Disdainful and broken and wrong—so fucking wrong—but I can’t stop it.
It grows in volume until it fills the room. Turning loud—hysteric.
"You…" I smile, eyes stinging. "Youfuckingidiot."
"Shut her up," Ambrose commands.
"They're all dead!" I shout, and laugh some more until rough fingers grip my jaw and pry my mouth open.
I taste copper as something is stuffed into the back of my throat, pressing on my tongue. I gag against it, realizing what I taste is Ambrose's blood-soaked handkerchief as he releases my jaw.
I release the hand in my hair to try to get it out, but my hands are wrenched backward, and I feel the bite of metal against my wrists.
Ambrose bends to my eye level. "You're lucky I may still have a use for you."
Bile hits the back of my throat, and I fight to get control of it, knowing I'll suffocate if I can't keep it at bay. I try to breathe through my nose, but it's not enough oxygen, and my head gets light, vision blurring.
"I was never able to keep Julian's sons in line, but I think they'll be more inclined to obediencenow."
No.
My eyes widen, and Ambrose smiles at the fear he finds there. "Get her out of my sight."
61
THE WRAITH
SEVEN
Hooked blade in one hand and Colt in the other, I flatten myself against the wall next to the window, breath even and pulse slow.
Closing my eyes, I listen. Counting the number of distinct footsteps in my head as they approach.
When I get to a number above fifteen, I can't even be excited about it. In any other situation, I'd be fucking ecstatic at the challenge, but not this time.
Right now, they're just in my way.
Leave one alive,I remind myself, repeating the words in my head until I'm fairly fucking confident they're stuck firmly enough that I won't forget when the killing starts.
The glass shatters as they pour in through two windows while several more kick down the door.
I take a bullet to my vest before I'm able to get a hand hooked beneath the tactical visor of the man who shot it, pumping two bullets up beneath his chin and then using his lifeless body as a shield when I advance on the other three who came through after him.
At a slash of pain in the back of my calf, I fall into that other place, the one where everything is rage and reflex. Here, as long as there's air in my lungs and a thudding in my chest, there is no stopping.
I move like a wraith, ditching my Colt in favor of the blade for closer contact as the bodies filter in and are broken like rushing water over stone.
The blackout comes swift, and I let it take me. Losing myself in the dance of death and the song of screams.
I revel only in the fractured moments of stark clarity the darkness allows before it consumes me again. Admiring the inventive way a spinal column can be severed with a little flick of my blade in the right spot. The sound a windpipe makes when it's crushed beneath my thumbs.
I drive my hooked blade up into a stomach and am rewarded with a waterfall of wet heat rushing over my hand.
A flash of lucidity reveals Elijah mercilessly covering the eastern window, not allowing a single entry without a ticket punch.
When I'm knocked from behind, I whirl, and it takes a fraction of a second for my blood-soaked mind to recognize the man who puts his back against my own.
There's an animalistic rage in every fiber of Atticus's being. It's in his bared teeth and his ruthless focus as his gun runs out of bullets, and instead of going for a fresh mag, he uses the butt of the weapon to bludgeon the next attacker and the next, switching seamlessly to using his bare hands when the gun isn't giving him the satisfaction he craves.
