Page 108 of Out for Blood
It was born from survival, from grief, and from everything that was stolen from her long before tonight.
And maybe that’s the most frightening part.
She looks at the trafficker the same way the storm looks at this house as though destruction is inevitable.
“You should’ve stayed afraid you psychotic bastard,” Cassidy sneers.
The trafficker breaks the facade then, since he knows he isn’t leaving this room alive.
He lets out a maniacal laugh glaring at her, “You think you’re different? You’re just like me.”
Cassidy tilts her head, eyes steady. “No.”
He scoffs. “You enjoy it. I can see it.”
“I enjoy ending men like you.”
He huffs out a jab, “You’re still a monster.”
Cassidy closes the distance, voice low. “Monsters hurt theinnocent,” then she bends inches from his face and smiles widely, still holding the knife under his chin, “I hunt them.”
She takes the back handle of her knife and with all her strength she strikes him across the jaw.
She studies him for a long moment, unreadable.
He’s sobbing and begging now, totally deranged, probably from the blood loss.
I stand up and take my place beside Cassidy, resting a hand lightly against her wrist.
Not stopping her but keeping her tethered to me for one final second.
Her breathing stabilizes.
Then she turns her head in my direction, eyes hollowed out by rage and heartbreak.
“Don’t leave my side,” she pants.
The words hit me with a quiet kind of ruin I wasn’t prepared for.
My fingers clench around her wrist.
“Never.”
Then Cassidy faces the trafficker head on.
And somewhere beyond the storm, something inside this world begins bleeding back.
Ugly, broken sobs rip through him while the poker table creaks beneath his weight.
“Please,” he pleads for his pathetic life.
Cassidy doesn’t waver.
She propels the knife through his chin with a sickening noise; he dies immediately and blood spews down her hand.
Then she extracts the knife, and his head lands on the table with a dull thud.
I observe her attentively as she stands over the table breathing hard, peering at him.
