Rue leans against me, calmly watching his abuser give up the fight. Leon rolls onto his back, gasping for air as his breathing turns shallow and the color drains from his face.
Once it’s obvious he’s dead, I walk over to his body and nudge it with my foot to show Rue.
“It’s over now, precious.”
Rue exhales slowly, then launches himself into my arms. “Thank you. For everything, but especially for this. I needed to do this tonight. I needed to reclaim my power.”
“You slayed your own monster.”
He shakes his head. “We did it together, but I couldn’t have done it at all without you.”
I kiss his forehead, before saying, “Want to get out of here?”
“Yeah.”
Hand in hand, we walk out to the living room where Stealth and Whisper are quietly chatting. There are five bodies on the floor, all of them with a single bullet wound to the head.
Rue points at one of them, a beefy dude. “That’s No Neck. I always wondered if maybe he wasn’t as bad as Leon, but then I realized he never stopped him or tried to help. He did what he was told. That makes him just as bad.”
“If not worse,” Stealth says. “Did you have fun?”
I nod. “It was cathartic.”
“And you, Rue?” Whisper asks. “How do you feel?”
Rue seems to consider the question for a moment. “I should feel weird or maybe even wrong for what I did, but I don’t. Leon deserved what happened to him.”
“He did.” I rub Rue’s back. “He’ll never hurt you or anyone else again.”
Rue smiles. “So, to answer your question, Whisper, I feel… free.”
“Good,” Whisper says.
Stealth tilts his head toward the front door. “Let’s get out of here. It stinks.”
“Gonna stink a lot more before long.” Whisper laughs.
Just before we step outside, Rue looks back on the scene we just created, sets his shoulders, and exhales slowly. “I’m leaving this behind right now. It’s done.”
“It is.” Wrapping my arm around his shoulders, I kiss the top of his head. “I’m so proud of you. Proud and impressed.”
“I think I deserve a treat.”
“Anything you want.”
“Just you, naked, with your dick inside me.”
“That can be arranged.”
CHAPTER 26
Rue
I pressmy head to Carnage’s shoulder while he runs his soapy hands over my back and the hot water from the shower washes over us.
I helped kill a man tonight.
It feels so weird. Like an out-of-body experience. Shouldn’t I feel something negative? Like shame or fear or distress? But I don’t. Far from it. There’s nothing but peace and a sense of rightness flowing through me. In a weird way, it felt like self-defense.
