Standing back, I look at the kid hanging from his tied wrists. He’s still conscious. The adrenaline is doing its job.
He’s sobbing uncontrollably and would have blacked out long ago if not for the drugs. Pieces of his flesh are on the floor. I hate to admit I have done a hack job. I was trying to be professional at first, but then just started cutting in no particular pattern.
Tossing the knife into the sink, I run my bloody hands down my shirt. “Hose him down and put him in a cell.”
I’ve done enough for tonight. If he dies, he dies. “Where are the bodies? I want to see them.”
“They’re out back,” Saint answers.
I head to the stairs and storm up a flight to the first floor and then out the back door. I hear everyone following me. Coming to a stop, I see three men piled on top of one another, and I kick the one on top. His body rolls off the other two.
Sighing, I run my bloody hands through my hair. “Fuck,” I shout.
“You know them?” Ryat asks.
Saint is the one who answers. “We went to Barrington with them.”
“These are the guys you beat up at Blackout,” Tyson observes.
“What?” Haidyn looks at me. “That night Ty called us?” he demands. “How did Eve know them?”
I begin to pace. That’s just the thing. “She didn’t.”
My angel was very private with her life. She didn’t go to Barrington. She spent a lot of time in Vegas after she recovered from Dollhouse. When I followed her, she was never with anyone. She didn’t even meet a girlfriend for coffee, let alone go out and party with others.
“Are you sure?” It’s Saint who digs.
“I’m positive,” I snap. “The night Haidyn and I went to the cathedral to pick up a Lord, she was there. From that night on, I was following her night and day. I’m telling you, she didn’t know them.” She barely had any contacts in her phone other than me, Bill, and Adam.
“But you got into a fight with them because of her…”
“She never even looked their way at Blackout,” I interrupt Haidyn. “I walked over to Eve, had a conversation and then I returned to the table, and they…pissed me off. I beat the shit out of them. That was that.”
“Then they knew of her,” Ryat suggests.
“But how?” Haidyn snaps.
“Where are their phones?” I hold my hand out.
“They didn’t have any on them,” Sin answers.
“Give me their wallets,” I bark.
“Didn’t have those either.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient?” I say through clenched teeth. “Goddammit.”
I make my way back to the morgue. My feet are heavy and my stomach is in my throat. The adrenaline is officially wearing off, and it’s like a plane falling from the sky that’s going to crash and explode. Coming up to the door, I take a second before I have the strength to shove it open.
My boots come to a stop once I step inside the cold, sterile room. I don’t know what I expected to see—her sitting up and laughing? Her saying, “Surprise. I got you”?—but none of that happens.
Instead, she lies under a fresh white sheet, and she’s been cleaned. You can see every bruise on her exposed neck where she was choked with the belt that I saw on the video.
I’ve never felt this way. So helpless. Useless. I had one job when I made her my Lady, and I failed.
“I’ll leave you be. Please let me know if I can do anything for you,” Devin says as he starts to leave the room.
“May I hold her?” I ask, trying to swallow the knot in my throat. I keep my back to him. When he doesn’t answer, I add, “I can shower.” I’m still covered in blood and pieces of skin. Devin spent the time cleaning her. I don’t want to get my angel dirty.
