Pity. Easthaven is burning. More guards could pour through here at any second.
Briella glances at me, waiting. I waste no time in twirling my cleaver before I carve a clean slice through the meatbag, spilling some of his intestines. He can’t even scream. But we know the pain’s excruciating.
She spends five minutes watching, resting her head intermittently on Raphael’s shoulder and inhaling and exhaling, deep and slow.
Jude has to give the asshole adrenaline to keep him conscious. Vincent remains close to the door, monitoring for any potential attacks. Seth just looks edgy, gripping his axe strong, eager to dismember the jackass. Can’t blame him.
Five minutes of torture is not enough for him. But Briella doesn’t need to spend an hour watching her greatest demon suffer. Don’t waste the energy on the worthless carcass. Time to send him to death. And get her out of this damned place so she can live.
After five minutes, Raphael withdraws a sharp dagger from his belt and closes her palm around the handle. He doesn’t let go. They will do this together.
He lowers her to the body. With hellbent feminine wrath written all over her, unlike any I’ve ever seen, she stares down the wreckage of the devil who haunted her like a poltergeist all her life?—
—and together, she and Raphael bring the blade down. He shows her how to carve out the heart. It has the faintest of beats when he severs it from the chest. She’s not looking at the heart.She squeezes it, but she’s watching the life drain from Alden’s body, the soul leaving, falling straight to hell.
And as Raphael crushes the heart in both their hands, she gasps, snapping her head to his. Fuck, it’s like an aphrodisiac watching them. Their expressions are like twin mirrors, both feeding on the kill. And we’re getting a taste.
“Not to interrupt, but we need to get a move on,” Vincent alerts us.
My boy takes it as confirmation. Like an eager beaver, Seth swings his axe, dismembering the corpse in four clean blows.
Raphael hands Briella back to Jude and arms himself with his bow and arrow, prepared to lead the charge, ready for anything.
The highlight of my night is finding a flamethrower in one of the supply closets. I sling it over my back and follow Raphael out of the blood-soaked room, the taste of victory sharp in my mouth like iron and adrenaline. We leave Alden’s corpse in pieces behind us—no grave, no peace, no fucking legacy.
Outside, Easthaven is in chaos. Smoke slithers through the halls, flames feasting on everything it can find.
I torch every goddamn thing I can—curtains, beds, files, all of it. The devil’s house deserves to burn.
My kind of therapy.
Raphael stalks ahead like the predator he is. Seth and Vincent keep their weapons drawn, just in case some poor bastard is stupid enough to come at us. And Briella—Briella is wrapped in Jude’s jacket, pale but upright, cradled in the afterglow of vengeance. She’s wrecked and radiant, and I’d burn this place ten times over just to see her like this again.
I’m the backup. Not because I’m observant, but because I’m damn fast with my cleaver.
Once we reach the main double doorways of the lobby, the last stretch before the exit, Raphael nods to me, a silent reminder of the grenade.
I grab it from my pack, close the distance to Briella, and place it in her open hand. Her breath is shallow, eyes locked on the fire eating through the walls.
But then, she presses her lips into a smile. And kisses my cheek. “Thanks, Red.”
She pulls the pin from the last grenade with her teeth, that signature little grin like sin curling at the corners of her lips. My fucking Firecracker.
I take it from her, let her fingers brush mine.
“Boom.” I wink, and lob it over my shoulder.
The explosion rips through the wing behind us, a fireball blasting against the walls. We don’t flinch. Just keep walking as the whole compound begins to collapse inward, screaming and wailing in its death throes.
Outside, we flip the bird in unison. One last fuck-you to the place that tried to break her.
Vincent’s radio crackles to life. Sirens. Cop chatter. They’re moving in fast.
“We gotta go,” he says, eyeing the treeline.
We spot a truck by the loading dock—keys still in the ignition, like a parting gift from the gods of chaos.
I wanna jump shotgun, but Vincent’s worth two bodies in the back. So it’s Jude on one side with Briella in his lap, and me and Wood Boy on the other. Raphael climbs in last, closing the door with finality. Vincent nods to him.
