To trick me into blaming the woman who suffered through the worst thing imaginable, for her own rape.
To trick me into killing her for it.
I can’t even begin to understand it all.
I’m back to being hunched over, helplessly struggling to emerge from the stifling darkness that has descended on me.
“Hey,” says Josh uncertainly. “Are you, uhm… is there anything I can do?”
I shake my head, forcing myself to breathe slowly. I need to get to Piper. I need to hold her. I need to make it okay. If I even have the power to make it okay. Imusthave that power.
It’s not just about convincing her to stay anymore. Her pain rents its way through my heart. Suddenly, her suffering is more important than anything else. Far more important than needing her to forgive me. Far more important than needing her in my arms.
I sit back up abruptly, my body tense with resolve.
There’s literally nothing that could stop me now.
“Let’s find those fuckers. Let’s find them, and motherfucking kill them all. Every single last fucking one of them. They are dead. They just don’t know it yet.”
“But first, Piper,” cuts in Josh.
“Yes. Piper.” I clench my fists. “She comes first. She always comes first.”
Josh pulls up in front of my apartment building, and I’m out before the car is even parked. He rushes after me as I press the button to the elevator to the penthouse floor.
I unlock the door, ready to grab my gear and do… I have no fucking clue what.
But my head is throbbing with a desperate need for revenge.
They knew. They all fucking knew.
First, I’m going to get to Devil Tower. I’m going to find Piper and kill everyone who gets in my way. No, I’m going to kill everyone, period.
I don’t even know what I’ll do if it’s too late. It can’t be too late. I won’t allow myself to even think it could be.
Then, I’ll find Liam and Dane. I’ll invent new levels of pain. Pain the human body had never yet been capable of.
When I’ve left their quivering, pathetic piles of flesh, I will hunt for the others. Every single last fucking one of the eighty-nine Devil soldier. I will make them all beg for death.
And theywilldie, slowly and painfully. But it kills me to know that their pain could never rival my cricket’s, my Piper who was destroyed by two men who convinced her that the boy she loved was responsible.
And then, by the dozens of soldiers in the room who turned a blind eye to the defiling of an innocent girl.Myinnocent girl.
I’m so blinded by my anguished rage that I don’t even pay attention when I walk into my living room. A soldier always pays attention. It’s hammered into you from the day you start training.
On your guard, soldier!
But my eyes have been unfocused, unseeing, while I was spiraling in painful thoughts. Josh of all people is the first person who notices something is wrong.
“Shit,” he groans, and I know we’re fucked before I even look up.
There’s a gun cocked straight at me.
The living room is filled with soldiers. There must be at least twenty of them. Amongst them are Liam and Dane, and it takes all I have not to hurdle toward them, killing them on the spot.
What stops me is the gun in my face.
It’s being held by… Tragen.
