Every day when she woke up, she had to struggle to find a reason to get out of bed and keep trying. A reason to not let the darkness have her.
I’m such an idiot.
Risking her life for someone who didn’t care anything about her. Someone who’d probably kill her and leave her in a ditch. This had to be the dumbest thing she’d ever done. And given all the idiocy she’d committed . . .
It said a lot.
But at the end of the day, she had to live with herself. There was no escaping that face in the mirror. Just as there were lines that shouldn’t be crossed.
Lines that once crossed would forever turn her into the monsters of her past.
I will not lose my soul.She kept repeating that. She had to.
Tears gathered as she remembered the first time she’d taken a life.
The sick gleam in the bastard’s eyes as he’d come for her. Oh, he’d deserved it, all right. He’d been intent on raping her and leaving her for dead. Had laughed at her pain and would have harmed who knew how many more had she not stopped him.
Still . . .
That look in his eyes as his life had faded. It haunted her to this day.
Two people die when you take your first life. The one you kill and the person you used to be.
No truer words had ever been spoken. And there was no going back.
Life had pushed her down paths she’d never wanted to travel. It kept shoving her where she didn’t want to go.
“WhydoI keep fighting?”
Maybe Jinx was right. It would be easier to just hand Hadrian over and let the assassin do his job. She’d get paid and be free to live her life without being hunted.
Biting her lip, she looked down at the bounty on her comm. It was a shit-ton of creds.
It’d pay off every bit of her debt. Leave her flush for the next couple of years.
Hell, she’d even be able to go to school if she could find one that would let her in.
All you have to do is kill an innocent man.
It was that easy.
More than that, it was her job.
He’s asleep. He won’t even know . . .
ChapterTwo
Hadrian came awake to a massive headache. At first, he thought he was at home, until he heard the hum of his engines and remembered what had happened.
He sat up fast and banged his head against the fighter’s canopy. Cursing, he realized too late that he’d crawled into the backseat where it was much lower.
“You okay?”
“Not really.” He was pretty sure he’d just given himself a concussion. “Where are we?”
“No idea.”
Hadrian yawned at Jayne’s overly calm words. “What?”
