressed a gun to my temple right now and ordered me to pick? I’d choose best.
“If at any point you want us to take over,” Cassian says, wiping his hands on the thighs of his pants, “just say the word.”
Right. They have years of experience over me when it comes to breaking a man.
We agreed we’d go only as far as I want to go. The depths of my resentment are very much present, but I find myself wondering how that will translate into doing, not just wanting.
Mark stirs. A real flicker of awareness rolls through him, and his head lolls forward against the strap. He tries to lift it. The leather doesn’t give. Something in him registers the restraint, and his breathing changes.
“Hear that?” Talon says, eyes gleaming. “That’s the moment a man’s balls crawl up into his throat.”
